The troubling trend worsened in the study's last five years. The pattern is a classic symptom of sprawl, and it's caused in part by people moving farther and farther from cities onto bigger and bigger lots, experts say. The rapid pace at which farms, fields and forests are being turned into houses, stores and parking lots was revealed last week in a federal study, the National Resources Inventory. According to the NRI report, the developed portion of Virginia grew from 1.8 million acres in 1982 to 2.6 million acres in 1997 - a jump of 43 percent. During that period, state figures show, Virginia's population grew from 5.5 million people to 6.7 million - a rise of 23 percent.
Sprawl often requires more roads, longer sewer lines and longer commutes than compact development.
It can pollute streams and destroy wildlife habitats. People are building homes on larger lots. And some people are buying second homes. The trends are driven largely by an economy that's making more people wealthy enough to buy homes, said Doug Gray, public policy director for the Virginia Association of Realtors. He would like to see more homes clustered together while setting aside more land as open space.