It turns out we’re only 12th on the list of sprawling cities, according to the Arizona Republic:
Metropolitan Phoenix isn’t the poster child for sprawl, but it’s a sibling.
A new study called “Sprawl Costs: Economic Impacts of Unchecked Development” ranked the Valley No. 12 among the nation’s top 20 most sprawling areas.
Los Angeles took the top spot, and the Washington-Baltimore area was No. 2.
The study is one of the get-a-headline-by-inventing-a-big-scary-imaginary-peril variety, but it’s hard to argue that the Valley is not a sprawling place.
There is a cure of course: Stop building freeways to promote development. Areas already overburdened by traffic need freeways, that’s understood. But freeways like the 101, 202, 303 (and you’d better know there will be a 404) are built to create traffic problems, not solve them. When you build a freeway through empty land, it won’t be empty for long. The purpose of those outlying freeways–and of all those still to come in Pinal County–is to open up land to the dreaded sprawl–to subsidize future development.
