It was possible to move to the suburbs, get away from the crowd, and make the daily commute to and from work relatively quickly. State and federal tax dollars subsidized our ever-expanding road system. Today, cars dominate our landscape. As we sit stalled in traffic jams, and see our rural countryside disappearing, some question whether we can afford to continue this pattern of sprawl. It has a negative impact on our quality of life, as we spend increasing hours in the car traveling from home to work to school to the store.
Sprawl also has a negative impact on the natural environment.
As our communities expand into the rural countryside, development stormwater run-off degrades our water quality, and automobile emissions impact the quality of our air. It hits us in the pocketbook, too. As taxpayers, we pay heavily for the new and expanded roads and sewer systems and their maintenance over the years, not to mention the costs of fixing problems from the past and the impacts on the environment. Not only is our development sprawling, but it also isolates uses from one another. Often, our homes are in one area of town, jobs in another, schools in another, and shops in still another.