Mapping the Cost of Sprawl for Low-Income Workers

Since 1970 the region’s population is up only 50% while the space occupied has increased by 400%. Putting people, jobs, services, shopping, and amenities further apart raises costs for the public and private sector. Our hyper-fragmentation has been unable to hold back these forces, often working in concert.

The most tragic effect is the heavy burden placed on the poor. Unnecessary transportation costs in money and time crowd out housing, food, education, health care, childrearing, etc. and build no human or physical assets. Our policy priorities in transportation and housing have been exacerbating poverty.

As our build-abandon-build-abandon land use policy of the region carries on, we should expect the burden to become greater. The burden applies not just to households, but to the often tiny municipalities trying to serve them. It is fortuitous for them that the same built environment that’s not productive enough to fund the town government also forces poor people to drive, often poorly maintained cars, so they are marks for revenue generation via tickets and court fines. The incentive for other revenue sources grows as higher taxes chase declining services while the tax base erodes.