Largely due to the worsening traffic congestion on Cincinnati roads and highways, and the lack of efficient mass transit, the air quality in Cincinnati has become a major health problem. The American Lung Association gives the Tri-State's air quality a failing grade, the EPA recently had to issue a special health alert just for Cincinnati residents with asthma and other respiratory problems. Sprawl also means more asphalt and concrete, which increases run-off that threatens our rivers, lakes, streams, creeks. Sprawl destroys parks, farms and open space. That represents one quarter of the entire area's farmland destroyed in one generation, the most of any Ohio metropolitan area.
Sprawl creates more killer floods.
Sprawl also increases the risk of flooding by promoting building on floodplains and destroying flood-storing wetlands. Smart growth means no new building in floodplains and other disaster prone areas. Sprawl hurts us all by raising our taxes. More troubling is that tax subsidies are being spent in new sprawl areas, rather than where most people live. This sucks needed tax money out of cities and older suburbs, while taxing seniors and others out of their homes.