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Sprawling coastal housing	Sprawl: Polluting a wave near you By Chad Nelsen MAKING WAVES, August/September 1999

Urban sprawl is coming to a community near you! Just as El Niño was the turnkey phrase of 1998, urban sprawl threatens to be the environmental buzzword of the new millennium. Presidential hopeful Al Gore has helped put the issue on the map by making it a central focus in his environmental. By now you are probably asking, Why does Surfrider care about urban sprawl? It doesn't sound like a beach issue to me. Well that couldn't be further from the truth. Urban sprawl may be the most insidious environmental problem of our age, one of its most harmful symptoms being detrimental effects on water quality.
National demographic trends indicate that our nation's coastlines are becoming more developed daily. As NOAA reports in their Trends in Coastal Areas:

Coastal areas are crowded and becoming more so every day. More than 141 million people about 53 percent of the national total reside along the narrow coastal fringes. Population growth in the 1990s has averaged about 1.1 million people per year. The population is projected to increase by about 24.7 million, reaching 166 million people by the year 2015. Most of this population growth will occur in the states of California, Florida, Texas, Washington, and Virginia. Together, California and Florida are expected to increase by 13 million people, more than half of the total increase in coastal population.

     The most alarming thing about this growth is that most of the housing developed to accommodate this growth will be poorly planned, sprawling urban development. The facts are startling! Sprawl: Polluting a wave near youUrban sprawl, the most common form of development, is destroying our coastal environment, burdening the economy and tearing the social fabric of our communities. The good news is that there are smart-growth alternatives that minimize the environmental, social and economic impacts while still allowing growth to occur.

The sprawling of America:
Since World War II, the United States has been transformed form a nation of urban dwellers to one of suburbanites. Recent trends show that cities and towns are becoming overwhelmingly dispersed as housing, jobs and stores move ever-outward to new suburbs. A telling example of our sprawling habits is that most of our new stores are located in suburban area mall complexes with enormous parking lots. In 1994, more than 80 percent of all new stores built in the United States were "big-box" superstores.

Environmental Impacts of Sprawl:
Beyond the obvious problems of increased traffic and decreased air quality associated with poor development and planning practices, urban sprawl has a profound and negative impact on our coastal water quality. Run off or non point source pollution is now the nation's leading threat to water quality, affecting about 40 percent of our nation's surveyed rivers, lakes and estuaries. It is this same water that is causing our coastal water quality problems.
      It is firmly documented that increasing the amount of impervious surface (e.g. parking lots, roads, etc.) in a watershed also increases flooding, erosion, and pollutant loads in the water. Runoff from new residential developments is up to ten times that of pre-development conditions, and runoff from commercial development is as much as 18 times higher. Meanwhile open spaces, rivers, and wetlands naturally filter run off water and improve the water qualit .
     The only way Surfrider is going find a solution to the pollution levels we consistently find while testing with the Blue Water Taskforce will be to improve the planning and design of existing and new developments in our communities.
     {{ Beyond the water quality issues, urban sprawl is eating up one of our most cherished resources, the beautiful physical landscape of the coasts. Next time you take off on a wave make note of the view on the hills above your favorite break. Odds are you will find row after row of cookie cutter homes. For example, in Southern California, sprawling development has destroyed over 90 percent of the coastal sage ecosystem. (use as the call out??) }} cut if necessary

Economic costs of urban sprawl:
To add insult to injury, this wanton development actually costs our communities money. Low-density, sprawling development is costly, inefficient and leads to a host of fiscal impacts, including tax increases, reduced levels of public services, and the subsidy of new developments by older communities and other taxpayers. Although many communities believe that new commercial development always brings a fiscal surplus, experience teaches us otherwise.

Urban sprawl is shredding our social fabric:
Not only is urban sprawl harming the environment and costing us money, it is making us unhappy. Urban sprawl increases traffic congestion, increases your commute distance, and forces you to use your car more often. Studies have found that people commuting by car exhibit higher stress levels than those commuting by transit when travel times are equal. It is startling to hear that Americans spend roughly one out of eight waking hours in their cars. Clearly there has to be a better way.

Solutions:
The good news is there are solutions to the sprawl disaster. These are known as the "smart growth alternative". By encouraging strong central cities and "infill" development the need for driving will be reduced, mass transit will work better and less open space will be paved. Maintaining agriculture and open space will conserve our precious landscape and make farming more efficient. Taming "big box" superstores will create strong and attractive town centers that are pedestrian friendly and encourage a sense of community. Not only will the "smart growth alternative" make you life more pleasant, it will make the water you surf in cleaner. So next time your community want to tear up another open field, go to your city council meeting and demand a "smart growth alternative".

Source: "Once There Were Greenfields: How Urban Sprawl is Undermining America's Environment, Economy, and Social Fabric," by F. Kaid Benfield, Mathew D. Raimi, Donald D. T. Chen, Natural Resources Defense Council, 1999. http://www.nrdc.org


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