highway networks costing many billions which are the scene of extreme congestion during the home-to-work rush. 51 (a) Population growth and migration.-In 1790, only 5 percent of our population lived in cities and towns-"urban areas" in census parlance. Through steady evolution from a rural society the proportion had moved up to 40 percent by 1920 and the 1960 census found that over 60 percent of our people live in urban areas. This increase is more than local growth. It includes a population shift that has reduced the people living on farms from 32 million in 1920 to 21 million in 1959. In the latter year only 6.7 million of our civilian labor force was employed in agriculture.52 The 30 States for which preliminary 1960 census reports were available September 2, 1960, contained 1,970 counties. Over half of these counties, 1,057, had actual population decreases for the 1950-60 period. In the first 3 decades of this century the 11 largest cities grew at rates of 24 to 36 percent between each decennial census. These rates typify the swift pace of urban growth which in these years was almost entirely within the "city limits" and in new towns along rail lines. Like all population growth urban increases slowed very markedly between 1930 and 1940. However, in the post-1940 population surge the old central cities have not resumed their former rates of increase. Instead the suburban and exurban areas around the cities have had the major growth, leaving the old central cities with a very gradual increase up to 1950 and almost universal population decrease of 2 to 12 percent after 1950.53 Thus, while our population in the past moved to and grew in the cities it is now moving to and growing in the suburbs. The Census Bureau estimates 54 that suburban population in 168 standard metropolitan areas (hereinafter termed "metros") increased 29 percent in just 6 years, 1950-56, 44 percent in 9 years, 1950-59, and 12 percent in 3 years, 1956-59. Exhibit 1 displays this data and preliminary 1960 figures which show a 10-year increase of 47.7 percent in suburban population. This is a literal explosion in population terms and it is clear to suburban residents that it has been an explosion in terms of home building and highway congestion. When a group of 174 metros are ranked in order of estimated 1958 population, exhibit 2, and the rate of growth for each descending group of 25 cities is taken, the second ranking group had the most rapid growth. Except for the presence of the four oldest large cities with the most mature economic and population development the top 25 metros would have had the fastest growth. In other words, the bigger the metro, the faster it tends to grow. The slowest rate of growth was in the smallest group ranging from 150 to 174. These metros are in turn losing some of their potential growth to the larger metros. Our metros, of course, are growing much faster than the population at large, as shown in exhibit 2. Resources for the Future, Inc., has made population forecasts (exhibit 3) for a group of 16 out of the top 26 standard metropolitan areas. These 16 areas, including 2 of the oldest cities, are forecast to increase from 51.3 million people 51 U.S. Bureau of Census, "1950 Population Census Report P-AL," p. 5; and "1960 Population Census Preliminary Reports," series PC, p. 2. 62 U.S. Bureau of Census, "Statistical Abstract of the United States 1960," pp. 205, 615. 53 U.S. Bureau of Census, "1960 Census of Population," preliminary reports, series PC, p. 2. 54 U.S. Bureau of Census, "Current Population Reports," bulletins P-20-71 and P-20-98. The trend to individual family houses on larger than city lots which started in the 1880's and 1890's has since 1940 become clearly defined. According to the Urban Land Institute 56 we are converting farm and other rural lands to urban development at the rate of over 1 million acres per year. In the New York metro the average amount of land per new residence unit has increased 164 percent over pre1940 levels. In the Chicago area 20 square miles per year are being urbanized.58 A report by the Housing Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate 59 estimates a minimum of 16 million nonfarm dwelling units will be constructed in the United States during the next 10 years of which 12 million will be net increases to the inventory of available units. 57 Today we see active efforts by outlying residents to secure the zoning of exurban land for larger and larger lots, frequently 2 to 5 acres. To the extent these efforts are successful, urban population will become very thin the farther it spreads from the center of the old city. The thinner the population the higher are the total transportation costs per unit of service. Much of the early suburban growth along major highways was retail and commercial directed to the market provided by the passing motorist. The quality of more recent suburban commercial and industrial development has been greatly improved with the development of planned shopping industrial parks and limited access highways. The use of these ventures of single story buildings and large parking areas has had the same effect on land consumption noted in residential development. The New York Metropolitan Region Study 60 says that the amount of ground per industrial worker has increased 338 percent since 1922. These shopping and industrial employment centers are having two major effects on our metros, they are allowing people to live even farther from the central city and make less frequent use of its advantages, and they are creating satellite cores of commercial and industrial activity within the metros, thus decentralizing the city within the broad metropolitan areas. evidence, stability or decline of central business district employment in many cities, indicates these satellite centers are absorbing most of the employment increase in the metros. The (1) The impact of transportation on land use: The strip growth along our highways has been largely uncontrolled before the arrival of limited-access freeways and parkways, and since much of the growth was in county jurisdictions without zoning controls or landuse plans, an incongruous mixture of land uses and quickly obsoleted structures grew up. U.S. Route 1 from Richmond, Va. to Portland, 36 Urban Land Institute, Technical Bulletin No. 31, November 1957, "The New Highways: Challenge to the Metropolitan Region," p. 18. 