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PLAIN ECONOMIC SENSE

For release after November 2, 1998

Column 353

What are the Concerns about Sprawl?

By Mark A. Edelman
Extension Public Policy Economist
Iowa State University Extension to Communities

There is little question that sprawl occurs because in most cases, it is the preferred product, and it is provided by the existing market and policy context, and it is cheaper to assemble and develop open space land than to redevelop areas of the core city. My observation is that this generally holds true in rural communities as well as core metro areas. If sprawl is so desirable, why should citizens be concerned? There are two principle arguments.

The first is that we need to protect the capacity and aesthetics of our farmland, forests and open-space resources for future generations. Certainly no one disputes the suggestion that urban areas have been growing and that average densities have been declining in most metro areas. This means we are converting open space land at a faster rate than urban population growth. However, beyond that statement, trends and opinions differ by perspective.

Although everyone notices sprawl around metro areas such as Des Moines and Cedar Rapids, what are the impacts on agricultural capacity? Urban area in towns and cities of more than 2,500 in population accounted for 3.1 percent of the U.S. total land area in 1992.

Luther Tweeten, a nationally recognized agricultural economist and native Iowan, suggests the rate of farmland loss depends on the perspective. For the nation, land in farms fell from 1.1 billion acres in 1945 to 1.0 billion in 1992. The loss averaged 3.5 million acres or 0.3 percent per year. If the trends continued, the projected loss would exhaust all farmland in 349 years. But not all farmland is productive cropland. So if we only look at cropland, what happens? In contrast to the total farmland picture, the U.S. actually had more cropland in 1992 than in 1945. If we use this trend, there is no threat to our food security.

While the cropland acres did decline between 1982 and 1992, only 41 percent of this loss was due to urban development. Tweeten's analysis shows that if the 1982 to 1992 trend continued and urban use was the only claimant, our 460 million acre base of cropland in 1992 would last 1,200 more years -- not 349.

Furthermore, only 39 percent of the converted cropland between 1982 and 1992 was classified as prime cropland. Tweeten suggests that highways, parks, wetlands, recreation, wildlife, rangeland, pasture land, forest land, water reservoirs and military land use account for the bulk of cropland loss. Many of these uses are more reversible than the conversion of cropland to residential or other urban uses.

From a food production capacity perspective, we also have more than 30 million acres in the conservation reserve program set aside from production. In addition, crop surpluses are increasing and we export one out of every three acres of grain. Crop yields continue to increase faster than population growth thanks to technology and production management. Therefore in contrast to some propaganda, the bottom line is that the loss of farmland to urban development will not seriously compromise our national food production capacity in the near future.

Does that mean concern is misplaced over the conversion of farmland? Not necessarily. Some people point to our society's long history of maintaining a conservation ethic as the basis for protecting farmland. In some cases, residents do not want their neighbors to sell farmland, even when the price may be several times greater than the value generated from agriculture use. Urbanized pressure is much stronger in the coastal states, and there are legitimate concerns in some areas that a threshold level of farms is needed to sustain agricultural supply industries of the region. If the supply industries are lost, then all farms in the region become less competitive.

In other cases, large numbers of people prefer the aesthetics of seeing open space, unique agricultural and open-space resources, traditional family farms or rural community characteristics compared to the changes brought by more urban development. So the problem becomes a political issue that may involve real tradeoffs among economic development and jobs for the community, agricultural competitiveness of the region, aesthetics and quality of life.

The second argument is built on the assertion that not all development costs are figured into the market prices paid by the consumers of the sprawl. Some of these costs include dually supporting new infrastructure and underutilizing the infrastructure abandoned in central cities. I would also add rural communities to this argument because they have complained about the consequences of population loss and underutilization of infrastructure longer than central cities.

But the point is that as a society we are paying for new infrastructure at the same time we are sometimes foregoing maintenance on the existing infrastructure and services. So the issue becomes one of how much infrastructure can we support and whose infrastructure should be supported.

There are three strategies to managed growth: (1) protect farmland from development, (2) foster higher density development on the rural-urban fringe, and (3) encourage infill and redevelopment in central cities and rural communities. Some of the costs and consequences of the options will be examined in future columns.

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Edelman is a professor of economics and an extension public policy specialist at Iowa State University.


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