Sprawl, Smart Growth and Economic Opportunity

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Measuring Sprawl

Measuring Social Equity

Ranking Metropolitan Areas By Sprawl and Social Equity

Social Equity and Sprawl

Observations and Implications

Additional Research

References

Appendix

INTRODUCTION

The rapid growth of suburbs in almost all-metropolitan areas has transformed the Nation's urban landscape. More US residents now live in suburbs than in central cities or rural areas. This redistribution of the Nation's population has given rise to a concern that metropolitan areas are growing so rapidly and in such a haphazard manner that they are creating unanticipated and undesirable impacts on metropolitan residents and communities.¹ These impacts include the destruction of open space and farmland, increased automobile congestion and pollution, the geographic isolation of low-income and minority residents, and mismatch between the location of jobs and the residences of workers-especially low-skilled, low-income workers. Those opposed to rapid suburb development often call this whole process sprawl. While sprawl is a somewhat imprecise and difficult to measure phenomenon, it is often characterized by low-density urban development that consumes land faster than the growth of population.²

In response to sprawl, a variety of growth-management and environmental initiatives have converged with regionalism advocates to form an approach called smart growth. Smart growth advocates seek to limit the growth on the fringes of metropolitan areas, while promoting reinvestment in the central cities and inner-ring suburbs. Proponents of smart growth believe that this type of development approach will resolve the problems associated with urban sprawl.³

Proponents believe that in order to implement smart growth that a metropolitan area needs to embrace some form of metropolitan or regional planning. One planning tool embraced by smart growth advocates is the urban growth boundary. Urban growth boundaries essentially limit new development at the fringes of a metropolitan area in an attempt to limit the loss of open space by forcing reinvestment in the core of metropolitan areas. While several states have implemented growth boundaries, the most well known example of urban growth boundaries has been in Portland, Oregon. Another tool promoted by smart growth advocates is metropolitan governance. Metropolitan governance can take a variety of forms from elected metropolitan government, such as the Portland, OR Metro, or regional land use planning, such as the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Council.⁴

While smart growth promises to address environmental and growth management concerns⁵, it is less clear about its impact on existing patterns of social inequity. For example, it appears that growth boundaries in Portland and other Oregon cities may be contributing to substantial increases in housing costs for low-income families as well as the gentrification of existing low-income communities.⁶ It's also unclear whether smart growth will reduce existing racial and class isolation or improve low-income residents' access to employment.

This working paper focuses on the relationship between urban sprawl and social equity in large metropolitan areas. Advocates of smart growth argue that sprawl exacerbates inequality in two ways. First, sprawl isolates low-income people and concentrates poverty in the center of metropolitan regions by encouraging middle-class residents to move to the suburban fringes to acquire desirable housing and other resources, such as good schools. This population shift away from the center also reduces the fiscal resources available to central city (and inner-ring suburban) governments; reducing their capacity to provide basic services--such as, schools, police and sanitation. The decline in basic services often accelerates the population movement to the suburbs. Unfortunately, because of the high cost of housing in the suburbs low-income residents are unable to follow the middle-class and therefore remain isolated in fiscally and physically declining central city and inner-ring suburban communities. This whole process tends to concentrate poverty and disadvantage within the core of many metropolitan regions.⁷

Second, sprawl moves employment and economic activity from the center of the metropolitan region to the periphery. This coupled with the residential concentration of minorities and low-income individuals in the central cities and core suburbs result in the phenomenon of spatial mismatch.⁸ This spatial de-concentration of employment lowers opportunities for gainful employment for low-income residents of central cities and inner-ring suburbs.

The objective of the paper is to determine empirically whether high levels of urban sprawl are associated with high levels of social inequity. The starting hypothesis is that high levels of sprawl are associated with low levels of social equity. That is, as sprawl increases, social equity declines. The paper examines 34 of the nation's 50 largest metropolitan areas. These areas were selected because data was readily available to match measure of sprawl to the social equity measures used in this paper.

1. See Downs, 1994.

2. See Downs, 1994 and Stoel, 1999.

3. See Downs, 1994 and Stoel, 1999.

4. See Downs, 1994 and Stoel, 1999.

5. There are those who question the notion of sprawl and smart growth, See Staley, 1999, and Franciosi, 1998.

6. See The Dark Side of Growth Controls: Some Lessons from Oregon, by John A. Charles, May 1998, http://goldwaterinstitute.org/azia/150.htm

7. See Jargowsky, 1997 and Wilson, 1987.

8. The spatial mismatch hypothesis posits that disproportionate unemployment rates among low-income African-Americans are the result of the movement of jobs away from the central city and to the suburbs coupled with the residential concentration of low-income blacks in the central city. See Kain 1968 and Wilson 1996.

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