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Sprawl As How We Grow, Or How Government Makes Suburbia Sprawling

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Government Intervention and Suburban Sprawl

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Abstract

Government zoning rules isolate housing from shops, jobs, and public transit, while government-built streets encourage high-speed automobile traffic and thus make walking less safe. As a result, most suburbanites need a car to easily access most destinations. This chapter describes these anti-walkability rules, and goes on to suggests pro-walkability reforms.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Zoning Rules, supra, at 163. In 1916, New York enacted the first “comprehensive” zoning ordinance- that is, one governing an entire city. Id. at 188. However, Los Angeles experimented with the creation of exclusive residential districts before the 1916 enactment of New York’s ordinance. Id. at 187–88.

  2. 2.

    Id. at 136–37.

  3. 3.

    Id. at 138 (containing text of SZEA).

  4. 4.

    Id. at 34.

  5. 5.

    Id. at 29.

  6. 6.

    Id. at 168 (suggesting that buses allowed the growth of apartment houses in suburbs, thus motivating towns to adopt zoning in order to keep them out).

  7. 7.

    See infra Chapter 4-2 (discussing density restrictions).

  8. 8.

    See Emily Talen, City Rules: How Regulations Affect Urban Form 104–05 (2012).

  9. 9.

    See New York City Planning Commission, Zoning Map 5-D, at http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/planning/download/pdf/zoning/zoning-maps/map5d.pdf I note, however, that even relatively fine-grained zoning has a modest negative impact on walkability if it prohibits housing above apartments.

  10. 10.

    See Michael Lewyn, The (Somewhat) False Hope of Comprehensive Planning, 37 University of Hawai’i Law Review 39, 53 (2015) (“False Hope of Comprehensive Planning”). In fact, some suburbs have no commercial zones at all. See, e.g., Borough of Fox Chapel, Pa., Code, sec. 21, at http://ecode360.com/15015492; codified ordinances of hunting Valley, Ohio, Code, Sec. 1155.02, at http://whdrane.conwaygreene.com/NXT/gateway.dll?f=templates&fn=default.htm&vid=whdrane:OHHuntingvalley (stores not listed as among allowable uses).

  11. 11.

    See Walkscore, Cities and Neighborhoods, at https://www.walkscore.com/cities-and-neighborhoods/.

  12. 12.

    See Walkscore, Pomona Park, at https://www.walkscore.com/GA/Atlanta/Pomona_Park (describing Atlanta neighborhood with a Walkscore of 47).

  13. 13.

    I reached this result as follows: I found a list of representative Atlanta suburbs on a real estate website, and then found the citywide Walkscores for these suburbs. See NestAtlanta, Metro Atlanta Suburbs, at http://www.atlhomesearch.com/atlantametro/ (listing the following suburbs: Alpharetta, Canton, Cumming, Duluth, Dunwoody, Johns Creek, Kennesaw, Marietta, Roswell, Sandy Springs, Avondale Estates, Decatur, Lawrenceville, Snellville, McDonough, Tucker, Woodstock, and Stockbridge, as well as several suburbs for which I could not find a town-wide Walkscore); Walkscore, at www.walkscore.com. Of these 18 suburbs, 10 had Walkscores in the 20–30 range, and three more had Walkscores between 10 and 20.

  14. 14.

    See Euclid v. Ambler Realty, 272 U.S. 365 (1926).

  15. 15.

    In addition, federal lending agencies should stop discriminating against such mixed-use housing. Currently, these agencies insure mortgages for purely residential buildings, but will only support multifamily projects if commercial floor space or income is limited to 15 to 25 percent of such projects, effectively disallowing mixed-use buildings of less than five stories. See Regional Plan Association, Unintended Consequences of Housing Finance 4–5, at https://www.cnu.org/sites/default/files/RPA-The-Unintended-Consequences-of-Housing-Finance.pdf. Instead, these caps should be raised significantly, so that a two- or three-story building with retail on the ground floor can receive the same kind of federal support as a house or a high-rise. Id. at 7 (proposing nonresidential limit be raised to 35 percent so that three-story mixed-use buildings could receive federal support).

  16. 16.