57 Ibid., p. 43-"Between 1900 and 1940 in the New York Metropolitan region, each additional million of population brought about the conversion to urban conditions of about 70 square miles of open country. Between 1940 and 1954, each additinal million required the urbanization of 185 square miles. By 1975, more than 700 more square miles will have to be occupied by the growing metropolis and two-thirds of the total developed area of the region will have an open suburban character." "Chicago Area Transportation Study," 1959, vol. I, p. 1. Be "Study of Mortgage Credit," pursuant to S. Res. 221, Apr. 15, 1960. 60 Hoover and Vernon, "Anatomy of a Metropolis," Harvard University Press, 1959, p. 31: "The effects of new processes on land requirements in recent years have been phenomenal. The extent of the change is suggested by a survey of space used in 1956 in 239 plants in the New York Metropolitan Region located outside of the old cities of the region. The pre-1922 plants stand on 1,040 square feet of plot space per worker, while the plants built from 1922 to 1945 occupy 2,000 sqaure feet and those build after 1945 occupy 4,550 square feet of plot space par worker." These forces have caused national passenger auto registration to increase 45 percent between 1950 and 1959. Table 7 compares national figures with a group of 69 metropolitan counties for which comparable annual data are available. These counties include the cores of our most mature metros and adjacent suburban counties not included in the group are growing faster in recent years. TABLE 7.-Registrations of privately owned passenger autos 1 For list of counties included see app. J to this chapter, p. 631. Source: Annual issues of Automobile Facts and Figures; Automobile Manufacturers Association, Detroit, Mich. Most of the individual metropolitan area transportation studies state that auto registrations doubled or more during the 10 years before the date of the study and forecast increases of 75 to 100 percent in the next 10 years. (See exhibit 4.) These studies say that the great increase in the birth rate which began in 1940 is now producing nearly eligible drivers at a rate of over 2 million per year. The estimate of a 75 percent increase in autos in metropolitan areas in the next 10 years is confirmed by comparison with recently released forecasts of the Bureau of Public Roads.63 This forecast predicts 84,716,000 autos on public highways in 1971.64 Exhibit 5 shows that if the 69 leading metropolitan counties continue to increase their share of national auto ownership they would have a 71.3 percent increase in numbers by 1971. Some of our fastest growing metropolitan counties are not included in this group. The size and complexity of the traffic congestion problem is fully implied in this recounting of growth in people, cars, and land use. The costs of automobile transportation have become so immense that they will be fully treated in the following section. 63 U.S. Bureau of Public Roads, Public Roads, vol. 30, No. 12. A Fortune magazine forecast shows 80,100,000 in 1970; October 1959, p. 113. The trend to individual family houses on larger than city lots which started in the 1880's and 1890's has since 1940 become clearly defined. According to the Urban Land Institute 56 we are converting farm and other rural lands to urban development at the rate of over 1 million acres per year. In the New York metro the average amount of land per new residence unit has increased 164 percent over pre1940 levels. In the Chicago area 20 square miles per year are being urbanized.58 A report by the Housing Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate 59 estimates a minimum of 16 million nonfarm dwelling units will be constructed in the United States during the next 10 years of which 12 million will be net increases to the inventory of available units. 57 Today we see active efforts by outlying residents to secure the zoning of exurban land for larger and larger lots, frequently 2 to 5 acres. To the extent these efforts are successful, urban population will become very thin the farther it spreads from the center of the old city. The thinner the population the higher are the total transportation costs per unit of service. 