Since World War II, our growing cities and metropolitan areas, instead of becoming more compact, have sprawled across the countryside. There has been increasing concern that sprawl is upsetting the ecology, sapping the vitality of large and small cities alike, and devouring farmland at a dangerous rate.

Today, there is new urgency for containing sprawl. Sprawl has become one of America's notorious energy drains. It wastes energy by making mass transit too expensive and impractical in many urban areas. It stretches commuting distances and makes commuters excessively reliant on the most energy-burning form of transportation: the private automobile.

It leaves unused much of the capacity of schools, hospitals, fire stations and other urban infrastructure that still has to be maintained. It requires the duplication of this same infrastructure outside the city. In the private sector, it hastens the decay of existing commercial centers and fosters new ones far from where people live and work.

To halt the massive expenditures of energy caused by sprawl, we need to divert future growth into the large inventory of empty or sparsely settled land within existing communities. This does not mean halting growth; rather, it means directing growth to the right places. No-growth strategies that make housing for poor people more scarce, that increase unemployment and that exclude minorities from opportunity are not the answer.

The collection of plans found at TNDhomes.com begin to provide building solutions for infilling our existing towns and cities and establishing new towns. Publications such as the the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council's Strategic Regional Policy Plan and Dr. Reid Ewing's Best Development Practices, indicate that Florida's communities, streets and buildings alike are increasingly changing to more energy-efficient orientations and materials. Compact urban forms of development are 30 percent more energy-efficient in the long-term than existing sprawling development patterns.

If we are to continue this trend and increase energy savings and efficiencies even further, our ideas about how and where we construct buildings in southeast Florida must change and evolve along these lines.


This article represents a collaborative effort from our friends at Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council. Visit them on-line at www.tcrpc.org.