    See Center for Applied Transect Studies, SmartCode Version 9.2, at http://transect.org/codes.html (“SmartCode”)

  17. 17.

    Id., Table 1.

  18. 18.

    Id., Table 10 (only two dwellings per lot allowed in T3 zone).

  19. 19.

    Id.

  20. 20.

    I calculate as follows: four houses per acre is a fairly normal American density. See Albert N. Benshoff, Out of Focus: The Fuzzy Line Between Regulatory “Takings” and Valid Zoning Related “Exactions” in North Carolina and Federal Jurisprudence, 16 Campbell L. Rev. 33, 340 (1994) (“typical urban North Carolina ‘single family residential’ zoning district allows a maximum density of approximately four dwelling units per acre”); David M.P. Freund, Colored Property: State Policy and White Racial Politics in Suburban America 229 (2010) (in 1960s, one-fourth of an acre typical minimum lot size); Gerritt Knapp et. al., Zoning as a Barrier to Multifamily Housing Development 17 at https://www.huduser.gov/Publications/pdf/zoning_MultifmlyDev.pdf (in regions surveyed, ratio between zoned residential acres and number of households ranged between 0.15 and 0.49). There are 640 acres (and thus 2560 houses) in a square mile, which means just over eight shops under the SmartCode (2560/300). Since a square mile would equal a mile on each of four sides, this means two shops per mile.

  21. 21.

    Zoning Rules, supra, at 138 (citation omitted).

  22. 22.

    See Michael Lewyn, New Urbanist Zoning for Dummies, 58 Ala. L. Rev. 257, 264–65 n. 81 (2006) (citation omitted) (“New Urbanist Zoning”).

  23. 23.

    See Zoning Rules, supra, at 262 (in one set of Boston suburbs studied, “projections of population based on 1950s zoning in all cases were far higher than has come to pass”).

  24. 24.

    See supra note 20. I note that multifamily housing is also subject to density controls. For example, one Atlanta suburb allows only 14 apartments per acre in its “medium density” zone, and restricts density through a four-story height limit in its high-density zone. See Johns Creek, Ga., Code of ordinances, Secs. 7.3.3 (H) and 7.4.3 (A) (available at municode.com)

  25. 25.

    See Zoning Rules, supra, at 264, 294 (citing examples).

  26. 26.

    See City of Houston, Code of Ordinances, sec. 42–236 (200 feet for efficiency apartments, more for larger apartments).

  27. 27.

    Similarly, low-density zoning reduces bicycling: low-density zoning increases the number of people who live far from a store, and because bicycles are slower than cars, people who live miles from the store will probably drive to the store rather than bike.

  28. 28.

    See Anthony Downs, Still Stuck in Traffic: Coping with Peak-Hour Traffic Congestion 210 (2005).

  29. 29.

    Id. See also Patrick M. Condon, Seven Rules for Sustainable Communities: Design Strategies for the Post Carbon World 74 (2012) (“Ten units per acre is the accepted figure at which buses can be economically supplied at short headways”).

  30. 30.

    Id.

  31. 31.

    See Sharon Feigon et. al., Travel Matters: Mitigating Climate Change with Sustainable Surface Transportation 18 (2003).

  32. 32.

    See Michael Lewyn, How Overregulation Creates Sprawl (Even In A City Without Zoning), 50 Wayne L. Rev. 1171, 1180 n. 56 (2004) (citing numerous examples) (“Overregulation Sprawl”).

  33. 33.

    See Fischel, supra, at 271–72 (congestion a common argument for restrictive zoning). On the other hand, NIMBYism is hardly limited to car-dominated cities. Cf. supra notes 22–25 and accompanying text (discussing restrictive zoning in New York City).

  34. 34.

    See Chapter 3 supra.

  35. 35.

    See supra Chapter 1-2.1 and 2.2.

  36. 36.

    See Peter Newman and Jeffrey Kenworthy, Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence 98–99 (1999) (comparing city and suburban densities).

  37. 37.

    Cf. Gillham, supra, at 114 (discussing claim that low-density suburbs have less congestion and pollution than urban cores).

  38. 38.

