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Are We Paving Paradise?

Rural open space covers about 95 percent of the land in the United States. Are we really running out of room?

February 1, 2004, 9am PST | Chris Steins | @urbaninsight

"A perennial argument for smart growth and compact urban development is that we are running out of open space. But how much open space is really left?Two federal agencies provide useful data on urbanization and rural open space. The Natural Resources Conservation Service does anatural resource inventory every five years, and this inventory estimates the amount of urban and rural development. The decennial Census measures the land area of every census tract and classifies census tracts in such categories as 'urban area,' 'urban cluster,' and 'place.' Both of these data sources agree that about 95 percent of the United States remains rural open space."