The vast majority of these examples are suburban transformations, not urban transformations. People should live in urban places, where they can walk, bike, and take transit to their needs. You obfuscate the goal of local living when you suggest that "urban" is the problem.
The sprawl is eating with renewed vigour into forest and agricultural land. This will be regretted in the near future. Also hard to serve with public transport. Why build like this after all the lessons learnt in the recent past ?
It's interesting to see these photographs; they remind me of the sensation I get whenever I'm flying into any major US city - the sense of sameness.
Developers build 120 units of the same house, positioned in familiar ways. They build them as quick and cheap as they can, so the finishes are garbage (remember the Chinese Drywall conundrum?). And we buy them up, put the same TVs in them, watch the same commercials, buy the same Nikes from the same Amazon warehouse, think the same things, want the same things - a bigger house that's just like all the other big houses, a vacation to Cancun if you're the same as these guys, Tulum if you're the same as those guys.
The growth is meaningless, as as we sprawl outwards those earlier structures rot away, because we have to have new stuff, because we never build anything well enough for it to become old.
I've become Werner Herzog, help!
1
Seen from Europe, the high density of newly developed land in Western Ohio is intriguing. Any explanation?
Rectification to my previous comment: Western North Dakota
Absolutely no idea why I wrote Ohio!...
These images make me think of when my plants get a spider mite infestation.
Too many mites. Leaves die. The plant will eventually die.
Too many houses. Too many PEOPLE. Leaves die. The planet will eventually ... hmmm, what will happen?
I believe one solution is something societies won't talk about. Have fewer babies. Population control. You can see the problem in the pictures.
“ These two communities embody many of the stories of change that have individually touched other parts of the country: loss, development and renewal.” ... and loss again if we keep on repeating the same stupid mistakes
I immediately think of the project to redevelop Rochester, NY's "Inner Loop". The short freeway basically encircled the central business district, acting like a moat and cutting it off from the rest of the city's neighborhoods. A portion of it was filled in and brought up to the same grade as the surrounding streets, creating new land and reconnecting the city to its East End. Wonderful. Please see the "Before and after" imagery at the bottom of this page: http://cornellpolicyreview.com/GIS-Special-Edition/article.php?id=3
1
The suburban-exurban car-centric development patterns are inefficient, expensive, and ugly. It surprises nobody that you will never see a young couple getting their engagement photos taken in a typical American suburban cul de sac. Nobody will remember or miss these neighborhoods if they crumble or disappear. There is no "there" there in a typical strip mall and subdivision.
For the most part, liberal NIMBYs have severely harmed the prospects for dense development in our cities, and when you squeeze that balloon in the middle, the pressure is redistributed to endless exurbs. Incumbent homeowners and landlords love the resulting restricted supply and increased rents and property values. All of this punishes the poor, which seems to be the feature rather than the bug of our housing policies...
It is obvious to me that explosive growth without limit has always been, and will continue to be, a major threat to the future economy and ecology of the US.
So many commenters here suggest that the urbanized and suburban surface area of the US is vastly exceeded by natural and preserved lands. While urbanized lands make up 3% of all US surface area, an amount that seems small, much of it is densely concentrated on the East and West Coasts of the US, in areas surrounding major cities such as NYC, Philadelphia, and to some extent, Boston. In other places, natural lands are not connected, making it a challenge for the creatures that inhabit them to just live, such as the eastern box turtle.
Not only is this suburban growth unregulated, it is also an eyesore. Row upon row of McMansions and ghastly lawns, without pause. I have seen them everywhere, from Long Island to the Chesapeeake.
And yet the city of Wilmington, DE, where I live, has many empty lots. along with some beautiful- and vacant- Victorian buildings downtown.
So many developers build on pristine or fertile farmland or forest without considering the once-bustling but empty downtowns of cities all around the US that need to be renewed for a new generation.
2
Fabulous presentation of global/American urbanization.,
demonstrating the urgent need for professional city and suburbs planning and realisation. including the clear goal to reduce space, and building multi-storied housing. Additionally, that kind of living should be aligned with sustainable and flexible public transportation systems. Goodbye to the dream that everybody has his own house and car.
1
5% of the population consuming 30% ( or more) of the world's resources. What else can one expect. Sad.
1
Dublin, Calif. has been suburban for many decades. What is new are large tracts of houses in the Central Valley, near Tracy, whose inhabitants commute (miserably, unless they take ACE) to Silicon Valley.
