[Dr. Rock]

Suburban sprawl is growing all the time. Every selfish me generation asshole wants a big house with a boigger backyard. In Ontario, we have built these cookie cutter houses, malls and big block stores all over areas which have enormous agricultural potential. and the sprawl keeps growing.
In areas such as this I think there should be a line drawn up and cities be forced to build upward instead of outward.
What other ways are there to deal with this?

[Astaroth]

What makes me an asshole for wanting a big house and a big yard, yet live near metropolitan resources?

Why is this such a problem with you?

Why such a chip on your shoulder?

[Dr. Rock]

I would prefer to live in the same situation. (Aside from the huge house part) Anybody would. But its an inefficiant waste of resources, space and the environment. Does the Walmart have to have 50 foot high cielings? Does the house have to have six fireplaces and enough room for 10 families? Do we have to have huge own homes at the expense of future generations?
I actually like my humble house its warm and cozy compared to those tombs ive been in at my more affluent friends houses. I could dig a backyard though, but if the government zoned against it I would applaud.

The chip on my shoulder is frustration with the lack of rationality which we run our society on.

[clownboy]

Speaking as one that grew up in a small mountain community surrounded by National Forest, I agree with you Dr. Rock. The philosophy that every single piece of land must have the hand of man firmly imprinted on it, is ugly to say the least.

Around here, cities outgrow their boundries so they annex the surrounding rural communities and wooded land (voluntarily or not). The first thing constructed is the strip mall. Then the apartments and condos.

30 years ago, when I moved to Beaverton, part of the allure was the enforced moratorium on new growth. During every third year, no new building permits were issued for apartments, condos or housing complexes. Cooper Mountain was fully wooded and beautiful.

Now it's wall to wall apartments, condos and strip malls.

There's only one solution - effective birth control.

[Noumenon]

While I don't think there's anything wrong with suburbs, I certainly wouldn't want them to cover every inch of the globe. I really don't know the solution without restricting people's freedom to build on land they own.

[clownboy]

While I don't think there's anything wrong with suburbs, I certainly wouldn't want them to cover every inch of the globe. I really don't know the solution without restricting people's freedom to build on land they own.

We have National Parks and Wilderness Areas, why not create "no-build" areas with BLM and public lands. Permanently zone lot sizes on any land annexed to 5 acres or more. Requires builders to include at least 10 trees(area-specific large-growing species) with every acre or portion thereof. Radically increase the required "greenspace" in cities.

[pwilliams]

Well Rock you may like your cozy house but not everybody wants to live in a huge urban area. If you want fix this you can just go ahead and take away some more of the freedom we inherently have. The government does it all the time, whats another little freedom they take its ok cause its in the best interest of all. Oh wait were talking about taking away the right to build what you want where you want as long as you own it, not the patriot act or anything.

And we have National Forest for this very reason. The government owns a lot more land than you think. For protection of these great areas its good, but to simple own land so it cant be built is rediculous. Plus, Suburbs are a nice blend of nature and man. Suburbs have many more open spaces and parks than cites, more trees per square mile. and are generally cleaner. I wonder why so many people would desire to live there.

[Astaroth]

No hold on a minute gentlemen, let's break this down:

But its an inefficiant waste of resources, space and the environment.

Not in the slightest. People migrate into urban areas BECAUSE of efficiency and resources. I don't understand your logic here. I'm a city boy, born in Vancouver BC, but I've lived out in the sticks too. I like aspects of each. One thing I missed while I was out in the countryside was access to shopping and other necessities/amenities that were only 5-10minutes away while in Vancouver or Kelowna when I lived in those locations.

Does the Walmart have to have 50 foot high cielings?

Well. Yes. Can I put on my professional cap here? As an engineer, I help with designs that include large industrial/commercial high/low bays of this sort. There are many technical reasons for the sizes of these structures. The prime reason would mostly be cost in structural cost. A lower ceiling height, believe it or not, is tougher to support if you have a very large base, but that's not my technical expertise. As an electrical engineer, I will tell you that it is easier and cheaper to light. Without getting into many details, I'll just conclude that these high ceilings are high for the SAKE of efficiency and cost..not DESPITE of it!

