The Costs of Sprawl: Environmental and Economic Costs of Alternative Residential Development Patterns at the Urban Fringe

摘要

Local government officials devote a large proportion of their time to considering and acting upon development proposals which substantially affect their communities in many ways. While information bearing on development proposals has been increasingly broader in scope, more specific, and of higher quality, local government officials continue to have considerable difficulty in assessing the relative merits of alternative types of housing, general development patterns, and commercial strip versus center developments. To help compensate for this knowledge deficiency, the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), in cooperation with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has commissioned the Real Estate Research Corporation (RERC) to undertake a study of the environmental and economic effects of alternative development patterns. The results of that study are presented in two documents, The Costs of Sprawl — Literature Review and Bibliography and The Costs of Sprawl — Detailed Cost Analysis. The literature review and bibliography summarizes the existing knowledge available to local government officials faced with development decision-making, and presents extensive bibliographies pertaining to that knowledge.