Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 1999, volume 26» pages 555-371

Do land-use controls cause sprawl?

RPendall
Department of City and Regional Planning, Cornell University, 106 West Sibley Hall, Ithaca,
NY 14853, USA; e-mail: rjpl7@corncll.cthi
Received 24 August 1998; in revised form II January 1999

Abstract Low-density urbanization, also known as urban sprawl, has accelerated in the United States
in recent years, In this article I will test the cumulative influence of locally adopted (municipal) land-
use controls on sprawl. Land-use controls that shift the cost of development onto builders and away
from the general public arc found to reduce sprawl; those that mandate low densities are found
cumulatively to increase sprawl, whereas urban containment systems have limited cumulative effects.
Further, regions whose local governments rely on ad valorem property taxes to fund services and
infrastructure tend to sprawl more than those that rely on a broader tax base.

Introduction
In the decade between 1982 and 1992, over 13 million acres in the 48 contiguous states
of the USA and Hawaii changed from forests, fields, and rangcland to urban uses, a
remarkable increase in urban land of more than 25% (US Department of Agriculture,
1995). Meanwhile, population increased by only 11% (US Bureau of the Census, 1996a;
1996b). This extraordinary change manifests itself in reduced density: the population
density of the average acre of land converted to urban use during this period was only
40% of the existing urban average in 1982. Following this decade of low-density
conversion of land, concerns have rccmcrgcd over the cost of 'sprawl'.
Most of the public policies that encourage or limit low-density development (sprawl)—
including fiscal arrangements, income-tax deductions for home-mortgage interest pay-
ments, and highway spending—emerge at the state or federal level. At the local level,
however, municipalities, counties, and their residents can affect their development density
by adopting land-use controls. Zoning, urban growth boundaries, building-permit
limitations, residential moratoria, and infrastructure charges can all affect the pattern
and density of new development. If state and local governments wish to promote more
compact development, then they should be aware that some land-use controls may fight
sprawl, whereas others promote it.
In the first section, a working definition of sprawl is developed. In the second section
the literature on the causes of sprawl is reviewed, and in the third section the hypotheses
tested by the current research are presented. In the fourth section, which presents the
results of the current research, I first set the background, showing that population
density is strongly and directly related to land values and that density is also related
to metropolitan political organization, local government spending, and traffic conges-
tion. After controlling for these four factors, the research provides strong evidence in
support of my hypothesis that municipal and county land-use controls have cumulative
effects on density. The results suggest, in particular, that local growth-management
programs whose goals include compact development should concentrate on ways to
make growth pay its own way, while discouraging low-density zoning and annual limits
on residential building permits.
556 R Pendall

The meaning and causes of sprawl

Social scientists may wish to avoid words like 'sprawl' freighted as they are with
multiple meanings and a pejorative sense. The popular media, however, continue to
employ the word. Advocacy groups rallying support for a different pattern of develop-
ment decry sprawl and thus it retains its currency in the planning and development
literature (for example, see Ewing, 1997; Nelson and Duncan, 1995, chapter 1). Nelson
and Duncan have "synthesized" a broad definition of sprawl (1995, page 1):
"Unplanned, uncontrolled, and uncoordinated single-use development that does not
provide for an attractive and functional mix of uses and/or is not functionally
related to surrounding land uses and which variously appears as low density, ribbon
or strip, scattered, leapfrog, or isolated development."
More recently, Ewing (1997) has identified four characterizations of sprawl: low-
density, strip, scattered, and leapfrog development. Ewing acknowledges that these
distinctions may simply be "... a matter of degree. The line between scattered develop-
ment, a type of sprawl, and multicentered development, a type of compact development
by most people's reckoning, is a fine one" (Ewing, 1997, page 108). That is, sprawl and
nonsprawl are not necessarily categories into which we can easily fit a development
pattern, but rather directions on a continuum.
These four characteristics of sprawl are integral to its full meaning and may ultimately
be subjected to systematic measurement. Landscape ecology has developed measures,
such as the amount of edge, the number of patches, and the size of core areas, that could
all describe quantitatively the degree of sprawl in its strip, scattered, or leapfrog senses
(Forman, 1995). Such a description would require detailed analysis of aerial photographs,
a task requiring large investments of time and expertise and perhaps amenable to one
urban area at a time. Low-density development, on the contrary, can be analyzed now at
the national level by using measures discussed in a subsequent section of this article.
Among the factors that govern the density of development and thereby contribute
to a more or less sprawling development pattern, land value is probably most impor-
tant (for the theory, see Alonso, 1964; Mills, 1969; for empirical examples, see Knaap,
1985; Nelson and Duncan, 1995, page 75). All else being equal, more sprawl occurs where
land values are lower. In areas that produce high-value agricultural crops, farmers will
bid successfully against low-density house builders and maintain the land in agriculture.
The relationship also works the other way round: the only crops on which farmers can
profit in the shadow of urbanization are those that fetch fairly high prices (vonThimen,
1966). High house values, similarly, both reflect and perpetuate high land values. When
landowners know that builders can sell their products at a high price, they raise their
asking price for land accordingly. Builders respond to high land prices by raising density,
within limits imposed by consumer demands and zoning restrictions.
Many observers have drawn connections between infrastructure investments and
reductions in urban densities. Until the early 1800s most urban dwellers limited their
search for housing to the areas they could reach on foot; they were also somewhat
confined by the proximity of community wells. In the 1800s, however, private interests
began operating mass-transportation firms and water supply companies. The ulterior
motive of this infrastructure development was often to accommodate growth in outlying
parcels owned by the very companies that ran the pipes and tracks (Fogelson, 1993;
Scott, 1985; Warner, 1978).
In the 20th century, the federal government began to assume responsibility for major
infrastructure investments, most famously in the interstate highway system but also
importantly in urban water supply and treatment facilities (Freeman, 1990, pages 98 -105;
Jackson, 1985, pages 249f;). In both sewage treatment and highways, suburban residents
benefited more than they paid for the new services, although debates continue over the
Do land-use controls cruise sprawl? 557

