Smart Growth

For the final post, I found a site that reviews a plan to make urban areas more compact and densely populated, called "Smart Growth". Following is the summary of some arguments and counterarguments of "Smart Growth".

• Farmland is being lost due to urbanization. However, most of the farmland lost is due to productivity rather than urbanization and there is no real threat to the food supply.

• Green spaces are being threatened by urban expansion. However more land is preserved in parks than is destroyed by urbanization.

• Densely populated urban areas reduce traffic, yet data shows that congestion is less common in areas where the population is less dense.

• Densely populated urban areas provide alternate methods of transportation thus limiting the dependence on cars. However for the alternate method of transit to be efficient more than for a small portion, it would require a more extensive network and cover a larger area for most cities.
  

• Dense urban areas reduce travel times, yet data shows that travel times are shorter in areas that aren't as densely populated.

• Dense urban areas reduce air pollution, yet data shows that air pollution is less where urban areas aren't as densely populated.

I guess this goes to show that compacting urban areas is not necessarily a good thing and data supports the exact opposite and actually having less densely populated areas is better.

P.S. Have a great Thanksgiving break!

Vincent Louis