Sprawl Blues Can Be Avoided

We read a recent newsletter from the Eighth Federal Reserve District Bank of St. Louis that gauges urban sprawl in Memphis. The article discusses ways to make the city more efficient.

Memphis at 1.14 million people is about three times larger than Pulaski County (361,474). A combined 311,259 live in Benton and Washington counties.

Census predictions call for Northwest Arkansas’ population to eclipse that of Pulaski County by 2010. Although Memphis will still be much bigger, our projected growth and the Bluff City’s geographic proximity make a loose comparison valuable. Issues faced during the suburbanization of Memphis now confront this area, even if on a smaller scale.

The bank said the economic antidotes for urban sprawl are “incentives that make a city less automobile dependent.” That requires more efficient forms of public transportation, and the redevelopment of metro areas for mixed-use facilities. Cars offer freedom, but we need alternatives.

The public and private costs of extending roads and sewer systems to the suburbs cannot be denied. And nearly all of it is the direct result of urban sprawl.

Memphis spent $1.3 billion over the last decade on new roads, or 5-to-1 what it spent on maintenance. Suburb sewer costs were 4-to-1 more than downtown.

According to the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission’s 2025 report, more than $220 million in federal highway and collector road money will be used here by then. That doesn’t include millions more in city money or much directed toward proposed toll highways.

This area’s urban spine is spreading. Huge chunks of pasture land now bordering local cities will be shops and homes in 20 years. What then will become of our metro midsections? We need more downtown residential redevelopment.

Anyone who’s driven through Germantown, Tenn., lately knows its full of the homogenized, earth-tone buildings that have come to stand for the blitzkrieg commercialization of the new South.

But look inside the Interstate 240 loop that surrounds Memphis. Besides Beale Street and a few other sectors, the metro area is mostly a gray stretch of boarded-up wasteland. Last year was the first in Memphis’ history when more people lived outside I-240 than inside.

The day when more people live in an arc from Goshen around to Centerton, and Highfill around to Elkins is coming. How it’s dealt with now will determine the efficiency of our cities in the future.