1
I am the most conflicted man on earth and a contributor to the problems in this article. I own a house in a suburban development and drive a lot. The city (I used to live in Manhattan and all over LA so I know of what I speak) only offers ridiculously expensive "luxury rentals" or condos. Every single time I've lived in one of these, I was surrounded by noisy party neighbors, usually millennials, and building owners or boards did not have a care in the world to keep it quiet for us professionals. Other people playing music at all hours, smoking, screaming, etc. As a working professional, I couldn't be woken up at 4am on a Tuesday to a party girl yelling outside my door. Conversely, I could have bought a renovated "bungalow" in the city for a million bucks plus or minus a few, which also made no sense financially with the taxes and a 30 year mortgage for that much money. OR, I could have moved to the country, and driven 2+ hours each way to the office, contributing to pollution. You can call me out if you like, but the problem is that the cities do not offer what I need: a small, quiet space that I own with a little outdoor space for a reasonable price. I keep asking, why isn't this offered, and nobody has an answer. It's one thing to observe, as this article does a good job of; it's another to lead transformative change.
5
As others have noted, the lack of trees is horrifying. Trees should be one of the top landscape features for not just parks but homes and urban areas.
4
Let's not be euphoric about this indicia of growth and construction.
The exploding growth of exurbia means more and more people are commuting for over 4 hours a day. Of course, plenty of people in exurbia are not commuting, but if one fifth of them are commuters that amounts to many millions of people. And the culprit is clear: ASTRONOMICAL HOUSING PRICES in areas closer to the urban cores.
Amazing! We live in a time when average families live like kings!
2
These comparison photos are taken in different seasons and sometimes vastly different lighting. Hence. leading to a lot of misinterpretation by the general public. Poorly done or purposely trying to make a story line?
1
Why are developers allowed to build houses right on top of each other ?
1
@John Brown Because we have a free market economy.
Really eye opening. Thanks!
All of this on native land.
The government ought to offer free university tuition to the first three children of any couple, and subtract one tuition for each child after the third. We cannot continue to procreate like insects--there's simply not enough wild space to buffer unanticipated consequences. "Go forth and multiply" is a formula for planetary ecocide.
1
The areas around Williston, North Dakota and Midland/Odessa, Texas really jumped out at me when looking at the map of the country as a whole. I hadn't realized that the revolution in oil and gas production in the Bakken Formation and the Midland Basin had resulted in so much new development. That is stunning to see on the map.
2
I should have included a picture of "the cloud." A while back I was driving from Richland, WA to Portland, OR, and drove through a part of Boardman, OR... Where Amazon has built these huge data centers to house their AWS systems. Most impressive was the power supply to run these devices. That would have been an interesting transformation.
2
Population size is a key factor in housing and construction. An older world population report put "China in the lead with 1.34 billion residents, followed by India with 1.19 billion. The United States is a distant third with 311.1 million people." India's population is projected to grow a lot faster than China. Another key factor is economic activities.
China is building up rapidly too, but they seem to embrace high density, high-rise urban cities. Chinese cities are huge in terms of population. The design point seems to be getting higher efficiency in every way, connected to public transportation, improve ecological impact, house people closer to jobs. China also relocate people from scattered rural areas no longer engaged in agriculture to city centers.
Central planning has its advantages. Just look at the photos.
1
These images tell me that people (at least in the U.S.) want to live in single family homes no matter what urban planners tell them they should want. The challenge is to satisfy that demand in a sustainable way; including energy efficient homes and a carbon free electrical grid powering, among other things, electric cars and all home heating and air conditioning.
5
One aspect that has not been mentioned here is the general lack of improved energy efficiency standards for new home construction. I have been wondering why most new homes are still built in the same way and with similar materials as they have been for about the past 75 years. I recently learned that improved standards have been systematically opposed by organizations like the National Association of Home Builders. They claim it will increase housing prices but ignore the utility savings that would accrue to homeowners. We need to vote for local, state and federal representatives who will support the implementation of dramatically improved residential energy efficiency standards.
4
I live in one of the communities mentioned in the article. High density housing is the name of the game in order to maximize profits and developers will use every means in their playbook to get there, including bri... "contributing" to the local politicians re-election funds, lobbying to lower or completely avoid developer fees that would be used for public infrastructure and schools as well as using the old "bait and switch" promising to develop areas slated for commercial use only to turn around and get them re-zoned (with the help of elected officials) for "mixed use" to add more high density housing. This has led to an overcrowded high school (twice the number of students it was originally slated for), traffic problems and a constant slew of public bonds in order to pay for infrastructure and education. All in the name of squeezing out the most profits and property taxes…
5
Martians: We will land after they've depleted their planet. That planet will closely resemble our own by then. Why spend our resources going there and overthrowing them, when we can wait them out. And, get this, they are making efforts for their elite beings to travel here before it's too late there. Like, as if that'll go over well. LOL
1
You forgot pictures of Long Island!
