The American Dream run amok

I don't fully agree with the headline for this chart, which comes from the Cities21 website. Suburbanites are villains, or at least the development paradigm is villainous. Because of the difference compared to compact development, automobile-dominant suburban land use patterns use 40% more energy, because of gasoline use, compared to the urban average. And more dense urban forms consume far less energy than suburban forms.

It's not so much that we are "addicted to oil" as President Bush said in his State of the Union speech. We are addicted to a pattern of land use that requires and is dependent upon cars and gasoline for virtually all the transportation that is required to get around and within the 'burbs.

Bush Energy Plan, Matt Wuerker.

The American Dream (Levittown House, 1948, image from the Affordable Housing Institute blog.) turns into the American Nightmare.

McMansion in Arlington Virginia. Washington Post photo by Robert W. Reeder.

Index Keywords: sprawl; compact-development