ABSTRACT
A literature review by Ewing (1997) found poor accessibility to be the common denominator of sprawl. Sprawl is viewed as any development pattern in which related land uses have poor access to one another, leaving residents with no alternative to long-distance trips by automobile. Compact development, the polar opposite, is any development pattern in which related land uses are highly accessible to one another, thus minimizing automobile travel and attendant social, economic, and environmental costs. The following patterns are most often identified in the literature: scattered or leapfrog development, commercial strip development, uniform low-density development, or single-use development (with different land uses segregated from one another, as in bedroom communities). In scattered or leapfrog development, residents and service providers must pass by vacant land on their way from one developed use to another. In classic strip development, the consumer must pass other uses on the way from one store to the next; it is the antithesis of multipurpose travel to an activity center. Of course, in low-density, single-use development, everything is far apart due to large private land holdings and segregated land uses.
