Today, most American cities are characterized by decaying central downtowns from which residents and businesses have fled to low-density suburbs spreading out around a network of increasingly congested freeways. This development pattern consumes open...

A term used in debates about urban growth, sprawl does not have a precise, academic definition. As a noun, it most often refers to spread-out development that requires people to use a car for every activity, because it strictly separates housing,...

Urban sprawl, also known as suburban sprawl, is the spreading of a city and its suburbs over rural land at the fringe of an urban area.[1] Residents of sprawling neighborhoods tend to live in single-family homes and commute by automobile to work. Low...

High life A letter to the editor from Frederick Forsyth takes me to task. Enough about Gstaad is its message. OK, but only because it's you, Freddy baby. Instead, I will treat you to a rivet-by-rivet description of tattooed oiks and thick-ankled slappers...

The United States has been suburbanizing for 50 years: people being pushed out of cities by high costs, deteriorating infrastructure and servicies, higher crimes rates, poorer schools and a lower quality of life; and being pulled into suburbs by more space, lower costs (including...

Land, location and liquidity -- they are the rocks on which modern property development builds. But what happens when land becomes scarce and shifting economics alter perceptions of what's desirable?That's the question confronting developers in many of America's major cities.Large tracts of land on the...

Farm-supply cooperative Southern States has closed 115 stores in the past six years, many falling victim to the same trend that has forced some of its traditional clients out of business _ urban sprawl. Like many farm-supply stores that have changed to sell grass seed...