ICSC Talk: Few Solving Sprawl

BOSTON-Symptoms of sprawl are inevitable and there’s not a lot that communities can do to prevent them, said some speakers at the International Council of Shopping Centers Research Meeting here at the Boston Park Plaza hotel. The speakers, on a panel called “Smart Growth: What We Know, What We Think We Know and What We Need to Know,” discussed the reasons for sprawl and gave a few examples of mixed-use projects that have combated it.

Sprawl is primarily caused by natural population growth and immigration, said Anthony Downs, a senior fellow at the Washington DC-based Brookings Institute, and there isn’t a whole lot that local governments can do to prevent those actions. Growing populations in areas have caused the building of low-density housing on large plots of land, the loss of farmland and major traffic congestion.

So far, most metropolitan areas, with the exception of Portland, OR, have been successful in combating sprawl, Downs said, and there may be little they can do. “Unfortunately I don’t think there’s any cure for traffic congestion,” he said. “It’s getting worse everywhere, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.”