Sprawl washing/sprawlwashing

The term "greenwashing" is used to refer to organizations that announce sustainability initiatives as a way to detract from their generally poor practices.

I have been critical about the announcement of the "Utah City" development in the Vineyard community of Utah County, Utah, which will be new urbanist, mixed use, aims to leverage a commuter railroad station, etc. ("Utah City breaks ground, a very ambitious TOD: A new transit-oriented development in Utah is planned with the density and amenities of a big city downtown," Congress for the New Urbanism).

It's 700 acres.  A tad over one square mile.

Utah County has over 2,000 square miles of land--I don't know how much is undevelopable because it's mountains.  Salt Lake County 800.  Davis County 634.  Again for Davis and Salt Lake Counties, a goodly amount of land is tied up in mountain ranges

Still, that's almost 3,500 square miles, that is developed as classic sprawl ("Study: Utah has second-fastest urban sprawl," Salt Lake Tribune, 2014).

Weekend travelers join the traffic on I-15 near Point of the Mountain near Draper 

Thursday, Aug. 30, 2018. Photo: Steve Griffin, Deseret News

So a development or two here and there, using nonsprawl principles, doesn't make any difference.  Although people criticizing my stance say it's an important step forward.

Meanwhile, Utah faces incredible drought (the Governor calls for praying for rain, "Utah governor asks citizens to pray for rain to end drought," AP), isn't expanding the Trax light rail system, does plan to widen I-15, continually fails to address air quality issues, is in danger of losing the Great Salt Lake ("‘Last nail in the coffin’: Utah’s Great Salt Lake on verge of collapse," Guardian), is a state dedicated to resource extraction especially of fossil fuels, etc.