The Cost of Sprawl

William Fulton, writing for CNN, explores the impact sprawl has on the financial resiliency of towns:

The cost is enormous. One study in Charlotte, North Carolina, found that a fire station in a low-density neighborhood serves one-quarter the number of households and at four times the cost of an otherwise identical fire station in a less spread out neighborhood. That sort of inefficiency adds up and multiplies as you take into account the hundreds of services cities must provide. What seems cheap on the one hand isn’t always when you look at it over the long haul.

The initial cost of expansion is covered by the new development. The next lifecycle is covered by additional growth. But what happens when a lifecycle is up and there isn’t more growth to cover expenses? You wind up with a lot of obligations for maintenance and repair with no means to pay for them. This is where many towns are now. We have overburdened our communities with obligations that just aren’t sustainable.

See Strong Towns for additional insight into how we can make our towns resilient.