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Why Sprawl Is a Conservative Issue

Once upon a time, city was not a dirty word in America. Between 1900 and 1950, every American city of any size gained population. But over the past several decades, metropolitan America has been transformed by “suburban sprawl”—the movement of people (especially middle-class families) and jobs from older urban cores to newer, less densely populated, more automobile-dependent communities generally referred to as suburbs. At the end of World War II, roughly 70% of metropolitan Americans lived in central cities. But within four decades, that figure had dropped to less than 40%. Some cities have been devastated by sprawl: For example, St. Louis has lost 60% of its people since 1950, whereas Buffalo and Cleveland have lost more than 45% of their people. The cities that have gained population have done so either by being hubs for immigration from other countries (such as New York and Los Angeles) or by annexing newly developed areas that would be considered suburbs in other cities (such as Indianapolis and Charlotte). As cities have become smaller, they have become poorer. In 1960, central cities contained one third of America’s poor people; by 1990, the central city share had climbed to one half, and 31 of America’s 37 largest cities had poverty rates above the national average. In recent years, Vice President Gore and numerous other commentators (especially within the environmental movement) have criticized suburban sprawl. For example, Gore complains that because of sprawl, “resources are siphoned away from older communities to build ever more distant new amenities in new communities.” Meanwhile, in newer communities, mandatory auto ownership “means working families must sink thousands of dollars into extra commuting costs, when they may want the choice of devoting those funds to a year of state college.” Many such suburbs