Sprawl."It's an ugly word, conjuring images of some unshaven guy with a massive beer-gut in a T-shirt spread out over a ratty sofa in front of a television set droning endless football games.Given such imagery, "sprawl" is a clever and effective euphemism to denigrate a phenomenon in which tens of millions of Americans have affirmatively taken part: suburbanization.In search of a better life for themselves and their families, many individuals freely choose to endure longer commutes and greater inconveniences in exchange for larger, more affordable homes in safe neighborhoods.The debate among the relative desirability of urban, suburban, and rural lifestyles has raged forever and probably always shall; but in our free society, reconciliation of competing preferences in the realm of habitation always has been entrusted to free individual choice.Until now.The latest wave of politically correct conventional wisdom holds that government planners, rather than individual choices collectively expressed through the marketplace, should determine where people live.Obviously such a proposition, starkly stated, would make most Americans recoil.After all, homeownership is a cornerstone of the American Dream, and private property rights are its essential foundation.So, the planning enthusiasts necessarily effect a beneficent facade.They are not against suburbs; they are against urban sprawl.
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Clint Bolick (2000) studied this question.