SUMMARY: The November elections in the US were the first time that the
voting public was subject to what is fast becoming a coordinated effort to
fight suburban sprawl. While this issue has long been on the agenda of
various environmental groups, and of Vice President Gore, it has only
recently been picked up by the politicians - most notably by Vice President
Gore's "livable communities initiative." For years we have heard that
telecommuting will contribute to sprawl and in doing so, worsen some of the
environmental problems it was presumed to help alleviate. The sprawl issue
is complex, confusing, and likely to be with us for a long time.
It might be said that the dream of many Americans is having a house in the
country - up in the hills, away from the noise, congestion, and crime of
the cities, and nestled in the trees that block the view of neighbors. It
makes me wonder if "sprawl" really stands for Some People Really Appreciate
Wide-open Lifestyles.
While this might be the dream, the reality for many Americans is a house in
the suburbs - in the middle of a development carved out of farmland, and
inconveniently equidistant from shopping, services, work, and schools. Fly
over any US city that has experienced rapid growth in the last ten or
twenty years (e.g., Atlanta, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Dallas, Miami, Washington,
Seattle, Denver) and you'll see square mile after square mile of houses
that appear to have been spray-painted onto the landscape.
The concern about the negative effects of this dispersion from the core
city areas has been on the agendas of many individual planners and
environmentalists, and various groups or associations, for at least a
decade. But all of a sudden, sprawl has moved from the pages of the
environmental journals to the front pages and editorial columns of major
newspapers - in large part because of how sprawl became an election issue
last November.
[Leading this charge was the Sierra Club, which was in large part
responsible for getting anti-sprawl or no-growth/slow-growth initiatives
onto the ballot or into the minds of candidates last year. You'll find a
list of Web resources from the Sierra Club and others at the end of this
article. LATE ADDITION: After this article was written, the NEW YORK TIMES
featured a front-page article titled "Suburban Sprawl Takes Its Place on
the Political Landscape" in the February 6 issue; check
What IS The Issue?
Depending on your perspective, you see sprawl as linked to traffic, air
quality, land use planning, quality of life, class, technology - or any
combination - or none of the above. Some people just don't believe that
sprawl is an issue at all; it's just a natural evolution as we move away
from the cities and start making use of the available land while enabling
people to adopt a lifestyle they desire and can afford.
I'm not going to get into the debate of whether we should be concerned with
sprawl, but I will say that it seems to have become a problem at least in
terms of traffic congestion. My rural-becoming-suburban part of New Jersey
is a great example: far too many homes and condos have been built with far
too few transportation resources, resulting in wall-to-wall traffic on
two-lane country roads. No matter what side of this issue you take, I
don't think you can deny the reality and aggravation value of this traffic.
This issue has moved onto the radar screens of voters and politicians, as
Ken Orski notes in the January/February issue of INNOVATION BRIEFS:
Anti-sprawl rhetoric resonates with the voters because it responds to the
suburbanites' growing unhappiness with mounting traffic congestion, the
monotony of the suburban landscape, the disappearance of open spaces, and
the loss of environmentally sensitive areas. More than 100 measures aimed
at limiting growth were on state and local ballots nationwide last
November...
But how much impact are these actions likely to have? Can they modify
existing patterns of development or effectively contain future urban
growth? Interviews conducted by INNOVATION BRIEFS with a number of
planning officials and real estate analysts across the country disclose a
large measure of pessimism. Metropolitan dispersal, these experts are
saying, may be largely beyond the power of public policies to influence. A
powerful combination of population pressures, rising housing demand,
advances in communication technology, fragmented regional governance and
personal housing preferences have made continued outward expansion of our
cities seemingly inevitable.
[INNOVATION BRIEFS is published by Urban Mobility Corp. and edited by
Kenneth Orski. It is an outstanding newsletter covering traffic,
transportation, and related issues. Contact Orski at (202) 775-0311 or fax
at (202) 775-4867.]
Why Is This A Telecommuting Issue?
Telecommuting has either caused, contributed to, or has nothing to do with
sprawl. As I read through the literature and think back to my own
experience in the last 17 years, that wishy-washy conclusion is the only
one that's possible.
However, I'm inclined to think the effect has been slight if anything. We
know that many people make their job-search decisions based in part on
their mobility - how far they're willing to commute and/or whether they are
willing to relocate. Before telecommuting, if someone wanted to live in
the hills of western New Jersey while working at a job in Manhattan, there
was no choice but to spend three or four hours a day on the round-trip
commute. Telecommuting doesn't reduce the commute but reduces its
frequency, and might make those hours more palatable if they are only
"wasted" two or three days a week.
