We confront it every time we see our credit card bill or debate whether to stop for gas or go on to the next exit.
Petroleum products constitute a significant fraction of the annual trade deficit.
Gov. John Engler's 1992 Relative Risk Analysis showed how sprawl contributes to this growing economic dilemma. The report placed a heavy emphasis on the cost of duplicate and wasteful investment in such things as roads, sewers and schools. In fact, the infrastructure network in southeast Michigan has unused capacity sufficient to accommodate another 2.5 million people, plus associated commerce and industry. Yet we are extending that network outward at the rate of 13 square miles a year. That duplication contributes to America's foreign debt problem, because the federal government borrows money from abroad to make grants to Michigan suburbs for ever more far-flung infrastructure.