extent of this subsidy and its impact on density reduction (Ewing, 1997; Gordon and
Richardson, 1997a; 1997b). Local governments also have a tradition of subsidizing new
schools, roads, sewers, libraries, and other facilities by floating general obligation
bonds that were repaid by higher property taxes on established residents. Many local
governments in the USA continue to depend on property taxes for the majority or the
plurality of their revenues, although this dependence has declined substantially on
average in the past forty years.W
Sprawl also has been connected with 'whileflight*,that is, the desire of non-Hispanic
whites to move away from minorities, especially African-Americans (Farley et al, 1978).
In recent years African-Americans have moved into the suburbs in increasing numbers
(Schneider and Phelan, 1993; Stahura, 1986), and metropolitan measures of segregation
have declined in most regions (Farley and Frey, 1994). Even so, the average distance
between whites and blacks in the USA has remained high, as whites have moved farther
into the suburbs and exurbs (Galster, 1991).
Several forms of fragmentation have been suggested as additional contributors to
sprawl. First, fragmentation of farm ownership leads to a more scattered development
pattern than would otherwise occur because farmers' decisions about when to sell for
development do not necessarily coincide with their neighbors'decisions. Land in one large
ownership can be planned for a relatively high density of development, as suggested by
Pciscr (1984) and by the experience of the Irvine, California, and Columbia, Maryland,
new towns (Hoppcnfcld, 1967).
Columbia and Irvine also illustrate the effects of a second kind of fragmentation:
municipal fragmentation. Columbia, an unincorporated settlement in Howard County,
has been built out much as planned, in part because, although early residents wished
to preserve the open space that would later turn into additional housing, they could
not incorporate and wrest control from county-level decisionmakers (Craig, 1996;
Tenncnbaum, 1996). Development plans for Irvine, by contrast, were scaled back after
growth-control advocates won a majority of scats on the first city council after incorpo-
ration in 1971 (Schiesl, 1991, page 73). More generally, intermunicipal competition can
lead to sprawl for several reasons. For instance, the metropolitan public economy school
(Bish, 1971; Schneider, 1989; Tiebout, 1956) has concentrated on the attempts of muni-
cipalities to limit new entrants and thereby limit the Tree rider' problem. Presumably, the
nonentrants must live somewhere else. When a county includes only a few municipalities,
however, few fiscal incentives exist for such exclusionary behavior.
Finally, local governments' land-use policies have been hypothesized, and some-
times found, to influence land-use patterns. Fischel (1990) cites work by Moss (1977) and
Sheppard (1988) which shows that suburban development constraints probably induce
sprawl. Chinitz (1990, page 7), on the contrary, contends that "the direct line that some
people have drawn from growth management through urban sprawl to greater auto-
mobile usage and its adverse consequences for the environment is fraught with fallacy".
Displaced growth could go to infill locations, not farther into the exurbs.
The spatial effects of land-use controls probably depend on the type of control.
Zoning for large lots, limiting issuance of building permits, and establishing moratoria
on development, for instance, can limit the supply of new housing in the jurisdictions
that impose them;(2) Demand for housing that goes unsatisfied because of the control
W According to data from the US Government's Census department, local governments across
the United States acquired about a quarter off their revenues from property taxes in fiscal year
1994-95, compared with 48% in 1962 (US Bureau of ^ ^
in six states still depend on property taxes for more than half of their revenues, on average.
(2)
In practice, growth controls do not always really control growth (Landis, 1992; Warner and
Molotch, 1995).
558 R Pendall

will probably be satisfied in another location but empirical studies provide mixed
evidence on whether development will occur as infill in existing urbanized areas or as
sprawl in newly developed areas. Shen (1996) estimated the population that would have
resulted by 1990 in 124 zones of the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area in the absence of
any growth control. When he compared this 'unrestricted' outcome to the pattern observed
with growth controls, he found that annual limitations on building-permit issuance
reduced population growth by over 10%. Cumulatively, these permit caps dislocated
more than 20% of the region's population but Shen's maps suggest that the displaced
residents found housing not only in outlying Solano County but also in close-in locations
on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay (Shen, 1996, page 83). In another estuarine case
study, Feitelson (1993) concluded that laws protecting Chesapeake Bay would probably
not cause sprawl because infill housing could still be built close to the water.
Reduction of sprawl is the goal of other land-use controls. Urban growth boundaries,
for example, are supposed to create more compact urban areas (Nelson and Duncan,
1995, chapter 6). Studies of Oregon's growth boundaries (ECO Northwest et al, 1991;
Knaap, 1985) show that they have contributed to increased density in some metropolitan
areas, but only when coupled with local zoning ordinances that preclude suburban
development outside the boundary and encourage smaller lot sizes inside. The growth
boundary system in Oregon presupposes that all jurisdictions act in concert to adopt
growth boundaries. The effects of urban growth boundaries adopted piecemeal by
municipalities within a region are unclear; like other land-use controls tested by Shen
(1996) and Feitelson (1993), they may displace growth to outlying areas, encourage infill,
both, or neither.
Insofar as sprawl is subsidized, the best way to stop it may be to make growth 'pay
its own way', as has become common in California since the passage of Proposition 13
(Landis, 1995). Local governments have developed ever more elaborate systems to
replace property-tax revenue with charges to developers for the schools, parks, roads,
police and fire stations, storm-water infrastructure, libraries, and other urban systems
that require construction to maintain a given service level as the population increases.
These 'adequate public facilities ordinances', or APFOs (White, 1996), sometimes adopted
in parallel with development impact fees, should promote higher densities and dis-
courage sprawl as landowners and consumers both seek economies in land.