    See David Schrank et. al., 2015 Urban Mobility Scorecard 2, at http://d2dtl5nnlpfr0r.cloudfront.net/tti.tamu.edu/documents/mobility-scorecard-2015.pdf. The only period during which fuel loss due to congestion decreased was between 2006 and 2009, presumably due to the American economic downturn during that period.

  39. 39.

    See Jannsen, supra, at 614 (decrease from over 1.2 million in 1980 to just under 700,000).

  40. 40.

    See Texas Transportation Institute, Performance Measure Summary- Detroit MI, at http://d2dtl5nnlpfr0r.cloudfront.net/tti.tamu.edu/documents/ums/congestion-data/detroit.pdf (fuel losses per auto commuter increased from 14 in 1982 to 25 in 2014).

  41. 41.

    See Jannsen, supra, at 614 (decrease from over 450,000 million in 1980 to just over 317,000).

  42. 42.

    See Texas Transportation Institute, Performance Measure Summary- St. Louis, MO at http://d2dtl5nnlpfr0r.cloudfront.net/tti.tamu.edu/documents/ums/congestion-data/st-louis.pdf (fuel losses increased from five gallons per driver in 1982 to 21 in 2014).

  43. 43.

    See Jannsen, supra, at 614 (decrease from just over 357,000 in 1980 to just over 258,000).

  44. 44.

    See Texas Transportation Institute, Performance Measure Summary- Buffalo, NY at http://d2dtl5nnlpfr0r.cloudfront.net/tti.tamu.edu/documents/ums/congestion-data/buffalo.pdf (fuel losses increased from five gallons per driver in 1982 to 21 in 2014).

  45. 45.

    See Jannsen, supra, at 614 (decrease from just over 423,000 in 1980 to just over 305,000).

  46. 46.

    See Texas Transportation Institute, Performance Measure Summary- Pittsburgh, PA at http://d2dtl5nnlpfr0r.cloudfront.net/tti.tamu.edu/documents/ums/congestion-data/pittsburgh.pdf (fuel losses increased from five gallons per driver in 1982 to 21 in 2014).

  47. 47.

    See Chapter 1-2.1 supra.

  48. 48.

    See Glaeser and Kahn, supra, at 44 (suburbs generated more transportation-related emissions in every single region surveyed, and generated more overall emissions in all but two of 50-plus regions surveyed).

  49. 49.

    See Chapter 1-2.1 supra.

  50. 50.

    See Table 2.1 supra.

  51. 51.

    See Tables, supra, at Table 14.3. Since then, there has been no clear pattern: federal spending increased slightly to 21.2 percent of national product in 1990, declined in the 1990s, rose again in the 2000s to a post-World War II high of 24.4 percent in 2009, and then declined to 20.3 percent in 2014. Id.

  52. 52.

    Id. Unlike federal spending, state and local spending continued to increase, and comprised 11.4 percent of the economy in 2014. Id.

  53. 53.

    Id.

  54. 54.

    I note that this rule would not prevent municipalities from excluding housing from industrial or environmentally sensitive areas (or even, for that matter, from other commercial zones). Instead, the rule would say to local government: you can create residential zones, but if you do you have to allow higher densities as well as lower densities.

  55. 55.

    See supra notes 28–31 and accompanying text (significantly higher densities required for public transit service).

  56. 56.

    Alternatively, state governments could establish urban growth boundaries limiting development in outer suburbs, and deregulate density within those boundaries. See Gillham, supra, at 217–19 (discussing growth boundary concept).

  57. 57.

    In addition, developers would still be allowed to create restrictive covenants with buyers, prohibiting the latter from increasing density by subdividing their properties.

  58. 58.

    See supra notes 28–31 and accompanying text (suggesting that significant transit use likely in neighborhoods with 15 units per acre, and that most commuters might use transit at densities above 60 units per acre).

  59. 59.

    See John Holtzclaw, Using Residential Patterns and Transit to Decrease Auto Dependence and Costs 39, at https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/sma_09121401a.pdf. Households in areas with 100 housing units per acre averaged 8630 vehicle miles. Id.

  60. 60.

    Id. Similarly, households in areas with 100 units per acre were in between these extremes, averaging 10,837 miles. Id.

