"Learning to Love Sprawl"

Here is a worth-reading review by Glenn Reynolds of Robert Bruegmann's new book, "Sprawl:  A Compact History."  (The Other Professor Garnett -- a property and land-use scholar -- is also working on a review, I hear . . . ).  Here's how it opens:

Everybody knows some things about sprawl: It's a recent, and largely American phenomenon; it encourages wasteful use of resources; it's aesthetically unpleasant; and it benefits the rich at the expense of the poor. We also know that it could be conquered if Americans just gave up their "love affair with the automobile" and favored mass transit.

Everybody knows these things, but Robert Bruegmann's new book, Sprawl: A Compact History, argues that they're untrue.

Sprawl isn't recent, says Bruegmann. Rich people have always wanted to sprawl:

"Ancient, medieval, and early modern literature is filled with stories of the elegant life of a privileged aristocracy living for large parts of the year in villas and hunting lodges at the periphery of large cities. . . . High density, from the time of Babylon until recently, was the great urban evil, and many of the wealthiest or most powerful citizens found ways to escape it at least temporarily."

Sprawl didn't become a problem until the wealthy and powerful were joined by the hoi polloi. Thanks to greater wealth and improvements in transportation, they were able to move from teeming tenements to less-urban settings. Once this started to happen -- before the automobile hit the scene, and beginning outside the United States -- social critics began to complain that sprawl was ruining pristine landscapes, and destroying the charm of urban life.

Now, I am -- I confess -- an urbanist who agrees with Philip Bess that human beings flourish in walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods.  At the same time, I am put off by many of the arguments and elitism of many urbanists, and I really like big-box retail and high-end chain restaurants.  It sounds to me like Reynolds and Bruegmann are on to something . . . .