Hypotheses and data

As suggested earlier, the measurement of sprawl is not straightforward, partly because
of the variation in how sprawl is defined. Conceptual difficulties aside, calculation of
urban density has been difficult nationally in the USA because the nation has not
historically collected much data on the spatial extent of urban development. In recent
years, however, the US Department of Agriculture has made available its National
Resources Inventory (NRI) (US Department of Agriculture, 1995) for research purposes;
the NRI, a spatial survey conducted every five years, includes data on major categories of
land use for nonfederally owned land. In this article I take advantage of the NRI to
develop a measure of sprawl (which, to be more accurate, is a measure of density): the
change in county population between 1982 and 1992, as estimated by the US Census (US
Bureau of the Census, 1996a; 1996b), divided by the change in urbanized acres of land
over the same period as estimated in the NRI. This measure is the dependent variable for
this study.
The independent variables in this research listed in table 1, relate to the following topics:
percentage of land area under formal (legal) control, farm characteristics, metropolitan
fragmentation, housing values, local government spending, transportation infrastructure,
Do land-use controls cause sprawl? 559

Table L Hxpectcd effects of land-use controls and other variables on the density of new develop-
ment (sources: US Bureau of the Census, 1985; 1996a; 1996b; 1998: US Department of Agriculture,
1995).

Independent variables ftxpeeted Source

effect

Percentage of land area controlled

Adequate public facilities ordinance
Building-permit cap
Low-density-only zoning
Residential moratoria
Urban growth boundaries -1-/-
Farm characteristics, 1982
Value of farm products sold per acre,
$ thousand
Average farm size
Number of farms, thousand
Metropolitan fragmentation, 1990
25th-percentile jurisdiction area,
thousand km2
Number of jurisdictions
Housing values
Median house value in 1980, $ thousand
Pcrccntagc change in median house value, -h
1980-90
Local government spending, 1981-82
Debt per capital, $ thousand
Property-tax reliance"
Transportation infrastructure
Percentage of 1981 local spending in
highways
Average travel time to work in 1980,
minutes
Minority population, 1980
Percentage of population non-Hispanic black --
Percentage of population Hispanic
Dependent variable: new population 1982- 92/
ncw urbanized land, 1982-92
lx
Property-tax reliance is the local government spending
-|- Survey
- Survey
- Survey
- Survey
Survey
-|- Census of Agriculture
-I- Census of Agriculture
- Census of Agriculture
-I- •Census'of Population and Housing
- Census of Population and Housing
-h Census of Population and Housing
Census of Population and Housing
- Census of Governments
— Census of Governments
- Census of Governments
-f Census of Population and Housing
Census of Population and Housing
HH-- Census of Population and Housing
Census of Population and Housing,
National Resources Inventory
divided by property-tax revenues.

and minority population. The table shows hypothesized effects of these variables upon
the dependent variable, along with the sources for all data used in the study.
I collected land-use control variables in a survey of 1510 jurisdictions in the 25
largest metropolitan areas'of the USA. The survey, to which 1168 jurisdictions (77%)
responded, asked local planners, engineers, and other knowledgeable informants about
the presence or absence of a series of,land-use controls, including zoning, urban
growth boundaries, permit moratoria, building-permit caps, and APFOs. I used these
responses to calculate the proportion of the land area of responding jurisdictions to
which a particular land-use control applied. Say, for instance, that 10 of the 15 juris-
dictions in a county responded to the survey. If one jurisdiction with 10 square, miles
employed a building-permit cap, and nine other jurisdictions with a total of 90 square
miles did not, then we would assume that 10% of the entire county was controlled with
building-permit caps:
560 R Pendall

In all, the 25 metropolitan areas surveyed included 180 counties in 24 states and the
District of Columbia. In this article only the 159 counties that gained population
between 1982 and 1992 are analyzed; it is assumed that the reasons for density changes
in these counties differ from those in counties where the population fell. The 159 growing
counties added 12.2 million residents and 3.2 million acres of urbanized land between
1982 and 1992/3>
My study tests seven bundles of hypotheses regarding the density of new develop-
ment. In brief, the seven contentions are that land use will be more dense (less
sprawling) if: (1) appropriate land-use controls are in place and others are absent; (2)
farms produce valuable products; (3) municipal fragmentation is limited; (4) housing
prices are high; (5) local governments do not rely heavily on property taxes to finance
public services and infrastructure; (6) transportation accounts for smaller proportions
of public spending; and (7) the proportion of black residents is lower, and that of
Hispanic residents is higher.
The first set of explanatory variables concerns land-use regulation. We measure the
percentage of land area under control by various methods. By hypothesis, APFOs will
increase compactness. They mandate that infrastructure capacity remain at particular
levels of service and require developers to pay for the expansions needed to accom-
modate new growth. Developers and landowners will respond by using land more
efficiently, that is, at higher densities. Low-density-only zoning, building-permit caps,
and moratoria, in contrast, will reduce compactness (that is, they will fuel sprawl). Urban
growth boundaries may either fuel sprawl or encourage compactness (for elaboration, see
Feitelson, 1993; Nelson and Duncan, 1995).
The second set of explanatory variables concerns farm characteristics: value of
farm products per acre, average farm size, and the number of farms in the county.
Development in counties with more productive farmland should be relatively compact
because farmers will outbid developers more frequently. Similarly, larger farms, and
smaller numbers of farms, might be thought to encourage less scattered development
because the owners of such farms will be more able to maximize the values of land
converted to urban use. Large holdings, however, may also represent easy targets in the
political process. Their owners may be forced to make more concessions than the
combined owners of numerous small holdings, resulting in lower density development.
The third set of explanatory variables concerns metropolitan fragmentation. By
hypothesis, metropolitan areas dominated by physically extensive jurisdictions and
those with fewer municipalities will be more compact. More extensive municipalities
and counties are more likely to phase development and make other decisions that will
reduce service costs. Two metropolitan fragmentation variables are included: the area
in square kilometers of the 25th-percentile jurisdiction (that is, the size of the jurisdic-
tion at which 75% of the jurisdictions are larger and 25% smaller), and the number of
municipal and county jurisdictions.^ To obtain these variables, I used the 1990 US
Census of Population and Housing, which supplies information about the incorpora-
tion of places, and supplemented it with research on powers to regulate land use at the
county, township (town), and city or village level.