  61. 61.

    See Speck, supra, at 218–20 (discussing and criticizing argument).

  62. 62.

    See witold rybczynski, city life 165 (2013) (citing numerous examples).

  63. 63.

    I assume for the sake of argument that my proposal would not prevent cities from enacting modest height restrictions consistent with transit-supportive densities.

  64. 64.

    Cf. Nico Larco, Walking to the Strip Mall: Retrofitting Informal Pedestrian Paths in Emily

    Talen, ed., Retrofitting Sprawl: Addressing Seventy Years of Failed Urban Form 157 (2015)

    (showing how pedestrians create informal paths in absence of sidewalks).

  65. 65.

    See Donald C. Shoup, The High Cost of Free Parking 22 (2005).

  66. 66.

    Id. at 25.

  67. 67.

    Id. at 31.

  68. 68.

    Id.

  69. 69.

    See City of Houston, Code of ordinances, sec. 26–492 (“Houston Code”) (available at municode.com)

  70. 70.

    Based on a brief review of Houston apartment listings at Craigslist.org, 800 square feet seems to be roughly the regional median size for one-bedroom apartments.

  71. 71.

    See Talen, supra, at 172. But cf Emerson, supra, at 645 n. 36 (suggesting that typical setback 25 feet).

  72. 72.

    See speck, supra, at 116–17.

  73. 73.

    Id. at 213–15 (discussing examples).

  74. 74.

    See Shoup, supra, at 144. I note that Oakland’s requirements are more lenient than those of some cities today; Oakland only required one parking space per dwelling unit. Id. at 143; supra note 466 and accompanying text (citing example of more stringent regulation).

  75. 75.

    See Chapter 4-1 supra.

  76. 76.

    I suspect that many landlords would try to attract customers by providing free parking even in the absence of minimum parking requirements. On the other hand, other landowners might prefer to build additional revenue-producing property such as shops or apartments if they were not legally required to build parking. If the supply of parking was smaller, even landowners who chose to build parking lots might be tempted to gain additional revenue by charging for parking.

  77. 77.

    Cf. Speck, supra, at 118 (subsidy to drivers caused by minimum parking requirements is somewhere between $127 and $374 billion).

  78. 78.

    See supra notes 74–75 and accompanying text.

  79. 79.

    2006 WL 1,413,698 (N.J. Super.)

  80. 80.

    Id. at *1–2.

  81. 81.

    Id. at *2.

  82. 82.

    Id. at *4.

  83. 83.

    Id. at *15.

  84. 84.

    Variances can be difficult to obtain; some courts are likely to deny variance requests when a landowner’s hardship is “self-created.” TUse, 65 Syr. L. Rev. 971, 986 (2015). Some courts hold that hardship is “self-created” whenever a landowner purchases property after a zoning law’s enactment. Id.

  85. 85.

    I note in passing that although no city has abolished such regulations citywide, some cities have abolished minimum parking requirements for their downtowns, without any obvious ill effects. See Michael Lewyn, What Would Coase Do? (About Parking Regulation), 22 Fordham Envtl. L. Rev. 89, 112–13 (2010) (citing numerous examples, and noting that these cities have experienced downtown population growth).

  86. 86.

    Richard W. Willson, Parking Management for Smart Growth 11 (2015) (using term).

  87. 87.

    Stroud v. City of Aspen, 532 P.2d 720, 723 (Colo. 1975).

  88. 88.

    See Shoup, supra, at 296–303 (discussing idea in detail).

  89. 89.

    See Willson, supra, at 23.

  90. 90.

    Id. at 170 (using term).

  91. 91.

    See supra note 73 and accompanying text.

  92. 92.

    Cf. County of Arlington v. Richards, 434 U.S. 5 (1977) (upholding such a system).

  93. 93.

    False Hope of Comprehensive Planning, supra, at 56 n. 132 (quoting Seattle, Wa. comprehensive plan) (citation omitted).

  94. 94.

    See Talen, supra, at 131 (citing example).

  95. 95.

