Academic

Why is Sprawl Such a Bad Word?

By Gordon Smith, Christine, Hurt, Vic Fleischer, Fred Tung, Lisa Fairfax, David Zaring

I remember interviewing someone a few years ago whose job talk was on the evils of sprawl.  She started telling me how awful the sprawl in Houston is, and how there are these horrible "MUD Districts."  I had to stop her and tell her that I had very recently lived in the MUD District of Pearland, outside of Houston, and that I liked sprawl.  Now, sprawl has some negative effects for both urban planning and the environment, especially Texas sprawl, which is dependent on individuals driving in individual motor vehicles.  But, one alternative seems to be really high property values where it's very hard for normal people to buy homes in the unsprawled city in which they work.  (Doesn't even NYC have sprawl?  We just call in New Jersey?)

So, today's NYT has the heartbreaking story of how the stimulus package is unwittingly contributing to sprawl by financing (gulp) highways!  In Houston, of all sprawling places.  This highway would connect 290 and I-10, apparently somewhere miles from where they sort of connect up inside Houston.  I-10 is the big highway that runs east-west and is at it's sprawliest going west from downtown Houston all the way to San Antonio (and on to California, etc.).  290 is a big highway that runs north-northwest from inside Houston to Austin and beyond.  So, basically the nine o'clock position and the 10:30 position.  There is much development out both of these roads, and when we lived there and practiced in Houston, the traffic on both was horrible.  Since we left, I-10 has been widened and is amazing now, but my guess is that 290 is still basically a parking lot once in the morning and once in the evening, if not all the time.  This highway could divert some of the 290 traffic to the I-10, but worse than that (according to the NYT), it will encourage development along the corridor!  No, not development!  Of course, the article doesn't point out that if not on the corridor, this development would just continue out I-10 or 290 until Central Texas is one big city.

But, the article makes the pitch for the "Katy Prairie," which might be ruined by the corridor.  I have to say that I lived in Texas 32 years, and 10 of those in Houston, and I never heard the words "Katy Prairie."  Now, I'm sure that there are outdoorsy, birding people who are familiar with this untouched stretch of. . . . well. . . .prairie, but I don't remember hearing of this wonderful land that must be preserved until today.  Historically, prairie has been good land for, well, development.  I've always thought of Houston as having beachy stuff to the south-southeast, piney woods to the north-northeast and well, nothing to the west.  Maybe an idiosyncratic reaction, but I'm unmoved by the NYT article bemoaning Houston sprawl.

Full post as published by Conglomerate on March 23, 2009 (boomark / email).