A Little Urbanity links to this Planetizen article arguing that —gasp—- urban sprawl is deadly.
Before providing traffic fatality rates in the nations’s “most sprawled areas,” Todd Litman makes this blanket statement:
Many families move to sprawled, automobile-dependent suburbs because they want a safe place to raise their children. They are mistaken. A smart growth community is actually a much safer and healthier place to live overall.
But I can’t help but notice that two of the smart-growth cities Litman cites for its low automobile fatalities — Philadelphia and Baltimore —- also are among cities with the highest murder rates. For that matter, Greensboro’s 12 percent murder rate isn’t that much lower than Stokes County’s 15 percent automobile fatality rate. And we all know Greensboro’s a model of smart growth.
I’m sure smart growth advocates have reasons why this is an apples-oranges comparison. But since Litman draws the generalized conclusion that urban sprawl is dangerous, I’ll draw the conclusion that smart growth is dangerous. My guess is that high-density, new-urbanist city designs give criminals — admittedly poorer and without automobiles — greater access to law-abiding citizens and thus more opportunities to commit violent crime. Could also be that city officials are putting more time and resurces into smart growth planning instead of fighting crime on the streets?
With all due respect to Professor Wharton —he’s just the messenger here —- I just can’t buy the ‘smart growth or die’ argument. What really gets me about Litman’s argument is that he’s assuming people are just too dumb to know which living arrangement is best for their families.