(3)
Twenty-one counties lost population; their cumulative population fell by 700 000 (3.4%), while
their urbanized area increased by about 200 000 acres (6.4%). All 21 counties added at least some
urbanized land.
<4> The 25th percentile is used primarily because the average and median jurisdiction sizes were
collinear with other dependent variables. The maximum absolute value of any of the Pearson's R
coefficients of the independent variable matrix is 0.38; the complete matrix is available from the
author on request.
Do land-use controls cause sprawl? 561

The fourth variable set concerns housing prices. High and rapidly growing housing
prices should promote more compact development because high house prices translate
backward to high land prices, and high land prices promote higher densities. Median
house values from 1980, as reported by owners, and the percentage change in median
house values between 1980 and 1990, were obtained from the 1980 and 1990 Census
of Population and Housing.
The fifth hypothesis, on local government spending, is that high debt and heavy
reliance on property taxes promote less compact development. These characteristics of
government fiscal policy indicate that current residents are paying to subsidize new
growth. Data for all jurisdictions (debt per capita and reliance on property tax per capita)
were obtained from the Census of Governments via the USA Counties CD-ROM.
Sixth, transportation infrastructure is hypothesized to affect the density of land
development in the following ways. Areas with long commute times (average travel
time to work in minutes) should become more compact as households look for
opportunities to live closer to their jobs. Heavy highway spending in local budgets
should be associated with less compact development, if we assume that more highways
facilitate population dispersion. Data for commute time arc taken from the 1980
Census of Population and Housing, and those for local highway spending arc taken
from the Census of Governments.
The seventh set of hypotheses concerns minority population (percent non-Hispanic
black, percent Hispanic). The 'white flight' hypothesis suggests that regions with higher
proportions of black residents would become less compact. Large proportions of
Hispanics, in contrast, are hypothesized to encourage more compact development
because regions where Hispanics concentrate attracted most of the new Latino immi-
grants in the 1980s, and these immigrants tend to live more compactly than native-born
residents (Myers ct al, 1996).

Results
Among the 159 counties that gained population between 1982 and 1992, the mean
county added about 3.4 new residents for every new urban acre (table 2). San Francisco
County, California, pulled this mean up from the median of 2.2; it added 61 new

Table 2. New persons per new urban acre, 1982-92 (dependent variable) (sources: US Bureau of
the Census, 1996a; 1996b; US Department of Agriculture, 1995).
Mean 3.37
Standard deviation 5.29
Minimum 0.12
10th percentile 0.86
20th 1.30
30th 1.68
40th 2.04
Median 2.24
60th percentile 2.90
70th 3.28
80th 4.00
90th 6.18
Maximum 61.48
Number of counties 159
Note:
1992 population-- 1982 population
Dependent variable =
1992 urban area-- 1982 urban area
562 R Pendall

residents for every new urban acre and gained density largely because of increasing
household size. (5) Three other California counties—Los Angeles, in its metropolitan area,
and Santa Clara and Alameda, in metropolitan San Francisco—were the only others
that added more than 10 persons per new urban acre, and none of them added more
than 20 persons. Other areas that grew compactly included several counties in Maryland
(Montgomery, Howard, Prince Georges), metropolitan Seattle, and metropolitan Phoenix
(Maricopa County).
As shown in table 3, population in these 24 metropolitan areas ( 6 ) grew by 18%
between 1982 and 1992, while their urbanized land grew by 25%. Only the Baltimore,
Los Angeles, and San Diego metropolitan areas added population m o r e rapidly than

Table 3. Population and urban acreage in large metropolitan areas, 1982 and 1992 (sources: US
Bureau of the Census, 1996a; 1996b; US Department of Agriculture, 1995).
MSA or Population, Urban acres, Percentage change Counties Population/
CMSA thousand thousand — urban acre
population urban
1982 1992 1982 1992 land 1982 1992

