How Overregulation Breeds Sprawl

Numerous commentators have suggested that sprawl is at least partially caused by government regulation of land use. Michael Lewyn argues that the fate of Houston, Texas rebuts that theory. Lewyn points out that Houston is America's only large city without a formal zoning code. Yet Houston is as automobile-dependent and sprawling as many cities with zoning he says.

Lewyn argues that automobile-dependent sprawl is the inevitable result of the free market, based on the following chain of logic:

"Assumption 1: Because Houston lacks zoning, Houston has an unregulated, unplanned real estate market. In other words, Houston = the free market at work.

Assumption 2: Houston is an automobile-dependent, sprawling city. In other words, Houston = an example of sprawl.

Conclusion: Therefore, a city, like Houston, which allows the free market to govern land use will (like Houston) typically become an automobile-dependent, sprawling city-and sprawl is thus a product of the free market, rather than of government interference with consumer preferences. In other words, because Houston = the free market at work, and Houston = sprawl, the free market leads to sprawl."

This article rebuts this conclusion by critiquing one of its underlying assumptions -- the assumption that Houston is a free-market role model. The author argues that a wide variety of municipal regulatory and spending policies have made Houston more sprawling and automobile-dominated than would a more free-market-oriented set of policies. The article also proposes free-market, anti-sprawl alternatives to those government policies.

Thanks to Michael Lewyn