Don't Call It Sprawl: Metropolitan Structure in the 21st Century

In Don't Call It Sprawl, the current policy debate over urban sprawl is put into a broader analytical and historical context. The book informs people about the causes and implications of the changing metropolitan structure rather than trying to persuade them to adopt a panacea to all perceived problems. Bogart explains modern economic ideas about the structure of metropolitan areas to people interested in understanding and influencing the pattern of growth in their city. Much of the debate about sprawl has been driven by a fundamental lack of understanding of the structure, functioning, and evolution of modern metropolitan areas. The book analyzes ways in which suburbs and cities (trading places) trade goods and services with each other. This approach helps us better understand commuting decisions, housing location, business location, and the impact of public policy in such areas as downtown redevelopment and public school reform.

Table of Contents:
1. The world of today; 2. Making things better: the importance of flexibility; 3. Are we there yet?; 4. Trading places; 5. Downtown: a place to work, a place to visit, a place to live; 6. How zoning matters; 7. Love the density, hate the congestion; 8. Homogeneity and heterogeneity in local government; 9. The world of tomorrow.

About the Author :
William T. (Tom) Bogart has been Dean of Academic Affairs at York College of Pennsylvania since 2002. From 1990 to 2002, he was a member of the Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) faculty in the Weatherhead School of Management. While at CWRU, he served as chair of the Department of Economics and as a research associate of the Center for Regional Economic Issues. His work was recognized with the Outstanding Dissertation Award from the National Tax Association. Previous publications include, The Economics of Cities and Suburbs (1998). He lives in York, Pennsylvania with his wife and daughter.

Review :
Bogart takes the murky and overwrought issue of urban sprawl as his topic and succeeds in producing a literate and insightful book about urban economics. Don't Call It Sprawl is liberally sprinkled with illuminating and sometimes humorous quotations, and Bogart's conversational style is easy to read. Without resort to technical devices, Bogart explains the economic theories and statistical evidence that show why the pejorative view of "sprawl" is rooted in an obsolete view of urban economics. Not content with debunking old theories, Bogart offers a more relevant economic paradigm in which locations within a metropolitan region can be thought of as specialized "trading places," whose functions are constantly changing. Each change in land use is disconcerting to contemporary observers, but the changes are essential to the expanding urban economy. Don't Call It Sprawl does not hide its point of view, but Bogart's respect for his readers' intelligence will make them appreciate his insights even when they disagree with his conclusions." - William Fischel, Dartmouth University This book places sprawl in a historical context while presenting a unified review of the recent literature on polycentric urban areas. Bogart provides an economist's perspective on urban sprawl that is accessible to students and researchers in other disciplines. - Daniel McMillen, University of Illinois at Chicago This wonderful book does the seemingly impossible: it brings refreshingly original insights to our understanding of modern cities within an intellectually coherent but empirically relevant unifying framework, and it thoroughly engages the reader throughout. By re-conceptualizing what cities are - a complex web of 'trading places' in which households and firms seek to accomplish a variety of goals simultaneously - it goes beyond simplistic models that miss the rich set of interactions which cities support and foster, I enthusiastically recommend this book to academics in search of new ideas, to policy makers in search of ways to improve life in modern cities, and to anyone with an interest in understanding where our cities have come from and where they are going. - Thomas J. Nechyba, Duke University "A leading writer in what has become known as the anti-anti-sprawl literature, Bogart provides strong evidence that what we see as edge-city chaos has in fact a strong logic, and that failure to appreciate the economic, social and demographic cases of sprawl will frustrate any attempt to control or direct it." - Literary Review of Canada