TY  - JOUR
AU  - Glaeser,Edward L.
AU  - Kahn,Matthew E.
TI  - Sprawl and Urban Growth
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 9733
PY  - 2003
Y2  - May 2003
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9733
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9733.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Edward L. Glaeser
Department of Economics
315A Littauer Center
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-0575
Fax: 617/495-7730
E-Mail: eglaeser@harvard.edu

Matthew E. Kahn
UCLA Institute of the Environment
Department of Economics
Department of Public Policy
Box 951496
La Kretz Hall, Suite 300
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1496
Tel: 310/794-4904
Fax: 310/825-9663
E-Mail: mkahn@ioe.ucla.edu
AB  - Cities can be thought of as the absence of physical space between people and firms. As such, they exist to eliminate transportation costs for goods, people and ideas and transportation technologies dictate urban form. In the 21st century, the dominant form of city living is based on the automobile and this form is sometimes called sprawl. In this essay, we document that sprawl is ubiquitous and that it is continuing to expand. Using a variety of evidence, we argue that sprawl is not the result of explicit government policies or bad urban planning, but rather the inexorable product of car-based living. Sprawl has been associated with significant improvements in quality of living, and the environmental impacts of sprawl have been offset by technological change. Finally, we suggest that the primary social problem associated with sprawl is the fact that some people are left behind because they do not earn enough to afford the cars that this form of living requires.
ER  -