blog post: "The Myths About Sprawl"

Myths About "The Myths About Sprawl"

With the growing popularity and acceptance of Smart Growth principles 
and New Urbanist designs, comes the inevitable backlash: every once in a 
while, a representative from a libertarian think tank who feels that the 
notion of "sprawl" is simply pejorative and elitist (or socialist) 
nonsense, decides to show that it's all a big fuss over nothing. 
Statistics are dragged out to show that there's no real sprawl problem; 
and in any case present urban patterns and housing forms are what 
Americans (or Canadians) seem to prefer. And besides, nobody can tell me 
where to live; to do otherwise is an assault on freedom.

For only the most recent example, check out the Washington Post, in 
which longtime Smart Growth opponents Samuel Staley and Ted Balaker 
challenge what they call the "anti-suburbs culture" by attempting to 
dismantle some of the "myths" of urban sprawl.

Leaving aside the interesting fact that only one of the myth statements 
below (re: paving America) is directly tied to "sprawl" as such, there 
are more straw men here than at an open casting call for a Wizard of Oz 
production.

According to Balaker and Staley, the top five "Myths About Sprawl" are 
as follows:

cont'd....
http://blog.uwinnipeg.ca/ius/archives/002546.html