ANTI-SPRAWL: THE TRENDY ISSUE OF THE YEAR 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" - fee for download 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"