The Brookings Institution's report on growth in Pennsylvania, "Back to Prosperity: A Competitive Agenda for Renewing Pennsylvania" makes some important arguments regarding growth and development in Pennsylvania.
The summary is this: "We haven't grown much, but we've used a lot of land in the process (from 1982 to 1997, 201,800 acres, an increase of 42.6 percent of land used for urban purposes)."
Today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has two pieces in the Forum regarding smart growth and sprawl. The first piece, by Thomas Hylton, points out the direct and indirect costs of sprawl, and that economic development in cities and boroughs has subtle benefits.
Because they place homes, stores and offices in a compact area, towns are far more energy-efficient and environmentally benign than sprawling development.Writers for the Allegheny Institute say that older communities still get more subsidy from the Department of Community and Economic Development. What they don't include are the subsidies in the the form of highway and other infrastructure development costs. Posted by mastr at December 14, 2003 12:31 PM