Sprawl Versus Smart Growth Development in
New Jersey- Frequently Asked Questions
Q - What is Sprawl?
A - Sprawl is a dispersed pattern of urban growth
that imparts substantial negative impacts to communities and the environment
due to the spread-out location and configuration of new buildings.
Q- What are some of the social impacts associated to
sprawl development?
A - Research has demonstrated that sprawl
development creates substantial problems that impact the quality of life.
Some of the social problems associated to sprawl include:
1) increase in traffic
2) increase in taxes
3) loss of time
4) segregation of social classes
5) overcrowding of schools
6) health impacts such as obesity due to sprawl lifestyles
7) loss of revenue for older towns
8) loss sense of neighborhood/community cohesion
9) greater response times for emergency services
Q- What are some of the environmental impacts associated
to sprawl development?
A - Sprawl development is highly consumptive
of critical land resources. Many important natural resources can be negatively
impacted by sprawl including:
1) loss of wildlife habitat
2) degradation of water quality
3) loss of prime farmlands
4) increase in air pollution
5) increase in energy consumption
6) decrease in recreational land
7) loss of aesthetic affection for the landscape
Q - What is Smart Growth?
A - Smart Growth is a term coined to describe
patterns of development that avoid the negative characteristics of sprawl.
Smart Growth development strives to intelligently design new buildings and
guide new growth to occur in a manner that results in high-quality communities
and substantial open space preservation. One of the key goals of smart growth
is revitalizing and redeveloping existing communities. Many older failing
towns are ripe for economic revival and smart growth promotes redevelopment
of older areas over development of open space.
Q - What are some of the characteristics of Smart Growth?
A - The New Jersey Office of Smart Growth
characterizes smart growth as accomplishing the following:
Smart Growth Principles (from NJ Office of Smart Growth
website)
o mixed land uses
o compact, clustered community design
o range of housing choice and opportunity
o walkable neighborhoods
o distinctive, attractive communities offering a sense of place
o open space, farmland, and scenic resource preservation
o future development strengthened and directed to existing communities using
existing infrastructure
o transportation option variety
o predictable, fair and cost-effective development decisions
o community and stakeholder collaboration in development decision-making
Q - Why is addressing sprawl so important for New Jersey?
A- New Jersey is rapidly running out of
room for development. With 1,134 people per square mile, New Jersey is the
nation's most densely populated state (NJ's population density is even higher
than all European countries*, Japan or India). Development pressure in New
Jersey is elevated by its proximity to New York and Philadelphia as the
entire state is within 1 ½ hours driving time to at least one of
these cities.
Q - How fast is New Jersey developing land?
A - According to geospatial analysis utilizing
remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) conducted at the
Rowan University Department of Geography as well as Rutgers University Center
for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis, New Jersey is developing at the
rate of 16,600 acres per year. This is the equivalent of 41 football fields
of new growth every day. At the same time the Garden State is loosing 6,395
acres of farmland, 1,220 acres of wetlands and 7,456 acres of forest annually
to development. If New Jersey continues to grow at 16,000 acres per year
it will be the first state to run out of developable land within the next
several decades.
Q - How much of New Jersey's development is sprawl versus
smart growth?
A - Some types of new housing consume a
lot more land and impact the environment much more than others (i.e. they
are more sprawling). For example, upscale housing on 1-3 acre lots is responsible
for much of the sprawl in New Jersey during the last decade. These types
of large lot subdivisions represented 29% of the new housing units built
but consumed 68% of land lost to development. Conversely, 71% of new housing
units built in New Jersey were more compact and combined only consumed 32%
of the land lost to development. The large-lot dispersed housing is imparting
a disproportionate amount of impact and is the most sprawling.
Q - Isn't all the new development simply due to population
growth?
A- No. Although New Jersey's total population
increased by 700,000 between 1990 and 2000 (an increase of 8.6%), the increase
in land consumption for development far outpaced the growth in population
(Growing by an estimated 13%). Furthermore, 144 out of 566 New Jersey municipalities
(about 20%) actually lost population during the past 10 years. These factors
indicate that New Jersey's sprawl crisis is not only attributable to population
growth but also to the abandonment of older towns for new subdivisions on
the rural fringe. Many New Jersey residents are contributing to sprawl by
abandoning older suburbs and upgrading into rural dispersed development.
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