Does the house have to have six fireplaces and enough room for 10 families?

Once again, your exaggeration is discrediting you. These mansions you speak of are a precious few in number, and you wouldn't be alone in snickering at such excess..but your point here was urban sprawl, in which the average home is maybe 2 or 3 bedrooms, 2 baths...2000sq. feet? Far cry from what you are suggesting. My home is a 2bed, 1bed. I don't have a fireplace. I'm starting out in my career, but eventually I will move to something with more size and space, but I'm not the type to go for excess!

Do we have to have huge own homes at the expense of future generations?

Again, where's your logic? What is the expense of future generations? Seriously. If the homes are built large, then we will leave them large. If the economy cannot maintain these large homes, then their values will drop. The drop in worth will enable our future generations to inhabit them. To sum up here, ultimately, our future generations will fill these homes--you won't see a majority of them vacant.

I actually like my humble house its warm and cozy compared to those tombs ive been in at my more affluent friends houses.

Once again, this is 'excess', but even then this is subjective opinion. I value warm and cozy just like you..but if my neighbour feels less claustrophobic and likes the more 'vacuous' type home..then so be it!! Who cares?!

I could dig a backyard though, but if the government zoned against it I would applaud.

More government regulation?? Sorry sir, I strongly disagree. In my home town, the growth of the city has outgrown its zoning regulations. There is a commercial/residential area that has now completely overtaken one small agricultural zone. Guess what is in this zone? A company that collects and sells cow manure. It's a bovine shit pile with a for sale sign on it. In the hot summers, you have no idea how this reeks. But because of zone regulations, no one can do anything about it--and they've tried for years. (a similar circumstance is surrounding the City Dump)

The chip on my shoulder is frustration with the lack of rationality which we run our society on.

Hey, I agree that there are a lot of irrationalities that we have to deal with. I am just not clear about your rationale here in this circumstance.

The philosophy that every single piece of land must have the hand of man firmly imprinted on it, is ugly to say the least.

One man's opinion. I love the city. I love the country. I don't have a firm opinion myself, but I know people who can't stand the country...one man's opinion.

You describe a common theme, however, in community growth. It's largely unavoidable. But it's all relative to the economy. In a growing economy, more houses are built...new areas are developed. Old houses are torn down to accomodate commercial centers to support the new developped homes. Yes, urban sprawl is the right term.

However, you say birth control is the solution?

Only if you want to doom our economy to the same crisis that China is starting to experience. China is widely known for its strong government mandated birth control measures. 1-child only. However, China's labor force is starting to retire, which means the preceding generations have to support it...however, there just isn't the numbers. Now although China has opened its markets quite a bit over the last 10 years, it is still socialized a great deal. Imagine what is going to be happening to the Chinese economy as the government can't produce enough labor productivity to support its seniors?

That, friend, is the sad truth about birth control...

I know you were being facetious (I hope, at least)...but I just had to point that out...

I still have nothing from you guys other than just "urban sprawl is bad because I feel it is ugly".

Astaroth

[Dr. Rock]

cut and paste is weak but i really dont have time right now.

Poorly planned development threatens our environment, our health, and our quality of life in numerous ways.

Sprawl spreads development out over large amounts of land; puts long distances between homes, stores, and job centers; and makes people more and more dependent on driving in their daily lives.

Sprawl pollutes our air and water. As reliance on cars and pavement of more and more roads increases, so does smog and pollution from water runoff. Today, more than half all Americans live in areas where the air is unsafe to breathe. Sprawl destroys more than two million acres of parks, farms and open space each year.

Sprawl increases traffic on our neighborhood streets and highways. Sprawl lengthens trips and forces us to drive everywhere. The average American driver currently spends the equivalent of 55 eight-hour workdays behind the wheel every year.

Sprawl wastes tax money. It pulls economic resources away from existing communities and spreads them out over sparse developments far away from the core. Taxes subsidize millions of dollars worth of new roads, new water and sewer lines, new schools and increased police and fire protection at the expense of the needs of the core communities. This leads to degradation of our older towns and cities and higher taxes.

