Costs of Growth Resources

When people discuss the "Costs of Sprawl" or "Costs of Growth" they may be talking about many different things. They could be talking about:

•The various negative effects of sprawl, some of which are not directly financial but whose economic cost can be estimated (pollution, health problems, etc.)

•The infrastructure cost of new residential development (i.e. schools, sewers, roads, etc.)

•A comparison of the cost of different development patterns (for example, sprawl v. compact infill) have on local governments, and hence taxpayers.

Below are a few resources to get readers started. At the bottom is an excellent bibliography for those interested in further reading.

Negative Impacts of Sprawl
A quick overview from the Sierra Club of the costs of sprawl, including rural landscapes, the natural environment, historic treasures, floods, and taxpayer impacts.

Infrastructure Burden Studies
Excerpts from Eben Fodor's Cost of Growth in Oregon report (1998), which estimates infrastructure costs for new residential development.

A study analyzes the fiscal impacts of four residential developments in unincorporated Wabash Township, Tippecanoe County, Indiana. Study by Larry DeBoer and Lei Zhou of Purdue University.

American Farmland Trust's "Cost of Community Services" studies determine the net fiscal contribution of different land uses to local budgets. Municipal records are reorganized to assign the cost of local public services to privately owned farm, forest and open lands, as well as residential, commercial and industrial lands. The result is a set of ratios that compare the annual income to the annual expenditures for different land uses.

Growth and Its Impacts in Oregon (2.7mb PDF, 1999)
A report from Governor Kitzhaber's Task Force on Growth in Oregon that calculated public costs of single family homes to be in the $30,000 to $50,000 range, only a part of which is recovered thru SDCs.

Cost Comparison of Differing Land Use Patterns
"Economic and Fiscal Impacts of Alternative Land-use Patterns" by Robert W. Burchell (Rutgers University). A chapter from "Land Use Decision Making: Its Role in a Sustainable Future for Michigan" MSU Extension, January 9-10, 1996. pp. 1-34.

Burchell compares planned development to sprawl and finds:

•Roads in planned development are 25 percent cheaper, schools 5 percent cheaper, utilities are 15 percent cheaper, and the other infrastructure costs are the same.

•Planned development does not increase housing costs and, in fact, may afford a small savings (six percent).

•Planned development consumes 40 percent as much land overall and 60 percent as much farmland and 17 percent as much fragile lands.

•Planned development is less costly on an annual basis to both municipality and school district by about two percent and requires less capital expenditure for school districts (about three percent).
Note: Unfortunately, we have not been able to locate a copy of this article on the Web.

Another fairly technical paper evaluates three different low-density development patterns as they affect water and sewer, police, fire, and school bussing services. "Fiscal Costs and Public Safety Risks of Low-Density Residential Development on Farmland: Findings from Three Diverse Locations on the Urban Fringe of the Chicago Metro Area." Published by Northern Illinois University. Authors: J. Dixon Esseks, Harvey E. Schmidt, and Kimberly L. Sullivan.

Opinion
The Cato Institute argues government highway investments encourage sprawl.

Further Reading
A good bibliography on the costs of sprawl.