Just in case you didn't recieve the forward:

[Rebuttal to USA Today's 2/22 Sprawl Index]
alison@...

A recent five-page spread in the 2/22 edition of USA Today examined
sprawl patterns in the nation's largest metro areas in attempt to
determine why some metro areas are more sprawling than others.
Surprisingly, the USA Today article ranked Los Angeles, the region most
commonly considered the poster child of sprawl, as the 44th least
sprawling place out of 48 metro areas studied and even less sprawling
than density dynamo New York City. Nashville was found to be the most
sprawling large metro area, followed by Charlotte; Greensboro, SC;
Austin, and Atlanta.

Transportation and smart growth advocates, however, have called
attention to what they believe to be major flaws in the USA Today's
Sprawl Index. The Index ranks metro areas by two factors: (1) the
portion of the metro area population that lives within an urbanized
area; and, (2) the change in that metric from 1990 to 1999. At issue,
according to advocates, is that the analysis relies only on population
density as a proxy for sprawl and at such low levels that do
not adequately reflect compactness. For example, while the urbanized
areas are defined by density (1,000 persons per square mile), the
cut-off point for urbanized areas would never be considered compact. A
density of 1,000 persons per square mile is roughly equivalent to
single-family houses on one-acre lots, assuming that 35% of every square
mile is used by roads, schools or open space, and that the household
size is 2.5 persons.

Equating sprawl with population density ignores a vast body of research
that characterizes sprawling areas as lacking five major attributes:
strong downtowns, thriving suburban centers, compact walkable
neighborhoods, suburban jobs/housing balance, and employment centers
with diverse services. Many of these measures can only be quantified at
the community level, and therefore can't be captured
bymetropolitan-level population densities, which lump sprawling ex-urban
land development with compact urban and suburban communities.

http://www.sprawlwatch.org

________________
CHRIS DEWOLF
urbanphoto.org