    See Stephen H. Burrington, Restoring the Rule of Law and Respect for Communities in Transportation, 5 N.Y.U. Envtl. L.J. 691, 701 (1996) (traffic engineers build wide streets out of “solicitude towards fast traffic”).

  96. 96.

    See New Urbanist Zoning, supra, at 265.

  97. 97.

    See Talen, supra, at 162.

  98. 98.

    See Michael Southworth and Eran Ben-Joseph, Street Standards and the Shaping of Suburbia, 61 Journal of the American Planning Association 65, 74 (1995), at http://web.mit.edu/ebj/www/doc/JAPAv61n1.pdf

  99. 99.

    Id. at 77 (citing homebuilders’ publication criticizing local insistence on such street widths).

  100. 100.

    See Talen, supra, at 164, 274.

  101. 101.

    Id. at 168–69.

  102. 102.

    As well as other types of collisions. See Table 1.3 supra (most car-dependent places have highest death rates from collisions of all types); Peter Swift, Residential Street Typology and Injury Accident Frequency, at www.sierraclub.org/sprawl/articles/narrow.asp (in one community studied, “a typical 36 foot wide residential street has 1.21 [accidents per mile per year] as opposed to 0.32 for a 24 foot wide street”).

  103. 103.

    See Burrington, supra, at 704 n. 50.

  104. 104.

    See Joey Ledford, Speeding Cars Terrify Neighborhoods, Atl. J. and Const., Aug. 27, 1997, at B, 1997 WLNR 3,173,969 (“At 20 mph, it takes you 20 feet to react [to a pedestrian or vehicle in the street] and another 20 feet to stop. At 40 mph, it’s 40 feet to think and another 80 feet to stop.”).

  105. 105.

    Id.

  106. 106.

    See New Urbanist Zoning, supra, at 286 n. 291 (each 10 feet of street width reduces housing supply by 3–4 percent) (citation omitted).

  107. 107.

    See Chapter 4-2 (explaining negative side effects of density caps).

  108. 108.

    See SmartCode, supra, at Table 3B.

  109. 109.

    See National Association of City Transportation Officials, About NACTO, at http://nacto.org/about/

  110. 110.

    See National Association of City Transportation Officials, Lane Width, at http://nacto.org/publication/urban-street-design-guide/street-design-elements/lane-width/

  111. 111.

    Id. (“When lane widths are 1 m (3.3 ft) greater, speeds are predicted to be 15 km/h (9.4 m) faster.”) (citation omitted).

  112. 112.

    See Ryan Snyder et. al., Best Practices: Emergency Access in Healthy Streets 4, at http://nacto.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Best-Practices-Emergency-Access-in-Healthy-Streets.pdf

  113. 113.

    See SmartCode, supra, at Table 3B.

  114. 114.

    See Michael Southworth and Eran Ben-Joseph, Streets and the Shaping of Towns and Cities 143 (2003).

  115. 115.

    See National Association of City Transportation Officials, Curb Extensions, at http://nacto.org/publication/urban-street-design-guide/street-design-elements/curb-extensions/ (suggesting numerous techniques for extending sidewalks and calming traffic). For an excellent example of a median that makes a street more pedestrian-friendly, go to

  116. 116.

    See Talen, supra, at 49.

  117. 117.

    See New Urbanist Zoning, supra, at 264 n. 80 (residential streets required to be 600–1000 feet long) (citation omitted).

  118. 118.

    See Talen, supra, at 49. (“[R]ules for block sizes were significantly smaller in the early decades of the twentieth century.”).

  119. 119.

    See Jacksonville, Fla., Ordinance Code, sec. 654.115(a). See also New Urbanist Zoning, supra, at 287–88 (citing other examples).

  120. 120.

    See Oregon Department of Transportation, Main Street…when a highway runs through it: A Handbook for Oregon Communities 35, at http://www.oregon.gov/lcd/tgm/docs/mainstreet.pdf

  121. 121.

    Cf. Katherine A. Woodard, Form Over Use: Form-Based Codes and the Challenges of Existing Development, 88 Notre Dame L. Rev. 2627, 2638 (2013) (a street network with small blocks “provid[es] both pedestrians and drivers with varying choices to get to their destinations”).

  122. 122.