Atlanta 2 208 2933 655 922 32.8 40.8 17 3.4 3.2

Baltimore 1445 1703 342 394 17.8 15.2 6 4.2 4.3
Boston 3 032 3125 450 558 3.1 24.0 4 6.7 5.6
Chicago 2201 2603 556 682 18.3 22.7 9 4.0 3.8
Cincinnati 799 915 178 259 14.5 45.5 7 4.5 3.5
Cleveland 1194 1228 310 368 2.8 18.7 5 3.9 3.3
Dallas 3 097 3 990 757 1050 28.8 38.7 8 4.1 3.8
Denver 1214 1465 321 442 20.7 37.7 5 3.8 3.3
Detroit 2314 2 548 559 681 10.1 21.8 6 4.1 3.7
Houston 3 392 3 853 876 1066 13.6 21.7 5 3.9 3.6
Kansas City 1276 1443 281 349 13.1 24.2 9 4.5 4.1
Los Angeles 12062 15037 1450 1749 24.7 20.6 5 8.3 8.6
Miami 2804 3 305 321 425 17.9 32.4 2 8.7 7.8
Milwaukee 602 676 217 260 12.3 19.8 4 2.8 2.6
Minneapolis- 2085 2406 397 521 15.4 31.2 8 5.3 4.6
St Paul
New York 6696 7182 1306 1547 7.3 18.5 15 5.1 4.6
Philadelphia 3425 3 768 708 867 10.0 22.5 10 4.8 4.3
Phoenix 1612 2245 231 322 39.3 39.4 1 7.0 7.0
Saint Louis 1651 1795 389 447 8.8 14.9 7 4.2 4.0
San Diego 1972 2601 253 323 31.9 27.7 1 7.8 8.1
San Francisco 5 547 6426 681 796 15.9 16.9 10 8.1 8.1
Seattle 2178 2678 383 498 23.0 30.0 3 5.7 5.4
Tampa 1723 2113 389 519 22.7 33.4 4 4.4 4.1
Washington 2376 3 035 489 627 27.8 28.2 8 4.9 4.8
Total 66904 79075 12499 15 672 18.2 25.4 159 5.4 5.0
Notes: Only counties that added residents in the period 1982-92 are included here. Counties
selected based on membership in the 25 largest US metropolitan areas (CMS As or MSAs) per
1986 OMB definitions. Massachusetts and Connecticut counties selected per 1986 NECMA
definitions. No county in the metropolitan Pittsburgh-Beaver County added population
between 1982 and 1992.
MSA, metropolitan statistical area; CMSA, consolidated metropolitan statistical area; NECMA,
Northeast consolidated metropolitan area; OMB, Office of Management and Budget.

(5) According to the NRI, San Francisco gained an estimated 500 acres of urban land, which may
not be significantly different from 0.
<6) All five counties in metropolitan Pittsburgh-Beaver County, Pennsylvania, lost population
between 1982 and 1992.
Do land-use controls cause sprawl? 563

they did urban land; the population and urban-area growth rates were approximately
equal in metropolitan Phoenix, San Francisco, and Washington, DC. At the other end
of the sprawl continuum were Boston, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Minneapolis, and New
York, which spread over twice as fast as they added population. The wide variety
among metropolitan areas is paralleled even within some states, adding interest to the
multivariate regression that follows in the next section. How can we explain the differ-
ences in the efficiency of new urbanization in a convincing fashion?
Lund-use controls
The ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions provide strong support for several
hypotheses about the connection between land-use controls and the density of new
development. The regressions also fit the data very well, explaining over 90% of the
variation in the value of the dependent variable (table 4, see over). I hypothesized that
APFOs-which require new development to pay its own way - encourage higher density
in new development. The results arc consistent with this hypothesis: for every 10% of a
county's land area controlled by an APFO, its density increased by about 9 new residents
for every 100 new urban acres. In the average county, 18% of the land area was subject to
APFOs. [Table 5 (see over) shows means and standard deviations for all the variables.]
Because all the land-use controls affected very little or no land area in many counties
while affecting more than 70% of the land area in others, a second model was developed
by using dummy variables representing counties with more than 25% of the land area
controlled, instead of using continuous variables. Counties with more than 25% of their
land in jurisdictions with APFOs gained (on average) about 50 more new residents for
every 100 new urban acres than did counties with lower APFO coverage. (The two-tailed
significance of this estimate is only 0.18, but because the research hypothesis specified a
direction this result can be reported at better than 90% confidence.) It is of course
possible that areas with high development pressure will be more likely to enact APFOs
but a more reasonable interpretation is that APFOs promote density.
Low-density-only zoning and building-permit caps, unlike APFOs, are associated
with more sprawl (table 4). For every additional 10% of land in low-density-only
jurisdictions, a county had 13 fewer new residents per 100 new urban acres. The typical
county with over a quarter of its area in low-density-only jurisdictions had about 113
fewer new residents for every 100 new urban acres than did the typical county where
low-density-only zoning was less prevalent. In the average county, 20% of the land area
was subject to low-density-only zoning, and 25% of counties had more than a quarter
of their land under this control (table 4). Building-permit caps, which are much less
common (table 5), had a greater influence than low-density-only zoning. For every
additional 10% of land occupied by jurisdictions with permit caps, the average density
dropped by 30 new people per 100 new urban acres. The typical county with more than
25% of its area subject to permit caps had 232 fewer people per 100 new urban acres
than that with less area subject to permit caps. Neither urban growth boundaries nor
moratoria have a significant effect on sprawl at better than a 90% confidence level.
Other control variables
The value of farm products sold per acre of farmland is by far the most important
variable related to sprawl versus compactness. Every additional $1000 of productivity
in 1982 was associated with about 70 new residents per 100 new urban acres between
1982 and 1992. Neither average farm size nor the number of farms attained significance
at the conventional 90%> confidence level but the number of farms was close to sig-
nificance, its positive sign suggesting that more farms may encourage compactness.
As hypothesized, jurisdiction size was associated directly with compactness. Some
counties have many jurisdictions with little land area; such counties tended to grow less
564 R Pendall

Table 4. Regression results, land-use controls, and sprawl.

