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📅 Today's Story: As headlines debate whether the U.S. should embrace or reject suburban sprawl, this binary could be beside the point. One expert argues both urban and suburban growth are essential, and scalable solutions should guide housing policy.
HOUSING POLICY
Beyond The Sprawl Debate: Why Cities And Suburbs Both Matter |
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Subdivisions in Princeton, Texas (Source: trongnguyen)
📰 What Happened: A New York Times op-ed titled “Why America Should Sprawl” ignited controversy, prompting a rebuttal in Bloomberg CityLab defending urban infill. Housing researcher Alan Mallach critiques both stances, emphasizing that redeveloping single-family urban lots isn't scalable, while suburban growth isn't inherently bad.
🔍 A Closer Look: Urban infill often faces costly parcel assembly, zoning challenges, and limited appeal. By contrast, suburbs—particularly in the Sunbelt—are delivering, often at relatively dense levels (e.g., 5–7 units per acre in Princeton, TX). Austin and Minneapolis still rely on suburbs to accommodate their single-family growth. Meanwhile, ADUs and mixed-use accounts for 15–30% of new housing units in several West Coast cities.
🧠 Why It Matters: Mallach argues for a “both/and” strategy, dismissing what he considers a “false choice” between infill and sprawl. Scalable, diverse housing strategies—urban and suburban—are essential for solving the growing nationwide housing shortage. The real question is how to grow smartly, not where.
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