Many communities across the U.S. are looking for ways to boost housing production in response to the national housing crisis. But building housing on everything everywhere, including on federal lands, would not provide the housing people need to thrive. Continuing to sprawl into agricultural and natural lands means decimating more ecosystems. Instead, communities should prioritize zoning reform to boost housing production in the right places—within existing neighborhoods and near jobs, schools, parks, and services—while protecting agricultural and natural lands.

Sprawl: What it is and why it happens

As a national housing shortage drives up costs for Americans around the country, federal elected officials have proposed selling millions of acres of public lands to free them up for the building of housing. While communities across the U.S. must build more housing to start addressing the severe housing crisis, most of these public lands are remote from existing homes and jobs, far from the services and opportunities that people rely on to thrive. As a result, this strategy will likely have little effect on housing affordability. But worse, opening up federal lands for housing would be doubling down on urban sprawl and the paving over of agricultural and natural lands.

Urban sprawl, the continued encroachment of single-family subdivisions, strip malls, and other low-density development on previously undeveloped land, has significant negative results for people and places. Sprawling development destroys habitat for wildlife, destabilizing local ecosystems, posing a threat to imperiled species, and reducing the ability of our natural lands to absorb carbon, mitigate floods, and combat urban heat. It also separates people from the everyday places they need—grocery stores, doctors’ offices, schools, and parks—forcing long commutes and car dependency. Developing agricultural and natural lands also limits people’s access to green space (which impacts public health), hurts local food systems (creating food deserts), and promotes emissions-heavy lifestyles that significantly contribute to climate change.

Unfortunately, sprawl has been the status quo model of development for many U.S. communities for decades, starting with the invention of American suburbia with Levitttown in the 1960s. According to the National Land Cover Database, the 11-county Atlanta region, which consisted of only 33 percent developed land in 1985, is now 57 percent developed due to the loss of nearly 800 square miles of natural and agricultural lands. In Maricopa County, home to Phoenix (the nation’s fastest growing large city), the percentage of developed land has doubled to 14 percent. And the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, which has lost population since 1985, has still seen 200 square miles of natural and agricultural lands lost to sprawl.

One of the main reasons sprawl has become so commonplace, despite its widespread impacts, is zoning regulations. Many communities have largely limited new housing development to detached single-family homes on large lots through their zoning codes, blocking missing middle housing like duplexes or townhomes (whether by outright prohibiting them or by requiring additional regulatory barriers), and limiting larger multifamily buildings on large swaths of land. But since detached single-family homes require a larger footprint of land per household, cities have expanded outwards to house the same (or lower) amount of people.

Sprawl, while widespread, is not inevitable. Communities can take action to reform their zoning codes, directing new homes to the right places: vacant lots near downtowns, surface parking lots that sit empty most of the time, and walkable neighborhoods that already have infrastructure and services in place. And in doing so, communities can help protect farms and forests while also making a dent in the housing shortage that has driven housing costs so high.

Communities have a wide variety of zoning tools at their disposal to combat sprawl. This can include:

• Adopting a zoning text amendment that allows different housing types, such as missing middle housing, by-right in more residential zones, including single-family only zones
• Prioritizing housing over parking by allowing infill development on surface parking lots and by reducing excessive parking minimums, which constrain housing development (or even replacing them with parking maximums)
• Adopting an Equitable Transit-Oriented Development ordinance, which uses public transit infrastructure as a catalyst for new housing development while minimizing displacement
• Adopting a form-based code, which regulates development by its form, rather than its use (i.e. residential, commercial, etc.)
• Reining in excessive development standards, like minimum lot sizes, setbacks, and density restrictions, which hamstring compact housing development and promote further sprawl

Communities that open up more of their residential land to allow the building of many different types of housing, not just detached single-family homes on large lots, can house more people in vibrant, close-knit neighborhoods near jobs, schools, and amenities. This helps reduce car dependency, shortens commutes, and ensures homes are located out of harm’s way from extreme weather events. Without reforms like these, sprawl is likely to continue—despite the impacts to local ecosystems, public health, and climate change. Local governments must take action to address these issues, advancing zoning reform for more environmentally friendly and people-centered communities.