Point: Sprawl and accessibility

At least until recently, accepted wisdom has held that sprawl is recent, particularly American and that it has been caused by a rapid growth in automobile ownership and use. It is also widely believed that for economic, social, environmental and aesthetic reasons sprawl is bad and should be stopped. A good way of doing this, many observers believe, is to promote “Smart Growth. ” Higher density and more compact urban pat-terns, proponents believe, would lead to less “automobile dependence, ” more walking and transit use and, as a result, better access to jobs and other activities and a better environment. 1 Misreading history ere are several problems with this formula. e first is that the diagnosis relies on an erroneous reading of history. Sprawl is neither recent nor particularly American, and it was in full force long before the advent of the private automobile. If sprawl is the outward movement of people at lower densities without any over-arching planning or control, then sprawl is as old as cities. e reasons for this are not hard to find. Living at the center of most cities from the earliest times until very recently meant congestion, pollution and highly unsanitary living conditions for most of the urban population. Whenever a new group of people had sufficient resources, many families were likely to try to escape the city, either by moving to the suburbs or getting a weekend or country house in the exurban belt beyond the suburban edge. is pattern was already fully visible in ancient Rome where those fortunate enough to have private transportation, meaning horses and carriages, were able to spend at least part of their time at the sea or in the cool hills east of the city. In the modern world, the outward sprawl of London from the beginning of the industrial revolution until about 1950 was certainly as great as anything seen since World War II in the United States. is is not surprising since London was the largest and most affluent city in the Western world. With densities of over 100,000 peopl