What I have not seen, though, is any sign of mass relocation of employees
who become telecommuters. This might happen in cases where someone is
thinking about a relocation for other reasons, and now is able to expand
his/her housing search. But for most people, the decision about where to
live is based only in part on the commute distance - access (to schools,
shopping, entertainment, etc.), tax rates, lifestyle, and many other
factors come into the decision.
My guess is that it's more likely the self-employed person will choose to
live further from the center city than used to be the case, especially if
he/she can do most of the business remotely. Between what FedEx and phone
lines can deliver, physical proximity to customers and suppliers isn't as
much of an issue.
There are signs that all of this might change, as we start to see regional
or national recruiting of telecommuters as new hires who might only rarely,
or never, have to appear at the office. This is still a small percentage
of telecommuters but is bound to grow, especially in professions where
talent is in short supply. But for the most part, we're still dealing with
employment patterns where most knowledge workers spend almost all of their
time in or near their central offices. How quickly this will change is
anybody's guess.
Where Are We Headed?
This excerpt from the CREST resource listed at the end of this article
provides a partial answer to this question:
Any policy directed at the problems of sprawl must address Americans' high
willingness to pay for the space and privacy offered by suburban
lifestyles. In addition, there is no question that automobile use is at
least in part determined by Americans' preference for the privacy,
convenience and speed of their cars. Nonetheless, it would be inappropriate
to conclude that our reliance on the automobile is strictly due to an
innate preference for highway travel ... It would also be inappropriate to
conclude that there is not significant scope for change. The evidence from
Europe and Canada is that by incorporating mixed modes, including transit,
cycling and pedestrian access into urban plans, future development could
actually enhance "access" while reducing the demand for - and social costs
of - travel.
Vice President Gore - who is also Presidential Candidate Gore - announced
on January 11 a $1 billion Federal plan to fight traffic jams and sprawl.
According to news reports, the plan (which is part of the budget package
that went from President Clinton to Congress on February 1) calls for
almost $10 billion - of which more than $1 billion is new spending - to
help local governments implement programs to "preserve open space, ease
traffic congestion and promote economic development in a way that some
states are calling "smart growth" ... The proposal, which the
Administration calls its Livability Agenda ... is the largest commitment
ever by the Federal government to the issue of planned growth," reported
the NEW YORK TIMES on January 12.
The Administration plan has something for everyone - to love or hate. It
covers everything from open-space purchases and public transportation to
zoning and development of abandoned industrial sites. There's no
indication of where the money will come from to fund these initiatives -
and that will be part of the inevitable wrangling that will take place as
the entire budget is dissected in coming weeks. Most important, however,
is that Gore has specifically made this a national issue, and one that
could be a centerpiece of his campaigning. For that reason alone, we're
bound to hear lots more about it in the next year.
What Should Your Company Be Doing Now?
The answer depends on how politically-correct you want to be. Though the
sprawl issue has certainly heated up, it's not at the point where consumers
or potential employees view it as a screening criterion such as dumping
industrial waste. I think it's prudent, though, for employers to continue
urging telecommuting employees not to make plans to relocate just because
they can work remotely for part of the week. We know that many things come
up that can suspend or end telecommuting for a given employee, and it
benefits no one if that person now has to commute five days from a much
more distant residence than previously.
If anything, employers might look at this issue in terms of office and
factory location decisions. It might look pretty in the annual
stockholder's report to show the brand-new headquarters building in a
bucolic country setting, but the real-world consequences of plopping a big
office in the middle of farmland are more serious.
Remember also that advanced broadband telecommunications services (such as
cable modems, DSL, and even ISDN in some cases) are simply not available in
rural areas and even in some suburban areas. The carriers are making their
initial investments where the most people live - and that's not way out in
the suburbs or countryside where housing density is low. The undeniable
benefit of higher-bandwidth transport for telecommuting is one good reason
not to encourage telecommuters to go too far afield. If they do, their
only consolation is that they'll be able to enjoy a pleasing view out the
home-office window while they're waiting for a large file to download at
28.8 kbps...
Sprawl Resources and Information on the Web
Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology
NEW YORK TIMES November 15, 1998 article "The New Politics of Urban Sprawl"
Planning Commissioner's Journal "Sprawl Resource Guide"
Rice University's "Sprawl Net"
Sierra Club
Sprawl Watch Clearinghouse
VIRGINIA BUSINESS magazine's December 1998 column "Nature Nazis and Demon
Developers"
WASHINGTON POST March 23, 1997 article "As the Economy Grows, the Trees
Fall"
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