USA Today article: Where will everybody live?

[JNA]

HEADLINE:
Where will everybody live?
How the USA copes with unprecedented growth in the next 3½ decades is about more than location. It's about how we live.

ARTICLE LINK:
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition...lionxx.art.htm

HIGHLIGHTS:

Can the USA, which trails only China and India in population, absorb another 100 million people in such a short time? Where will everybody live? Space itself isn't the issue. More than half of Americans live within 50 miles of the Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf and Great Lakes coasts on just a fifth of the country's land area,...

Among the ways the nation can absorb the next 100 million: Discussion points
Brownfields
Infill
Going vertical
Rail lines and transit villages
Ready-made cities

Book metioned in article:
This Land: The Battle Over Sprawl and the Future of America by Anthony Flint.
Anybody read it yet ?

Haya El Nasser, the USA TODAY reporter has done a good job covering urban issue.

This article was the cover story, decent in raising the issues however brief.

Teaser title changed. Please, no teasers outside of the FAC.

[mendelman]

Brownfields
Infill
Going vertical
Rail lines and transit villages
Ready-made cities

All of these and on the useless greenspaces in between in the suburban office parks. I also think that suburbs will not go away, but will get a bit denser (though, maybe not willingly at first), and many large suburbs in metro areas (50,000+ pop.) with large employment bases will start implementing their own public transit - probably streetcars at first.

[hilldweller]

All of these and on the useless greenspaces in between in the suburban office parks.

What about drainage/water quality issues?

[mendelman]

What about drainage/water quality issues?

Giant combined underground regional detention
Engineering actually making an effort
etc.

The development ideas will need to be completely rethought. We will not be able to continue to use present development standards/engineering.

[munibulldog]

Detroit could hold about a million additional people with a rebuilt water/sewer/road infrastructure.

[mendelman]

Detroit could hold about a million additional people with a rebuilt water/sewer/road infrastructure.

The sheer land area of the City could probably accomodate an additional 2 million. It is basically 126 square miles of single family detached houses.

[california dreams]

Another big question:

Where will we grow our food?

Do we plan to continue to import food from around the globe as fuel prices skyrocket?

Farmland is disappearing, and with it go our views of the landscape. We don't seem to value agricultural land in this country. Here's hoping that the local food movement can have some impact.

Look no further than small-town Europe to see how it's done right.

[michaelskis]

I think that a stronger push for urban revitalization will need to happen in order to not take up most of the land. If things continue, the first ring suburbs will be where the most impoverished will live. Downtowns will be mainly for younger professionals or empty nesters who have sold their homes for low maintenance condos.

[Citizen Kane]

It won't be an issue if we stop all of the illegal immigration! Growth would become much more manageable if we would properly manage our immigration, legal (which sometimes becomes illegal) and illegal.

[Dan]

I always thought that, as a way to both accommodate immigration and promote the revitalization of cities and towns bypassed by economic booms of the past, the federal government should offer incentives for immigrants to move to places like Detroit, Buffalo and Rochester; cities that can easily accommodate a much higher population, and which desperately need the economic and population boost that immigration can provide.

Booming western cities are handling growth better than those in the east, IMHO. Due to higher land costs, more permissive zoning, and very large original parcel sizes, suburban residential density is relatively high; homes are on smaller lots, and the land subdivision pattern is more efficient. I always thought that it was a paradox of American urban sprawl that in Western states where it seems like the supply of raw land is unlimited, the housing density of suburban development is much higher than in the crowded Northeast and Great Lakes regions.

[passdoubt]

I always thought that it was a paradox of American urban sprawl that in Western states where it seems like the supply of raw land is unlimited, the housing density of suburban development is much higher than in the crowded Northeast and Great Lakes regions.

I think municipal fragmentation and the home rule tradition has a lot to do with this. The Northeast and Midwest have a lot of tiny municipalities competing with each other for tax dollars, while powerful Western counties can manage growth with more of a regional perspective.

[cololi]

The article only touches on the subject of growth. I think housing all of these people will be the easy part. The much tougher problems with much costlier solutions are tranportation (how are we goping toget around, how will goods and services get delivered); food supply, water quality, storm drainage, open sapce preservation, and maintaining biodiversity. Also, the industries that we rely on will be greatly impacted (mining, drilling, forestry, etc). These issues rarely get addressed in major publications. The housing really isn't the most important issue.

[B'lieve]

I think municipal fragmentation and the home rule tradition has a lot to do with this. The Northeast and Midwest have a lot of tiny municipalities competing with each other for tax dollars, while powerful Western counties can manage growth with more of a regional perspective.

Another reason is that most of the West has a much more limited water supply. There just isn't enough groundwater for residents and developers to drill wells where they please, and much of the water in the aquifers and streams that are there was claimed long ago by ranchers, farmers, and other early residents (and their heirs) whose legal water rights predate the arrival of most of the current population. So, most development, especially in the drier areas, is limited to places supplied by centralized water-supply systems (ranging from small community water districts drawing from a local river or aquifer to giant metropolitan systems like L.A.'s drawing from the Colorado or Columbia). Those systems, as generous as they have been in the past in extending their lines, only have the money and will to expand so far, so development doesn't quite spread as much as it does in the wetter East.

[Chet]

A some what related report was generated by Brookings about 2 years ago. I beleive it is still relevant today.

Linkie:

Toward a New Metropolis: The Opportunity to Rebuild America

Where will we grow our food?

Crop yields have risen over 80% in some parts of the country in the past 3 decades. Heck. Corn is so plentiful we're converting it to fuels instead of eating it.

[The One]

We are doing our part here in the desert of Arizona.....just look at the "Town" of Buckeye:
http://buckeyedevelopment.i-ology.com/demographics.aspx
http://buckeyedevelopment.i-ology.com/workforce.aspx
they should be able to handle most of the 100 million new residents and still have space left for parks and plenty of parking

The rest of us in Western Arizona are busy planning entire new communities, so we are doing our part......what about the rest of you slackers