In the United States we have labored to realize the goals written in the Declaration of Independence: ³All men are created equal and they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.² On Saturday these words kept ringing in my ear as I drove around Brookhaven and Riverhead with Dick Amper and a reporter. The drive was a surreal experience due to the premise of the reporterıs story: ³So many people are moving out into suburbia that sprawl must be a good thing.² The reporter kept arguing doesnıt everyone have the right to pursue their dream or concept of happiness?

Coming from the point of view that suburban sprawl is the number one problem facing us as a society this premise was difficult to fathom. However, I would like to take the time to examine this theory.

In the U.S. we have not dedicated much of our resources or brain power in building great public spaces; great plazas, or wonderful tree lined boulevards, or great community parks as they have in Europe. Instead architects, and planners spend a lot of time building great houses. McMansions if you will. Beautiful castle like structures, designed for comfort and privacy. Do people achieve a degree of happiness and comfort within these great homes? Of course they do. Thusly, can we all now agree that sprawl is good?

No. Iım afraid not. Lets pretend that it would make me very happy to drop a barrel of toxic waste into the water supply of a community? Would that be okay? Now remember its going to make me very happy. Its not okay!. Even if it would make me very, very happy to do so, it is not okay, because of the negative effect it would have on the health and well being of others.

Our society is based not only on the pursuit of happiness but on the principle that all of our rights exist in relationship to the rights of others. Thus, we were granted freedom of speech, but cannot yell fire in a crowded movie theater. In a democratic society we need to consider not only our own interests, and happiness, but also the happiness and well being of others, or the common welfare.

But how is suburban sprawl like dumping a barrel of toxic waste into a communityıs water supply? Lets quickly examine the cost of sprawl on the environment.

Sprawl is by definition the spreading our of land uses over large areas. Suburban sprawl cannot exist without the automobile. Spreading out development means that we are structurally addicted to our cars. We need them. Unfortunately, our cars are a mobile source of pollution. Our automobiles release more carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides than any industrial source. Our roadways and parking lots eat up 38.4 million acres of open space. Than thereıs the impact of the 240 million gallons of used motor oil we dump on the ground, the oil spills in our oceans, the highway salt, used tires, and on and on. If thatıs not enough our fossil fuel vehicles consume more than one-third of all U.S. energy and exhale a mix of chemicals which together, trap the planets heat. Yep, those ice caps are melting, coasts are flooding, and we are experiencing what could be devastating climate change.

Cars are a major environmental villain not only for the air and water, and vegetation, but of course, for us people. ³Some 30,000 people a year die from respiratory illnesses stemming for the carıs airborne toxins, which are also implicated in some 120,000 premature deaths.² (Kay - Asphalt Nation, p. 111) Our cars are an environmental nightmare, a nightmare we ignore because the structure of our communities render cars a necessity.

I think we can agree that sprawl does not promote the common welfare or to put it differently that it is a development pattern which results in both short term and long term environmental hazards, disease and death.

Now lets take a look at why people move to the suburbs. Remember that suburbia is a very popular choice. Single family detached housing has constituted the preferred housing alternative. Indeed everyone reading this article lives in the suburbs, along with over half the people living in the U.S. One could argue that it epitomizes the American Dream.

So besides the obvious, the single family home built for hundreds of thousands of dollars, what else attracts people to the suburbs? Lets list the attractions: open space, a healthy environment, a safe place to bring up the kids, good schools, privacy, mobility, and escape from the congestion of the city.

Thomas Jefferson, a strong advocate of democracy and the common man, once stated, ³Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government; whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.² Jefferson believed that people only needed one thing to be trusted with their own government and that was to be ³well informed.² I agree. To make good decisions people have to be well informed.

Unfortunately, people are buying homes in the suburbs with their hearts, not necessarily with their heads. For example they are buying in the burbs for open space, and yet it is difficult to enjoy the wide open spaces if our farms, fields and forests are being destroyed by subdivision after subdivision. Obviously, those moving into the new subdivisions are beginning to experience the economists unyielding law of diminishing returns. It is, further, difficult to enjoy privacy enmasse. It is difficult to enjoy a healthy environment, if the quality of our air and water continues to deteriorate. It is difficult to enjoy freedom and mobility sitting in traffic. It certainly seems blatantly obvious that even the illusion of mobility does not extend to anyone who does not drive a car. Which includes all children and many seniors. And did our homeowners notice that their roads donıt have sidewalks, and that the roads both inside and especially outside their subdivision are dangerous places for children to be? When suburban children reach driving age, they regain some mobility but now their safety is really threatened. Because teenagers like their parents need a car to get anywhere in suburbia, car accidents are the number one killer of American teenagers. So much for moving out to the burbs to find a safe place to bring up our children.

Finally, some additional problems with suburbia. Its expensive: Single family detached housing is the most expensive form of housing on the market. It requires large public investments in utilities, and road construction. In 1994 widening and extending roads cost Americans $6.6 billion dollars. Add this to the cost of repair and the cost to our economy is staggering. (Kay) Taxes which support these needed public investments often become burdensome.

It tends to isolate: Low density scattered, cul-de-sac development patterns, and a lack of public spaces promotes isolation and discourages interaction. Sprawl isolates people within subdivisions with roads which seem to imitate the labyrinths of the ancient world.

Sprawl Segregates: Our residential areas are distinguished by race, income groups, and most recently with the advent of Planned retirement communities by age groups. As a result of such division, we live in automobile driven settings in which separate and unequal is the norm.

Is suburban sprawl the type of development which promotes equality, life, liberty and happiness? No. That answer is clear to me. It is not clear to the majority of Americans both because they are not aware that sprawl is destructive, unhealthy, a threat to the safety and mobility of children, and promotes an unequal and unsustainable society. Not only do most American not have all the information they need to make a better choice of living environments, but they are not given viable alternatives such as pedestrian oriented mixed use centers. As civic leaders therefore we need to work harder on providing people both with the information they need to make informed judgments, and in providing people with a diversity of choices.

Who's Who? For information about this author and our consultant team click Here

Beatley, Timothy, & Kristy Manning, 1997, The Ecology of Place. Island Press
Hiss, Tony, The Experience of Place