by Alex Marshall, Editor, Spotlight on the Region
Sprawl: A Compact History, by Robert Bruegmann, Chicago, 2005.
Among the things Chicago is famous for, such as its 19th century skyscrapers and lake front vistas, is a cult of economics known as the "Chicago School." Its adherents preach that an all-knowing, all-seeing god called "The Market" will lead us to the Promised Land if left unrestrained.
The University of Chicago last year published a book by Robert Bruegmann, an art historian from the windy city, called Sprawl: A Compact History. Just coming out this month in paperback, the Chicago school permeates Sprawl the way sweeping radial turns do subdivisions.
In Bruegmann's view, sprawl has given the middle class the type of large homes once only the aristocracy enjoyed. Side effects such as loss of open space or traffic congestion are explained away, and sprawl critics are called cultural elitists. While praising sprawl as a populist triumph, Bruegmann discounts other explanations for sprawl, such as low-interest federal loans or government-built highways.
In my view government transportation spending - local, state and federal - has been most responsible for the low-density, dispersed development that defines sprawl-style development both nationally and in the Tri-State region over the last 75 years. Simply put, a subdivision, office park or shopping mall can't exist without a government-built road or grade-separated, limited access freeway nearby.
Just as early 19th century canals produced canal-centered cities; just as streetcar lines and railroads a century ago produced streetcar suburbs and railroad-centered towns; so too freeways and roads in the 20th century have produced sprawl. Transportation has always shaped development patterns, and government has always largely shaped transportation. This trend stretches from ancient Rome building roads across Europe, to New York State building the Erie Canal in 1817, to states building highways and airports today. I bet the degree to which a country sprawls today can be predicted by looking at its overall transportation budget and the percentages spent on centralizing-mediums like mass transit, and decentralizing mediums like highways.
Bruegmann tries to get around tying sprawl to a particular mode of transport by saying that cities have "sprawled from time immemorial." Even the wealthy ancient Romans, Bruegmann notes, liked their villas in the country. But this is a false analogy. Sure, there were a few homes and farms outside a medieval city, but living just outside the walls of medieval Barcelona in 1200 AD is simply not the same thing as living 50 miles from downtown Houston today along I-10.
At one point Bruegmann says: ". . . it is not really logical to blame postwar urban freeways for sprawl. . . there is no particular reason to think that the decentralization caused by roads has been any different in kind than that caused by the railroads."
Really? Railroads a century and a half ago caused cities like New York to extend themselves, but that's not the same as decentralization. Overall densities were higher in cities after railroads and then subways were introduced than before, which is very different than what happened after highways were introduced. This is a matter of physics. Simply put, you can't cram a lot of homes and businesses around a highway because all the cars used by the residents or workers need to be stored somewhere. Railway and subway stations don't have that problem. Plus, you need many more times the lanes of highway to transport the same number of people that one rail line can.
This isn't to say that the book Sprawl is all bad. The art historian is a wonderful observer, and has logged many frequent flier miles in journeys around the globe documenting the various types of late 20th century development. His descriptions of development patterns in less observed nations like Germany, Italy, India, and Thailand, accompanied by personal photos, are great. He's also correct that the trend lines in all these countries are toward sprawl, not away from it.
But as anyone who has ever owned a stock knows, differences in degree matter. Sure Western Europe is tending toward sprawl. I described it in my 1995 article "Eurosprawl." But the built environment is still much more compact in, say, France, to name one of the key sprawlers. People live in smaller homes, but they have more access to the countryside, walk more, bicycle more and spend less time stuck in traffic. Most Americans don't have those kinds of choices, although many Tri-Staters do. But Bruegmann can't or won't see that, and thus always portrays sprawl as providing more choices, not fewer.
Sprawl: A Compact History, by Robert Bruegmann, Chicago, 2005.
Among the things Chicago is famous for, such as its 19th century skyscrapers and lake front vistas, is a cult of economics known as the "Chicago School." Its adherents preach that an all-knowing, all-seeing god called "The Market" will lead us to the Promised Land if left unrestrained.
The University of Chicago last year published a book by Robert Bruegmann, an art historian from the windy city, called Sprawl: A Compact History. Just coming out this month in paperback, the Chicago school permeates Sprawl the way sweeping radial turns do subdivisions.
In Bruegmann's view, sprawl has given the middle class the type of large homes once only the aristocracy enjoyed. Side effects such as loss of open space or traffic congestion are explained away, and sprawl critics are called cultural elitists. While praising sprawl as a populist triumph, Bruegmann discounts other explanations for sprawl, such as low-interest federal loans or government-built highways.
In my view government transportation spending - local, state and federal - has been most responsible for the low-density, dispersed development that defines sprawl-style development both nationally and in the Tri-State region over the last 75 years. Simply put, a subdivision, office park or shopping mall can't exist without a government-built road or grade-separated, limited access freeway nearby.
Just as early 19th century canals produced canal-centered cities; just as streetcar lines and railroads a century ago produced streetcar suburbs and railroad-centered towns; so too freeways and roads in the 20th century have produced sprawl. Transportation has always shaped development patterns, and government has always largely shaped transportation. This trend stretches from ancient Rome building roads across Europe, to New York State building the Erie Canal in 1817, to states building highways and airports today. I bet the degree to which a country sprawls today can be predicted by looking at its overall transportation budget and the percentages spent on centralizing-mediums like mass transit, and decentralizing mediums like highways.
Bruegmann tries to get around tying sprawl to a particular mode of transport by saying that cities have "sprawled from time immemorial." Even the wealthy ancient Romans, Bruegmann notes, liked their villas in the country. But this is a false analogy. Sure, there were a few homes and farms outside a medieval city, but living just outside the walls of medieval Barcelona in 1200 AD is simply not the same thing as living 50 miles from downtown Houston today along I-10.
At one point Bruegmann says: ". . . it is not really logical to blame postwar urban freeways for sprawl. . . there is no particular reason to think that the decentralization caused by roads has been any different in kind than that caused by the railroads."
Really? Railroads a century and a half ago caused cities like New York to extend themselves, but that's not the same as decentralization. Overall densities were higher in cities after railroads and then subways were introduced than before, which is very different than what happened after highways were introduced. This is a matter of physics. Simply put, you can't cram a lot of homes and businesses around a highway because all the cars used by the residents or workers need to be stored somewhere. Railway and subway stations don't have that problem. Plus, you need many more times the lanes of highway to transport the same number of people that one rail line can.
This isn't to say that the book Sprawl is all bad. The art historian is a wonderful observer, and has logged many frequent flier miles in journeys around the globe documenting the various types of late 20th century development. His descriptions of development patterns in less observed nations like Germany, Italy, India, and Thailand, accompanied by personal photos, are great. He's also correct that the trend lines in all these countries are toward sprawl, not away from it.
But as anyone who has ever owned a stock knows, differences in degree matter. Sure Western Europe is tending toward sprawl. I described it in my 1995 article "Eurosprawl." But the built environment is still much more compact in, say, France, to name one of the key sprawlers. People live in smaller homes, but they have more access to the countryside, walk more, bicycle more and spend less time stuck in traffic. Most Americans don't have those kinds of choices, although many Tri-Staters do. But Bruegmann can't or won't see that, and thus always portrays sprawl as providing more choices, not fewer.
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