Model 1
B significance
value

Percentage of land area controlled

Adequate public facilities ordinance 0.009** 0.055** 0.047**
Building-permit cap -0.030** -0.090** 0.003**
Low-density-only zoning -0.013** -0.087** 0.004**
Residential moratoria -0.006 -0.013 0.612
Urban growth boundaries -0.005 -0.040 0.202
More than 25% of land area controlled
Adequate public facilities ordinance
Building-permit cap
Low-density-only zoning
Residential moratoria
Urban growth boundaries
Farm characteristics, 1982
Value of farm products sold per acre, $ thousand 0.693** 0.794** 0.000**
Average farm size, thousand acres 1.072 -0.030 0.293
Number of farms, thousand 0.330 0.047 0.147
Metropolitan fragmentation, 1990
25th-percentile jurisdiction area, thousand km 2 3.226** 0.047** 0.077**
Number of jurisdictions 0.014 0.040 0.195
Housing values
Median house value in 1980, $ thousand 0.057** 0.210** 0.000**
Percentage change in median house value, 1980-90 0.005* 0.055* 0.105*
Local government spending, 1981-82
Debt per capita, $ thousand 0.350** -0.049** 0.079**
Property-tax reliancea 0.068** -0.159** -0.000**
Transportation infrastructure
Percentage of 1981 local spending on highways 0.047 0.025 0.410
Average travel time to work 1980, minutes 0.096** 0.073** 0.013**
Minority population, 1980
Percentage of population non-Hispanic black 0.015 0.022 0.460
Percentage of population Hispanic 0.152** 0.161** 0.000**
Constant 1.854 0.135
R2 0.916
Adjusted R2 0.905
Standard error of the estimate 1.632
Notes: Model 1 tests the effect of the land-use controls modeled as continuous percentages of
the land areas covered; and model 2 substitutes dummy variables for the continuous variables,
with 1 representing 'more than 25% of land area covered', and 0 representing 'less than 25%
of land area covered'. B is the regression coefficient, and ft is the weight of the independent
variable.

compactly than those with more extensive small jurisdictions. For every additional
100 k m 2 in the size of its 25th-percentile jurisdiction, a county added over 300 persons
for every 100 new urban acres. The number of jurisdictions was not statistically sig-
nificant at conventional confidence levels.
Housing values, which parallel land values, also led to more compactness between
1982 and 1992. All else being equal, a county with a median house value of $150000
in 1980 would have added close to 30 people more for every 100 acres of new urban
land t h a n a county with a median value of $100000; a county whose median value
Do Innri-u.se controls cause sprawl? 565

Table 4 (continued).
Model 2
.significance
value

Percentage of land area controlled

Adequate public facilities ordinance
Building-permit cap
Low-density-only zoning
Residential moratoria
Urban growth boundaries
More than 25% of land area controlled
Adequate public facilities ordinance 0.498 0.037 0.183
Building-permit cap -2.324** -0.077** 0.008**
Low-density-only zoning -1.127** 0.093** 0.003**
Residential moratoria -0.267 -0.009 0.736
Urban growth boundaries -0.326 -0.030 0.318
Farm characteristics, 1982
Value of farm products sold per acre, $ thousand 0.696** 0.797** 0.000**
Average farm size, thousand acres -1.018 -0.029 0.321
Number of farms, thousand 0.324 0.046 0.163
Metropolitan fragmentation, 1990
25th-percentile jurisdiction area, thousand km2 3.466** 0.050** 0.058**
Number of jurisdictions 0.016 0.048 0.125
Mousing values
Median house value in 1980, $ thousand 0.053** 0.197** 0.000**
Percentage change in median house value, 1980 90 0.006** 0.063** 0.066**
Local government spending, 1981-82
Debt per capita, $ thousand -0.313 -0.044 0.114
Property-tax reliance" -0.063** -0.148** 0.000**
Transportation infrastructure
Percentage of 1981 local spending on highways 0.039 0.020 0.498
Average travel time to work 1980, minutes 0.089** 0.068** 0.021**
Minority population, 1980
Percentage of population non-Hispanic black 0.015 0.022 0.469
Percentage of population Hispanic 0.146** 0.155** 0.000**
Constant -1.717 0.169
R2 0.914
Adjusted R2 0.903
Standard error of the estimate 1.645
a
Property-tax reliance is the local government spending divided by property-tax revenues.
* Significant at /? < 0.10 (two-tailed); ** significant at p = 0.10 (one-tailed) where research
hypothesis specifies direction of association consistent with sign on observed coefficient.

gained 100% during the 1980s would have added between 50 and 60 people for every
100 acres of new urban land.
Per capita indebtedness and reliance on property tax were both associated with
sprawl. With every increase of $1000 in its local government debt in 1981, a county added
35 fewer new residents per 100 new urban acres. For every percentage point increase in
the average county property-tax dependence (property taxes as a percentage of local
government expenditures) in 1981, the county added about 7 fewer new residents per 100
new urban acres.
566 R Pendall

Table 5. Means and standard deviations.

Mean Standard deviation

Dependent variable
New persons per new urban acres, 1982-92 3.369 5.290
Independent variables
Percentage of land area controlled
Adequate public facilities ordinance 18.057 33.913
Building-permit cap 3.385 15.802
Low-density-only zoning 19.944 35.052
Residential moratoria 2.573 11.176
Urban growth boundaries 34.327 42.219
More than 25% of land area controlled
Adequate public facilities ordinance 0.189 0.392
Building-permit cap 0.031 0.175
Low-density-only zoning 0.252 0.435
Residential moratoria 0.031 0.175
Urban growth boundaries 0.390 0.489
Farm characteristics, 1982
Value of farm products sold per acre, $ thousand 0.878 6.060
Average farm size, thousand acres 0.179 0.148
Number of farms, thousand 0.891 0.746
Metropolitan fragmentation, 1990
25th-percentile jurisdiction area, thousand km 2 0.017 0.077
Number of jurisdictions 21.082 15.687
Housing values
Median house value in 1980, $ thousand 59.242 19.584
Percentage change, median house value, 1980-90 91.410 56.694
Local government spending, 1981-92
Debt per capita, $ thousand 0.969 0.741
Property-tax reliance 34.859 12.453
Transportation infrastructure
Percentage of 1981 local spending on highways 6.038 2.772
Average travel time to work in 1980, minutes 25.210 4.035
Minority population, 1980
Percentage of population non-Hispanic black 6.873 7.958
Percentage of population Hispanic 4.147 5.633
N = 159, except for property-tax reliance (N = 158)
Note: N is the number of observations.

