Sprawl

In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker and Mayor Tom Barrett are brawling in the press over a proposed highway project -- a fight that exemplifies the enormous rift in America about what transportation policy should accomplish.

William H. Frey is an internationally regarded demographer and senior fellow with the Brookings Institution. This article was originally posted by the Brookings Institution.

Last year, Angie posted an unfortunate map of two houses in Orlando that share a backyard but are seven miles apart if you take the disconnected local street system. That's quite a distance to ask your neighbor for a cup of sugar.

"Dead End: Suburban Sprawl and the Rebirth of American Urbanism" is a new book by Ben Ross, longtime president of Maryland's Action Committee for Transit and a frequent contributor to Greater Greater Washington. This excerpt is preceded by a section describing the post-war expansion into the suburbs and the surrender of public space to automobile traffic. Highways proliferated, congestion worsened, children's play was prohibited in the street and often in the sidewalk, and pedestrians were engineered out of the roadway. 

Hartford, Connecticut, has one of the highest poverty rates in the country. The urban renaissance that has visited so many cities hasn’t arrived there. Housing is still cheaper in the city than in the suburbs, and although suburban poverty is growing alarmingly fast, it’s nowhere near the levels seen in the city.

As an avid iPhone user, I have bought into the sense that Apple could literally peer into the future and deliver me technology that I never realized I would so desperately need.

Want to live a long, healthy, prosperous life? Don’t live in sprawlsville.

Even though 33 percent of its roads are in "poor" condition, West Virginia spends about 73 percent of its road budget building new roads and adding lanes. Mississippi spends 97 percent of its road money on expansion. Texas, 82 percent.