Urban Growth Control

The term urban growth control is used to describe a broad set of growth management strategies intended to combat urban sprawl and its social and environmental consequences. For growth control advocates, it is generally the spatial expansion or “growth” of cities that necessitates “control,” not the size of its population. Urban growth control may therefore be characterized as a set of land use planning policies meant to limit the suburbanization of metropolitan areas.

The urban growth control movement in the United States is a key element of “smart growth” policies and the Livability Agenda promoted by both Bill Clinton and Al Gore. These agendas are generally interested in producing cities that are compact and dense while at the same time livable, convenient, and pedestrian-friendly. As of 2005, 28 states had institutionalized growth management programs. However, in many cases the most rigorous growth [Page 1866]control legislation is administered through county and municipal governments.

The rapid horizontal expansion of cities to suburban and exurban areas is a major cause of concern for the urban growth control movement. Urban sprawl is characterized by a variety of distinct land use patterns. First, large-scale municipal and commercial developments such as wide streets, broad parking lots, large retail stores, and expansive office parks all consume large land areas. Second, lowdensity housing developments add urbanized land disproportionately to increased population. Third, homogenous housing and commercial development often result in low structural diversity and uniform building designs. And fourth, segregated, single-use zoning results in commercial, residential, and business zones that are separated by large distances.

There are many effects of urban sprawl. Urban growth control advocates argue that suburban sprawl diverts financial resources away from valuable urban infrastructure by funding new and upgraded road and highway projects; consumes open space with ecological value such as forests and wetlands; subdivides and impinges upon productive agricultural regions; produces a culture of singleoccupant vehicle use as residents of suburban and exurban areas become increasingly dependent on automobiles to move between single-use areas and to and from the urban core; creates longer commutes, which in turn raises air pollution levels as well as driver fatality rates; and increasingly segregates the citizenry of metropolitan areas along class, cultural, and racial lines, most notably captured in the movement of white middle-class populations to suburban areas, a phenomenon called White Flight.

Opponents contend that urban growth leads to less traffic because the driving population is spread over a larger area, which in turn leads to lower pollution levels. They argue that urban growth control will lead to higher real estate prices inside the growth boundary, placing a burden on low- and middle-income households, and a loss of freedom by citizens to choose where they live and work.

A variety of growth management policy tool options are available to urban planners attempting to control sprawl. Traditional policy tools include zoning ordinances and land use regulations. Another common policy option necessitates the establishment of certain public facilities such as water, sewage, and electricity as a precondition to suburban development. Still another option consists of infill and redevelopment strategies in the urban core—especially high density housing options, mixed use development, and viable downtown transportation alternatives.

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