Sprawl is an aggregate result of optimal
individuals’ location decisions and consumers’ choices that minimize their
out-of pocket costs in a market distorted by subsidizes and suburban local
land use regulation (Ewing 1994). Some of these subsidies favor transportation
infrastructure for private automobiles (Renner, 1988; Cameron, 1991; Voorhees,
1991; Hason, 1992a and 1992b; and MacKenzie, 1994) and the design of unnecessarily
large and extensive sewage systems (Binkley et al., 1975). Suburban
owner-occupied housing is heavily subsidized through the income tax code
(Raup, 1975 and Fischel, 1982). In fact, Lee concludes that “market
imperfections define sprawl and provide the justification for public intervention
to discourage sprawl (1979)”. However, the effect of governmental
regulations such as zoning ordinances, subdivision regulations, and building
codes are found to compound market failure, encouraging low-density development
and the strict separation of land uses, thus causing sprawl (Richardson
and Gordon, 1998).
Sprawl is encouraged by government subsidies that
may not cause people to move to the suburbs but lower the costs, skewing
the factors individuals weigh when making a location decision (Longman,
1998). Some public policies such as inflexible zoning codes and deductibility
of mortgage interest and real estate property tax also favor dispersal
of settlement (Gordon and Richardson, 1998). As a result, sprawl is a process
of cumulative causation where the dominant feedback loops (these subsidies
and public policies) are self-reinforcing instead of self-correcting as
they are in equilibrium models (Atkinson 1996).
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