U.S. population growth drives sprawl

BOSTON -- Oct. 6, 2006 -- As the U.S. population tops 300 million, the country is losing 6,000 acres of open space to development a day, nearly four acres a minute.

"The sprawl is going to happen," says demographic trend-watcher Joel Kotkin. "You've got 100 million new people [since the U.S. topped 200 million in 1967]. They've got to go somewhere, and most don't want to live in the city. End of story."

Public opinion bears this out. Just 13 percent want to live in a city, 51 percent in a suburb, 35 percent in a rural community, according to a 2004 survey by the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

"If you look at the survey data, even the nice cities are losing population," says Kotkin. "It's San Francisco, Boston, and Minneapolis, not just Cleveland and Philadelphia. The population growth of even the most robust cities is much less than the surrounding areas."

The key question, says Kotkin, is, "Do we manage this growth in an intelligent way and figure out how to make it environmentally benign?"

What many see as the best alternative is to create something they call edge cities or micropolitan areas, galactic cities, or technoburbs -- largely self-contained communities with jobs for local residents, who wouldn’t have to commute long distances.

Source: Christian Science Monitor, Brad Knickerbocker and Daniel B. Wood (10/03/2006)

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