60 Much of the early suburban growth along major highways was retail and commercial directed to the market provided by the passing motorist. The quality of more recent suburban commercial and industrial development has been greatly improved with the development of planned shopping industrial parks and limited access highways. The use of these ventures of single story buildings and large parking areas has had the same effect on land consumption noted in residential development. The New York Metropolitan Region Study says that the amount of ground per industrial worker has increased 338 percent since 1922. These shopping and industrial employment centers are having two major effects on our metros, they are allowing people to live even farther from the central city and make less frequent use of its advantages, and they are creating satellite cores of commercial and industrial activity within the metros, thus decentralizing the city within the broad metropolitan areas. evidence, stability or decline of central business district employment in many cities, indicates these satellite centers are absorbing most of the employment increase in the metros. The (1) The impact of transportation on land use: The strip growth along our highways has been largely uncontrolled before the arrival of limited-access freeways and parkways, and since much of the growth was in county jurisdictions without zoning controls or landuse plans, an incongruous mixture of land uses and quickly obsoleted structures grew up. U.S. Route 1 from Richmond, Va. to Portland, 36 Urban Land Institute, Technical Bulletin No. 31, November 1957, "The New Highways: Challenge to the Metropolitan Region," p. 18. 57 Ibid., p. 43-"Between 1900 and 1940 in the New York Metropolitan region, each additional million of population brought about the conversion to urban conditions of about 70 square miles of open country. Between 1940 and 1954, each additinal million required the urbanization of 185 square miles. By 1975, more than 700 more square miles will have to be occupied by the growing metropolis and two-thirds of the total developed area of the region will have an open suburban character." "Chicago Area Transportation Study," 1959, vol. I, p. 1. Be "Study of Mortgage Credit," pursuant to S. Res. 221, Apr. 15, 1960. 60 Hoover and Vernon, "Anatomy of a Metropolis," Harvard University Press, 1959, p. 31: "The effects of new processes on land requirements in recent years have been phenomenal. The extent of the change is suggested by a survey of space used in 1956 in 239 plants in the New York Metropolitan Region located outside of the old cities of the region. The pre-1922 plants stand on 1,040 square feet of plot space per worker, while the plants built from 1922 to 1945 occupy 2,000 sqaure feet and those build after 1945 occupy 4,550 square feet of plot space par worker.' Maine, is now the scene of recurring roadside slums that are a safety hazard, and a public detriment because they do not produce the tax revenues which could have been provided through long-term land use planning. Wilfred Owen, of the Brookings Institution, an outstanding authority on urban transportation problems in the United States, comments: 61 The worst roadside offenders in the American community today are the gas stations, used car lots and other establishments built to serve the motorist as part of the distribution and merchandising structure of the automotive industry. In addition to the effect of such ribbon development in jeopardizing highway investment through safety hazards, commercial properties strung along the highway right-of-way have caused the progressive deterioration of adjacent residential properties the value of which has been reduced by bordering land uses that are frequently unsightly and generally incompatible with their surroundings. The expectation that roadside commercial establishments will ultimately eat into contiguous land as population growth creates the need for further expansion has discouraged property owners from undertaking adequate maintenance and hastened the blight the uncontrolled-strip development makes inevitable. Such results clearly demonstrate the great influence, for good or ill, of transportation routes on land use. These highway routes were chosen in the past with little thought for local use and land development but rather for the shortest distance between cities or for the use of existing rights-of-way. The filling of open land between cities and adjacent to the highway has bred a sprawling, unsightly, inefficient, and rapidly growing megalopolis of merging communities from Maine to North Carolina. (c) The problems of rapid metropolitan growth. We have worshipped and encouraged growth in America and called it the principal measure of progress, but we need to clearly understand some of the less desirable results of our present patterns of urban growth. The Southern California Research Council in their excellent study "The Cost of Metropolitan Growth" relates urban blight to growth in the following paragraphs: As buildings grow older, they naturally deteriorate. However, the Los Angeles community is relatively new by eastern standards. If simple old age is not the primary cause of increasing urban blight in Los Angeles, what is? In many instances (if not in most), the principal cause of urban deterioration is rapid population growth. A pattern of concurrent metropolitan population growth and urban deterioration is becoming common. Heavy population influx into existing central areas leads to overcrowding and deterioration there: as a result, the middle class residents move out to the suburbs, and the poorer migrants take their places. In the central areas the tax base may shrink; in this event, the local governments in these areas may be unable to provide the services necessary to prevent still further deterioration. At the same time, new facil ities must be provided in the suburbs, at inflated prices, for the people who have fled the industrialized cities to "dormitory" communities, which often have no industry to share the tax bill. Similar comments may be found in "Guiding Metropolitan Growth" by the Committee for Economic Development, an excellent report. A high level of urban economic activity and full employment, together with the availability of low down payment housing credit and cheap automobile transportation, have placed suburban living within the reach of masses of U.S. citizens and they are rushing to it. Every Owen, Wilfred, "The Metropolitan Transportation Problem," Brookings Institution 1956, pp. 45-46. |