Urban Discoveries Baltimore

Sprawl, Baltimore, is bad!  So very bad!  It takes up land that should be preserved, it makes commutes longer, and congestion worse.  Basically all it does is make life – especially life way out in the suburbs – a little bit worse.  And that just proves the point that the title of this post was trying to make.

But, despite the seemingly clear anti-sprawl logic of the above paragraph, sprawl is still happening… and it’s happening faster.  According to a recent Brookings Institute report, “Only 21 percent of employees in the top 98 metro areas work within three miles of downtown, while over twice that share (45 percent) work more than 10 miles away from the city center.”  And while that number’s pretty surprising, what’s even more surprising is that it’s getting worse.  According to the same study, “Employment steadily decentralized between 1998 and 2006: 95 out of 98 metro areas saw a decrease in the share of jobs located within three miles of downtown,” and, “In almost every major industry, jobs shifted away from the city center between 1998 and 2006.”  (Find the full report here.) So not only has sprawl increased over the last decade, but it’s being driven by industry.  And we – you, me, Baltimore – are as guilty as anyone.  The results show that the geographic distribution of jobs in the Baltimore-Towson metropolitan area has increased by 5.2 percent.  This doesn’t bode well, because much of the new industry developments are, to use the report’s term, edgeless, meaning that new commercial developments are spread out along interstates and commercial corridors instead of integrated into a city where true integration between business and residential uses could occur.  Edgeless development would create more congestion, higher commuting times, and fewer opportunities for public transportation; which in turn would mean an even greater consumption of goods and an even greater environmental impact.  And while it may be easy to blame industry for this, they’re only moving there because that’s where people live; if more people move back downtown, businesses will follow.  So live and work in the city, Baltimore; it’s a better life for everyone, we promise.

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