But Americans have been waking to the wider impact of these local decisions for decades. The Clinton administration is helping shape that issue. The president plugged controlled growth and land preservation in his State of the Union address. Clearly, this is an issue that politicians with an eye toward what might enliven a presidential campaign are eager to exploit. But, as with education, the important action is at the state and local levels.
Suburban sprawl is a concern coast to coast.
Valuable farmland is transmogrifying into housing tracts in California's Central Valley, and in the rural counties that abut Chicago and Milwaukee. Those two states are among the few that have taken the offensive against sprawl. Another governor, Roy Barnes of Georgia, has proposed a regional transportation authority with the power to overrule local jurisdictions. Theoretically, it will be able to push public transit lines through Atlanta's sprawling and often gridlocked suburbs. But the same questions about clashing interests will apply there.