The Good News
Runaway growth is not inevitable -- we can have cleaner air and water, more choices in transportation modes and places to live, and better-protected parks, farms and open spaces. Hundreds of urban, suburban and rural neighborhoods are using smart-growth solutions to address the problems caused by sprawl. Examples of smart-growth solutions include:

Making significantly greater investments in clean public transportation, including modern commuter trains and clean buses.
Planning pedestrian-friendly developments where people have transportation choices, such as trains and bus service; providing good walking and bicycling facilities around shopping and parks; and implementing traffic calming measures.
Promoting regional and statewide planning that combines the transportation, land-use and environmental planning efforts.
Building more affordable housing close to transit and jobs.
Supporting greater public involvement in the transportation and land-use planning processes.
Funding innovative, incentive based programs for encouraging alternative transportation use, such as tax credits for public transit, walking or biking, and parking cash out and parking fees.
Requiring developers to pay impact fees to cover the costs of new roads, schools, water and sewer lines, and requiring property-tax impact studies on new developments.
sierraclub.org

[Astaroth]

right. It's all how you DO it, or IMPLEMENT it. This is a neutral article. It gives the drawbacks to sprawl and suggests that it doesn't have to be bad.

It seems that to avoid sprawl for the articles reasonings, we either spread out completely and make ourselves 'all-country' Americans, or we either jam pack ourselves tighter together by expanding upward, rather than outward.

Now I ask yourself to think about this further. You know that spreading out farther and not congregating as we do toward urban centers is out of the question. Dependence on car travel will increase the farther we go out from needed amenities and resources. So let's skip to upward mobility.

Imagine what scrunching up will do. Yes, there will be no vehicular traffic. We'd be next door to a McDonald's, the bank, the Olive Garden, the Walmart and Norstroms. We'd probably work there too. But if you believe that vehicular traffic is the sole source of solution, you are missing the whole equation.

Upward sprawl is a massive engineering undertaking. My colleagues would tell you that getting water to the 200th floor is more than a simple undertaking. Fresh air is a problem too, as HVAC systems are much more complex. We are not going to get into detail to suggest that life safety is one of the largest issues. My electrical code book more than triples in size once you put the rest of the fire code in place, and safety problems exacerbate with high rise applications. Next you look at garbage/sewage--do you have a meaningful solution to handling the tonnage of waste by a single building, let alone an entire upward mobile city that must absorb the OUTward sprawl of suburban neighbourhoods? As an electrical design engineer, I'll tell you that it's much easier to develop a distribution grid that has some 'room'--some sprawl, as you would--as to feed a building upward. The mechanical physics changes when trying to run feeder cables or buses vertically up several floors. This adds a great expense.

But all this is hyper-theoretical. Why? Because neither upward mobility nor equal land distribution can happen in a cost effective way. Sprawl is the most EFFICIENT use of tax money. It is NOT a waste.

It is far too easy to make statements like: "it takes resources away from communities etc ad infinitum." The system is not perfect, but it is the most efficient. If the tax base isn't being spread equitably, that's a problem unrelated to urban sprawl.

Pollution? Another misnomer. Upward sprawl won't eliminate this issue, because people will still want to leave the city, and moreso in this kind of environment. This is not to mention the infrastructural demands on dealing with movement of consumables in, and waste products out. Pollution is not mitigated here. With equal spread, everyone will be so far from each other, cars will be a requirement. Pollution is not mitigated this way either. Once again, urban sprawl is not the cause. Better resources, better technology and better planning is what mitigates pollution.

Sprawl spreads development out over large amounts of land; puts long distances between homes, stores, and job centers; and makes people more and more dependent on driving in their daily lives.

Finally, this is a neutral fact. You can only conclude whether this is positive or negative by looking at it subjectively. If the job I want is in a city center where I have to drive an hour both ways, but it's an acceptable detraction that is outweighed by its benefits, then sprawl has no impact. If I'm 'born to be free' and need the open prairie or free range mountains to go hiking every weekend, sprawl can be severely taxing. The point is, people can choose whether or not they will populate in urban sprawl or in rural areas.

Sprawl, therefore, is inevitable, and with strong planning, it isn't 'so bad'.

Ast

[Goranhammer]

In areas such as this I think there should be a line drawn up and cities be forced to build upward instead of outward.
What other ways are there to deal with this?

By moving to London.