    See supra notes 102–105 and accompanying text.

  123. 123.

    See supra note 116 and accompanying text.

  124. 124.

    See supra notes 22, 117 and accompanying text.

  125. 125.

    See Southworth and Eran Ben-Joseph, supra, at 74.

  126. 126.

    Id. However, FHA also allowed curvilinear streets that did not create dead-ends. Id. at 75 (showing various designs that FHA considered “good” and “bad”).

  127. 127.

    Hunstville, Ala. Code of Ordinances, App. B., Sec. 4.5(2C).

  128. 128.

    See Angie Schmitt, Sprawl Madness: Two Houses Share Backyard, Separated by 7 Miles of Roads, at http://usa.streetsblog.org/2013/02/28/sprawl-madness-two-houses-share-backyard-separated-by-7-miles-of-roads/

  129. 129.

    See David Hutton, Dead End Could Be In Sight For Cul-de-Sacs, Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, Apr. 7, 2012, at A3 (describing “fused grid”).

  130. 130.

    It seems to me that government regulation may be appropriate in a “tragedy of the commons” situation- that is, when a policy that makes sense for one landowner may not make sense if widely adopted. The growth of residential cul-de-sacs is such a situation. If I am the only person on my block with a cul-de-sac, I get the benefits of quiet seclusion, but can still reach other destinations easily. But if everyone lives on cul-de-sacs, neighbors become inaccessible, and vehicle traffic on the neighborhood’s main streets become snarled because all drivers are forced to go on that main street to reach destinations outside that neighborhood.

  131. 131.

    See Eric Weiss, New Virginia Rules Target Cul-de-Sacs, Washington Post, Mar. 22, 2009, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/21/AR2009032102248.html. However, this rule was watered down in 2011. See David Alpert, Virginia turns back towards the 1950s by weakening road connection standards, neglecting populated areas, at http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/12527/virginia-turns-back-toward-the-1950s-by-weakening-road-connection-standards-neglecting-populated-/

  132. 132.

    See SmartCode, supra, Table 3B.

  133. 133.

    See supra Chapter 4-4.1.

  134. 134.

    Wesley Earl Marshall and Norman W. Garrick, Does Street Network Design Affect Traffic Safety? at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001457510003179

  135. 135.

    Randall O’Toole, The Best Laid Plans 145 (2008).

  136. 136.

    Id. at 146.

  137. 137.

    I verified this by examining the neighborhood on Google Street View, at maps.google.com

  138. 138.

    See Oscar Newman, Creating Defensible Space 41, at https://www.huduser.gov/publications/pdf/defch2.pdf (“It is important to explain, again and again, that the gates will only restrict vehicular traffic: Pedestrians will be able to freely walk everywhere they did before”)

  139. 139.

    Id. at 44.

  140. 140.

    Cf. James E. Guffey, Burglary and Cul-De-Sacs: comparing burglary on cul-de-sacs with non-cul-de-sac streets, at http://www.aabri.com/SA2014Manuscripts/SA14006.pdf (arguing that burglaries less common on cul-de-sac streets, but noting that scholarly literature divided on issue). I note that the Guffey study is not tremendously persuasive. Guffey claims, for example, that cul-de-sacs comprised 11 percent of Los Angeles streets but were the site of only 1 percent of all burglaries. However, the first half of this claim is based on nothing other than his view that 11 percent is midway between the number of cul-de-sacs in San Diego (18 percent) and Sacramento (4 percent). Id. Moreover, 11 percent of the streets is not the same as 11 percent of the housing units; if cul-de-sac streets had fewer houses, they may have comprised less than 11 percent of the houses.

  141. 141.

    See Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime in the United States, 2014: Burglary, at https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/burglary (73.2 percent of all burglaries were of residential properties). By contrast, only 16.8 percent of robberies were at residences. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime in the United States, 2014: Robbery at https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/robbery.

  142. 142.

    See Marshall and Garrick, supra (listing cities).

  143. 143.

    Data available in the “Environmental Characteristics” section of the H&T Fact Sheet, supra.

  144. 144.