Longer commute times in 1980 contributed to compactness in new development.

For every additional minute in a county's average c o m m u t e time in 1980, it gained
about 9 additional new residents per 100 new urban acres. Local spending on highways
as a percentage of all local spending had n o significant effect on compactness; other
transportation variables, such as road miles per capita or per land area, may better
represent the availability and importance of transportation infrastructure and may be
tested in future research.
Counties with high proportions of Hispanic residents in 1980 also grew considerably
more compactly in the 1980s than did counties with few Hispanic residents. A county
whose population was 20% Hispanic in 1980, for example, would have gained 170 m o r e
persons per 100 new urban acres in the 1980s than a county with 10% Hispanic residents.
The non-Hispanic black population did not have a significant effect on sprawl.
Do land-use controls cause sprawl? 567

Caveats ami limitations

At least three main limitations must be discussed that qualify the conclusions that
follow. First, the unit of analysis—the county—usually consists of multiple jurisdic-
tions, each of which makes individual decisions on land use. The county is in some
cases therefore an arbitrary unit of analysis chosen out of the necessity imposed by
available data; a different aggregation of jurisdictions, or no aggregation at all, may
result in different conclusions regarding land-use controls and urban density. Second,
the land-use data do not allow investigation of densification or of decline and de-
densification in previously urbanized areas. If previously urbanized areas became denser
between 1982 and 1992, then the newly urbanized areas would have been growing even
less compactly than registered here; conversely, population movement from previously
urbanized areas to new urban areas within the same county would result in more
compact new urbanization. Third, nonlinear regression forms were not tested, and
other untested variables—for example, better measures of transportation and infra-
structure investment—may provide more satisfactory explanations than some of the
weakly significant ones reported here (such as APFOs and jurisdiction size) for some
of the variation in urban density differences.

Discussion
In 1982, 5.4 persons lived on the average urban acre in these 159 growing counties.
By 1992, that population density had slipped to just 5.0 persons per acre, after a decade
of urbanization at densities averaging 3.8 people per acre. Although California,
Maryland, and Arizona maintained or increased their historic population density in
the 1980s, in all other states the density decreased. Had all the states simply maintained
their 1982 density throughout the 1980s, these metropolitan areas would have required
900000 fewer acres for urbanization, more than a quarter of the 3.2 million acres
actually newly urbanized. Some counties in these metropolitan areas were excluded
from the analysis because they lost population. Even those counties in which the popula-
tion declined experienced growth in urbanized area between 1982 and 1992, suggesting
even more sprawl than is suggested by the statistics presented here.
Public policy very clearly and importantly affects sprawl. It matters how local
governments pay for new growth. Counties widely covered with adequate public facili-
ties ordinances, which require that developers maintain the level of service in major
off-site infrastructure systems, grew more compactly than those without APFOs. High
levels of public debt and heavy reliance on property taxes, both of which may indicate
that established residents subsidize new development, are associated with more sprawl.
These findings make intuitive sense and agree with other indications that local devel-
opment charges produce more efficient land-use patterns (Landis, 1995). They also
support the 'concurrency' principle underlying Florida's growth-management legis-
lation (De Grove, 1984), which sets capacity prerequisites for infrastructure in new
development. In practice, concurrency has fueled sprawl in some places because the
Legislature neither required new development to pay the entire cost of all new highway
construction nor required the provision of supplementary funding from state sources.
Under these conditions, developers have often moved outward instead of selecting
passed-over urban locations (Nelson and Duncan, 1995, pages 96-97).
Fiscal arrangements are not entirely subject to local decisions. Many states limit the
ability of local governments to charge developers the full cost of infrastructure required
to serve new development. The findings of my research suggest that these limitations
may come under increasing pressure from local governments. As this research has shown,
counties sprawl more when their municipalities depend heavily on property taxes. Because
sprawl costs more to serve with public facilities than compact development, municipalities
568 R Pendall

