If southeastern Pennsylvania was a country, it would be one of the most densely populated countries in the world. Southeastern Pennsylvania has a population density greater than Japan and Germany, and nearly as great as England and the Netherlands. During the last 50 years, however, as Europeans have continued to maintain this pattern, we have emptied out our towns and adopted a revolutionary new development pattern completely dependent on the car. As the Inquirer recently demonstrated in its excellent series, An Acre an Hour, we have used more land for each house, store, and office we've built with each passing decade. This pattern makes the destruction of southeastern Pennsylvania's countryside inevitable.
Simple geometry does the rest.
A human being takes up two square feet of space. Put that person in a car, and he now takes up 80 to 110 square feet of space. Of course, we must park our car at each end of our journey. Experts estimate we have six to seven parking spaces for each registered vehicle. In countries like England and the Netherlands, planning policy requires developers to mix homes, stores, and offices within walking distance to reduce the number of car trips.