    I calculated burglary rates from burglary data and population numbers available at Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime in the United States, 2014: Table 8, Offenses Known to Law Enforcement by State By City, at https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/table-8/Table_8_Offenses_Known_to_Law_Enforcement_by_State_by_City_2014.xls/view (“2014 Table 8”).

  145. 145.

    Id. The four most heavily gridded cities were more diverse: three were very safe (with robbery rates below 100 per 100,000 people) and Berkeley was the second most dangerous city studied (with 223 robberies per 100,000). Id.

  146. 146.

    Data available in the “Environmental Characteristics” section of the H&T Fact Sheet, supra.

  147. 147.

    See 2014 Table 8, supra.

  148. 148.

    See Julia Koschinsky and Emily Talen, From Sprawl to Walkable: How Far is That? in Emily Talen, ed., Retrofitting Sprawl: Addressing Seventy Years of Failed Urban Form 11, 12 (2015).

  149. 149.

    Id. It seems to me that the authors’ interpretation actually understates the support for walkable communities, because a small town can be mixed-use or walkable. Thus, some of the 18 percent who wanted to live in a small town may have preferred the kind of small town where houses are within walking distance of shops. Cf. Dave Alden, Merry Bedford Falls Christmas, Petaluma Patch, Dec. 24, 2012, at http://patch.com/california/petaluma/bp–merry-bedford-falls-christmas (discussing small town in movie “It’s A Wonderful Life” as an example of a walkable small town).

  150. 150.

    See Koschinsky and Talen, supra, at 12.

  151. 151.

    See Jonathan Levine, Zoned Out: Regulation, Markets and Choices in Transportation and Metropolitan Land Use 128–29 (2006).

  152. 152.

    Id. at 129.

  153. 153.

    See Gillham, supra, at 17.

  154. 154.

    See Mode Share, supra (of 29 largest cities, 17 have lower automobile mode shares than Houston).

  155. 155.

    See Houston Code, supra, at sec. 42–181 (minimum lot sizes for single-family houses), 42–185 (minimum lot widths), 42–236 (reducing multifamily density by requiring “open space” for multifamily developments). I note that these requirements were once far stricter than they are today; much of Houston’s housing was built under the earlier, more sprawl-producing rules. See Overregulation Sprawl, supra, at 1178–80 (describing pre-1998 rules and their effects).

  156. 156.

    See Houston Code, supra, 42–150(d).

  157. 157.

    Id., 26–492 (listing parking requirements for a wide range of uses), 42–234 (special parking rules for apartments).

  158. 158.

    Id., 42–122 (major streets shall normally be 100 feet wide). In addition, Houston subsidizes separation of uses by allowing the city attorney to sue to enforce private restrictive covenants; these covenants do not exist in every neighborhood, but where they exist, they often encourage separation of land uses. See Overregulation Sprawl, supra, at 1190–91.

  159. 159.

    Id. at 1178, 1181–82.

  160. 160.

    See Houston Code, supra, sec. 42–101; City of Houston, An Ordinance Amending Chapters 10 and 42 of the Code of Ordinances, Houston, Texas, Relating to Subdivision and Development, Containing Findings and Other Provisoins Relating to the Foregoing Subject; Providing for Severability; Containing a Savings Clause; and Declaring an Emergency, 45, at http://www.houstontx.gov/planning/DevelopRegs/docs_pdfs/chapter_42_redline_03_18_2013.pdf (“2013 Ordinance”)

  161. 161.

    Id. at 87; Houston Code, supra, sec. 42–181(a)(2).

  162. 162.

    See Erin Mulvaney, Critics complain Midtown development is one-sided, Houston Chronicle, June 6, 2016, at http://houstonmidtown.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Chron-6.6.16-Midtown-Article.pdf

  163. 163.

    See City of Houston, Interesting facts you didn’t know about the land inside Houston’s Loop 610, at http://www.houstontx.gov/planning/Demographics/Loop610Website/population.html (“inside the loop” population about 400,000 in 1980, and was just over 440,000 in 2010).

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    Michael Lewyn

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Lewyn, M. (2017). Sprawl As How We Grow, Or How Government Makes Suburbia Sprawling. In: Government Intervention and Suburban Sprawl. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95149-9_4

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