dependent on property tax pay more for public services than other municipalities. When
counties sprawl, they also experience rapid invasion by urbanities and suburbanites of
rural areas and exurbs, where established residents are accustomed to (and usually
satisfied with) lower levels of public services (Davis et al, 1994). The new residents
are likely to demand higher quality services. Thus local governments face fiscal pressure
on two fronts, from the development pattern and from the nature of goods demanded.
Local governments in low-density areas may respond to the spiral of growth and
higher service costs in a combination of ways. They may raise tax rates or they may
allow the quality of public services to decline. Either of these alternatives is less poli-
tically palatable, however, than heightened efforts to control growth, which may in fact
be politically appealing. By reducing residential density, local governments believe they
can increase the quality and cost of new houses, perhaps attracting 'empty-nesters' who
will place fewer demands on the school system. Density reduction also theoretically
places an upper bound on population. Annual caps on building permits may not place
such an upper limit on the ultimate population but they can theoretically stabilize annual
property-tax increases.
Such responses as low-density zoning and building-permit caps impose heavy
penalties. This research shows that both of these land-use controls reduce the density
of new urbanization. They may have this effect for cumulative reasons. The land-use
policies of each jurisdiction will affect those of its neighbors. It is well established that
building-permit caps are adopted by neighboring jurisdictions in quick sequence
(Glickfield and Levine, 1992). The same may hold for other controls. This neighbor-
hood effect may in fact promote sprawl in counties whose smallest jurisdictions (the
25th percentile was tested here) are very small. Moreover, the fiscal climate to which
one locality responds affects all municipalities in a state.
The sprawl-inducing effects of low-density-only zoning and building-permit caps
raise serious questions about their validity for widespread use in urban planning.
Previous research (Pendall, 1995) has shown that both of these controls also exacerbate
racial and ethnic divisions. Between 1980 and 1990, low-density-only zoning reduced
the construction of attached and rental housing, contributing to higher rents and
reducing the proportion of new Hispanic and black residents in the jurisdictions thus
zoned. Jurisdictions with building-permit caps had falling proportions of Hispanic
residents, although the caps did not appear in the previous research to have a direct
effect on local housing markets. It is explained here that this might happen because
permit caps reduce population density at the county scale. Such density reductions may
be enough to raise development costs or hinder housing construction and thereby to
reduce Hispanic populations in individual jurisdictions. Urban sprawl and exclusion of
racial and ethnic groups doubly delegitimize these two land-use controls.
Gordon and Richardson (1997a; 1997b) repeatedly make a case in support of 'sub-
urban development', a term they favor over 'sprawl'. For the most part, their arguments
rest on the presumption that suburban form results almost entirely from consumer
preferences for low residential densities. They acknowledge that auto travel is subsized
but discount the importance of these subsidies in comparison with mass-transit subsidies.
To bolster their argument that consumer preferences are more powerful than government
actions, they even contend that reform of local land-use controls such as zoning would
likely have little "more than a negligible impact on densities and spatial patterns"
(Gordon and Richardson, 1997a, page 97). If consumer preferences are the principal
engine fueling decentralization, and if one supports consumer sovereignty to the exclu-
sion of most other considerations (which Gordon and Richardson do), then the natural
recommendation is not to force development to become more compact than it already is.
Do Imul-tisc controls mmc sprawl? 569

The research reported here qualifies the contentions of Gordon and Richardson in
at least three ways, First, the analysis shows that land-use controls do influence the
density of new development; at least two of these controls reduce population outright,
and one, tow-density-only zoning, also directly influences the kinds of dwellings that can
he built. This condition violates the assumption made by Gordon and Richardson that
consumer sovereignty is mostly unfettered in the United States. Second, the research
provides evidence that fiscal arrangements influence density; when development pays its
own way, it makes more efficient (that isf compact) use of land. My findings are equally
supportive of market-based solutions but not of the presumption that government
actions do little to influence density This second conclusion suggests that analysts are
not misguided when they investigate how government actions influence consumer
preferences.
Third, my research shows that the California regions whose development patterns
Gordon and Richardson use as a touchstone are not only dense; they arc becoming
more so, while other regions arc developing at densities much lower than they ever
have before. Gordon and Richardson acknowledge this fact (1997b, page 276) but do
not explore its broader meaning. The increasing density in some metropolitan areas, as
well as the wide variety among all the large US metropolitan areas, suggests that
consumers arc accepting a wide range of alternative development patterns. It is inter-
esting, given that people will pay more for something they prefer, that people pay so
much more to live in high-density San Francisco and Los Angeles than in low-density
Atlanta or Tampa. Gordon and Richardson provocatively ask: "Are compact cities a
desirable planning goal?" (Gordon and Richardson, 1997a). In this article I have pre-
sented at least one answer to that question: If we support consumer sovereignty, then,
yes, more compact cities are a desirable planning goal.

Conclusions: land-use controls and sprawl

How, then, might we move toward the planning goal of more compact cities? Many of
the contributors to sprawl revealed in this research are beyond government control.
State and local governments can do little to promote high-value agriculture in urban
areas, raise housing prices, or resolve municipal fragmentation. But state and local
governments can contribute to the goal in at least two important ways.
First, municipal fiscal arrangements can be affected by state governments (and only
by state governments). In many states, statutes and case law limit the ability of their
local governments to shift infrastructure costs onto new growth, reinforcing the property
tax as the most important source of local general revenue. But residents throughout the
United States have learned that they need not accept the increases in property taxes
required to accommodate new residential development. Instead they can lobby their
municipal governments to adopt such growth-limiting land-use controls as low-density
zoning and building-permit caps. The result is more sprawl, and more exclusion of low-
income households and racial minorities. This trend will only continue until more state
legislatures follow the lead of those in California, Maryland, Florida, and Arizona, and
give their municipalities and counties more ability to make growth pay its own way. Such
an infrastructure finance system may of course have its own undesirable exclusionary
effects that legislatures will have to weigh against the salutary effects of infrastructure
charges upon urban density and the undesirable effects of any alternative system.
Second, local governments can take some steps against sprawl even without huge
changes in the municipal public finance system. They can identify areas where higher den-
sities are appropriate, create incentives for high-density development to occur there, and
work in voluntary councils of government to coordinate land-use policies with neigh-
boring jurisdictions. They can encourage redevelopment of underused and abandoned
570 R Pendall

properties, identify locally owned tax-delinquent properties for rehabilitation and occu-
pancy, and provide additional opportunities for mixed uses in urban and suburban
neighborhoods. Even if undertaken piecemeal, these measures may promote more com-
pact urban areas. If adopted as a broader program that includes a reduction in subsidies to
new growth, they will undoubtedly reduce sprawl in coming generations.
Acknowledgements. Initial data-gathering for this research was supported by a dissertation grant
from the Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at the University of California at
Berkeley. Thanks for substantive comments to William Goldsmith, Reid Ewing, John D Landis,
and the anonymous reviewers. Joanne S Pendall provided invaluable copy-editing assistance.
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