BIKE: Benefits of Suburban Sprawl

[Joel Sumner]

If urban sprawl was purely a result of population growth, then Austin 
could top out at  22 square miles, or literally 5 miles by 5 miles.

After all, Manhattan has a population density of 66,940 people/square 
mile as of 2000 (http://www.answers.com/topic/manhattan).  At a current 
population of "well over 1 million" 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin,_Texas), call it 1.5 million, 
that's 22 square miles to hold everyone.  Double that population and 
Austin grows a whopping 1.5 miles down the road to 6.5 miles by 6.5 
miles.  That doesn't quite make it to Georgetown does it?

So no, it's not just population growth that controls the equation.  
It's controlled by where people *decide* to live.  Some of that 
decision is dictated by zoning rules, commute time, travel costs, 
proximity to attractions, proximity to shopping, "safety" concerns, 
school system quality, lot size, etc..  By changing the rules of the 
equation, you change where people will decide to live. If you increase 
the cost of driving a car (by adding tolls or a per/mile charge), you 
are changing the equation people use to decide where to live.  That's 
going to annoy the hell out of people who picked where to live based on 
the "old rules" rather than what the rules might change to 
(AustinTollParty anyone?).  The only question is whether you try and 
change the rules "for the good of the town" and whether your idea of 
"good of the town" is right or not. Some predict that we're all going 
to be riding bikes and walking in 20 years  since oil will be too 
expensive.  I think that's nuts because Auto Makers aren't going to 
give up a 500 BILLION DOLLAR MARKET because "whoops, oil is too 
expensive". They'll find some other way to propel the products they 
sell you.

So no, I don't share their vision of the future nor their proposed 
solution.  But I object to making automobile travel cheaper than it 
should by taking non transportation taxes (property taxes, federal 
income taxes) and using it to subsidize some road that makes it easier 
to live even further away from Austin and still enjoy the benefits.  If 
I want to live 20 miles from Austin, that's my choice, but I shouldn't 
force the economics of it on someone who chose to live right next to 
their work & shopping center.

-Joel



On Feb 26, 2005, at 3:43 PM, A. Gelfand wrote:

> Oh, I get it!
>
> City good.
> Suburbs bad.
>
> Suburbanites fat evil gas-hogs.
> Urbanites skinny nice walkers.
>
> Solution:
> Evil suburbanites see the light, abandon all cars and homes, and 
> trudge to central Austin amid sackcloth and ashes.
> Suburb businesses move to central city: Dell, NI, AMD, IBM, Freescale, 
> Pickle Research, 3M, etc., chemical wastes in tow.
>
> Result:
> Highly desirable increase in city of Austin property values achieved!
> Residents lose homes they cannot afford, squat in abandoned homes in 
> less expensive surrounding areas.
>
> Lesson: Urban sprawl is a result of population growth, not of road 
> building.
>
>
>
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