Several times each year for the past 23 years, I've driven from Chicago to Appleton, Wisconsin, and back again. I've seen the fields and woodlands along Highways 94 and 41 gradually replaced by office parks, shopping malls, and residential developments. Over the years, the change has been dramatic.
Urban sprawl worries some people.
They say it will lead to a shortage of agricultural land, deplete the planet's limited supplies of fossil fuels, and load the air we breathe with hazardous pollutants. Still others think sprawl is compromising our quality of life by taking away the intimacy, social connectivity, and sense of social identity that come from living in compact neighborhoods. Sprawl and the environment I have a difficult time taking seriously any of the concerns raised by the growth control crowd. What triggered my skepticism were the claims of environmental damage that so often accompany calls for growth management. Urban expansion is, in fact, responsible for surprisingly little conversion of either forest or croplands into roads, houses, and parking lots.