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Social Impacts and Sprawl huge inequities in educational opportunities aided by the emergence of an increasing
<br /> • Traditionally,there have been a number and achievements. When decisions about number of two-wage earner households,
<br /> Y elements that make up the residential where to live and work can be made free of often doubling the number of vehicles and
<br /> and business location decision process— these constraints, there will be geographi- greatly increasing the miles traveled.
<br /> the desire for more space, access to work cal balance, so that future generations of Various government zoning, taxation.
<br /> orkers, housing quality and styles,ed- decision makers will be free, in every re- and transportation investment policies
<br /> ion and, in this region, race. In recent spect,to choose among the desirable loca- have reinforced auto usage as the domi-
<br /> years,crime has been added to that list.Of tions in revitalized central communities as nant travel mode. Local zoning ordinances
<br /> those various elements, much of the well as in developed and developing fringe often dictate low density development,with
<br /> region's development pattern has been communities. the strictly separate residential, commer-
<br /> driven by three—crime, race and educa- cial, and industrial land uses that require
<br /> tion.They have generally fueled a centrifu- Transportation and Sprawl auto travel. These ordinances have also
<br /> gal development pattern, pressuring out- One of the most hotly-debated "urban thwarted the development of significant
<br /> ward from the core city and its near sub- sprawl"policy issues focuses on two alter- numbers of transit and ridesharing corn-
<br /> urbs. The resulting problems are twofold: native views of the transportation role: muter corridors, which require higher den-
<br /> consuming land on the fringe at prodigious a) that transportation investment re- sity development. Such ordinances have
<br /> rates while land at the center is abandoned, sults in further development at the made the automobile virtually the only fea-
<br /> along with the people and the buildings on urban fringe i.e., "sprawl';or, sible means for most suburban travel. Re-
<br /> that land. b) that transportation investments liance on the automobile has also required
<br /> If the growth/development pattern were simply responds to existing devel- still additional land to be set aside for auto-
<br /> operating in a pure form, there would be a opment patterns and resulting traf- related uses such as parking.
<br /> circular nature to growth and development. fic congestion pressures. The major element of traffic congestion
<br /> That is, as both residential and business Evidence from SEMCOG's The 'Busi- is the single occupant vehicle (SOV), with
<br /> development moved outward in the region, ness as Usual'Trend Future: The Data one driver taking up about 100 square feet
<br /> redevelopment would occur in the older Base report suggests that each explana- of space on crowded roads. Past practices
<br /> central areas, because land values would tion has credibility to some degree. have encouraged,rather than discouraged,
<br /> be lower and,therefore,affordable to many single occupant travel. For example,while
<br /> families and businesses unable to pay the federal tax policy allows employers to pro-
<br /> higher prices for land and buildings in the The 1950-1980 period saw vide$100 per month parking as a tax-free
<br /> fringe areas. the urbanized Southeast employee fringe benefit, subsidized em-
<br /> It has not been a pure form, however. Michigan area almost double ployee transit and vanpool fares above$15
<br /> Rather, social issues distort the process. in size from 311 OOO to per month are fully taxable.Transportation
<br /> Racial discrimination, educational inequal- investments have historically emphasized
<br /> ities and crime problems all merge in the 615,000 acres—just over new road and highway construction rather
<br /> older areas to make redevelopment there four times the size of the than creating incentives for ridesharing or
<br /> less attractive, despite the potentially City of Detroit. using public transit. Southeast Michigan
<br /> r land building costs that do exist there. stands alone among the nation's 20 largest
<br /> cities in failing to construct or provide sig-
<br /> The 1950-1980 period saw the urban- nificant preferential treatment for transit
<br /> Central to the three key ized Southeast Michigan area almost dou- and carpool users—either grade-separated
<br /> dynamics—race, crime and ble in size from 311,000 to 615,000 acres— transit lines or reserved lanes on freeways
<br /> education—is poverty. just over four times the size of the City of for transit and/or car and vanpools.
<br /> Detroit.This same period also saw comple-
<br /> tion of over 90% of the region's roughly An estimated 75% of the
<br /> Central to the three key dynamics— 300-mile freeway system.
<br /> race, crime and education—is poverty, the In addition, changes in manufacturing new jobs created in
<br /> cycle that sees significant portions of the techniques and the availability of trucking Southeast Michigan during
<br /> . .population living a no-hope existence—un- services permitted many types of busi- the 1980-90 period were
<br /> able to see a path to the sorts of location nesses to escape central city traffic conges-
<br /> decisions made routinely by more affluent tion—choosing,instead,large,inexpensive located in developing areas
<br /> citizens. Race and poverty are inextricably fringe sites to build modern, single-story with no available transit
<br /> intertwined as a history of racial prejudice plants and factories not centrally located service.
<br /> has put and kept many blacks in poverty— near water or rail transportation. •
<br /> and penned them into the older central During the 1980's, there was a sharp
<br /> cities by historic real estate practices.Sim- increase in vehicle miles traveled (VMT)in Sprawling low density development
<br /> ilarly, poverty drives much criminal activity, the region, which contributed to increased (which makes public transit difficult to sus-
<br /> particularly as the drug culture has flour- congestion in the developed and develop- tain) places an additional burden on the
<br /> ished in central cities. Finally, there is a ing areas of the region.During the 1980-87 transit dependent—the handicapped, the
<br /> strong correlation between those commu- period, for example, VMT grew by 33%, elderly, the poor, the young. Often lacking
<br /> nities with high levels of poverty and under- despite a relatively constant regional popu- an automotive option for transportation,
<br /> funded school systems. Michigan's school lation. those citizens are generally home-bound if
<br /> aid funding,in fact, provides the least sup- Much of that increase in VMT and con- there are no available public transportation
<br /> port to those districts most needing educa- gestion occurred in newly developing alternatives.
<br /> tion to break the poverty cycle. areas. The result was sharply increased Sprawling development also has a sig-
<br /> The desire is fairly simple—that there will congestion on suburban roads not yet nificant impact on another segment of the
<br /> exist, in 20 years, a truly free marketplace ready for population surges—along with,of transit dependent—the chronically jobless.
<br /> 0 ecisions, unfettered for all future deci- course, frequently under-utilized roads in Businesses that support growing residen-
<br /> i makers by such artificial constraints as the inner cities and suburbs. The VMT tial populations in newly developing areas
<br /> racial prejudice, uncontrolled crime and growth in those newer suburbs was likely are frequently generators of the types of
<br /> . Planning&Zoning News©/November 1991 7
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