1
As usual, New York Times readers are quick to find the negative.
Where does the water come from for those developments in Arizona and even Texas?
2
@steve boston area Houston does not lack for water, in fact, it has chronic problems with flooding.
The after shots look like India, well, maybe Bangladesh.
1
So many people....
4
The US adds 2-3 million people a year to its population. That's more than the populations of 15 states. All theses people need the same things: work, housing, food, transportation, shelter and on and on. That has to come from somewhere. That somewhere is nature. Everywhere humans numbers continue to grow, nature and the environment suffer. The only people who think this can go on forever are: politicians, real estate developers and, apparently, some liberal thinkers. It can't. Unlimited human (or any species) growth in a finite area, be it the US or the planet, violates the laws of physics (and common sense). It has given us an ocean depleted of fish and filling with plastic, a million species going extinct and run away climate change. The longer we wait to acknowledge the limits of human growth and development, the less likely anything will be left to save and the less likely we will be able to move to a truly sustainable lifestyle-something we are no where near now.
7
@Al
Yesterday's news release by the census bureau put 2019's increase at 1,552,022 people. Feel 25 to 50% better about things? Happy New Year.
As long as there are people, there will be development. But the fact that some of this is taking place in areas without enough water and inclimate temperatures...e.g., Arizona....shows that something is out of whack with our pricing and management of resources. We need to restructure the incentives to nudge development to areas where it will mitigate climate impact instead of putting more people in a place without sufficient water and where expesive air conditioning or heating are required. The just-right climate states should be booming, and the fact that they are not means we are doing something wrong.
1
We shouldn't keep our built environment static as our needs change, but I can't help wondering how much thought and planning went into how these new buildings will affect the local hydrology, air, and temperature.
The photos show incremental change in each project, multiplied in each larger parcel, and presumably in each community and state. Have any plans been made to ameliorate the environmental changes, or even to monitor them? Each individual project makes a small, but incremental change in the environment, and it adds up.
Are we ready, finally, to talk about: immigration, population growth , birth control, family planning and sustainability? If we aren't, this bulldozer of development and reduction of open space, reduction in lifestyle and the environment is not only going to get worse, it's going to accelerate. The number one problem facing the US and the planet is human over population. Ignoring it, or worse, calling anyone who even mentions it names not only puts off the inevitable day of reckoning but makes it far more likely that we won't be able to do anything when we finally come to our senses. The numbers are out there, for all to see. PC thinking won't change that.
5
As with many we just keep moving away from the crowds. From the Bay Area to the foothills. Good for awhile ? Subdivisions moving with us. I think RUSH had it right in there song. Next stop Reno ? Or at my age the graveyard ? Oh the memories of the old days.
CP
"....And they're all made out of ticky-tacky, and they all look just the same."
3
If nothing else, I hope this article gets people to donate to their local land conservancy NOW.
2
Breathtaking and frightening.
1
This is still all based around driving cars. In addition to climate denial, healthcare sticker shock, taxcuts for the rich, special interests in politics, and, and and, the USA has also lost the plot vis a vis town planning. It's about money only.
3
Most of this imagery is evidence of more people getting the things they want from free exchange.
Most of the comments writers seem to think those people are wrong, and their wants should be denied.
How about we all pursue the lives we desire for ourselves, and let others do the same?
1
@Bob Krantz Not at the expense of our environment.
In suburban Boston, the zoning laws are driving the wrong kind of development. The only new homes built are condos with 1-2 bedrooms in shopping districts or absurd mansions. In my town and at least several of the towns around me you cannot even add a one bedroom accessory dwelling within your existing footprint which you could rent or live in and rent your home. All because towns don’t want families with kids they have to educate-that is the number one issue for the majority of residents. It’s like a tax to get into the town and if you can afford $1 million home stay out. It’s horrible.
1
Makes me want to go play SimCity...
1
"And they're all made out of ticky-tacky,
And they all look just the same."
"Little Boxes" by Pete Seeger
2
@Dave Malvina Reynolds wrote that obe!
Images from the National Agriculture Imagery Program...
Yes folks, that your tax dollars at work (no sarcasm intented). Beautiful and interesting. Go, government agencies, go!
1
Phoenix is the worst example because of the lack of water. The Colorado River is overdrafted, the snowpack from the north is dwindling, but the home building never ceases.
5
@Bonny If Arizona switched entirely over to solar power, it would have more freshwater than it could ever need. And these new subdivisions probably use less water than the farmlands that they replace.
All farmland is not the same. If you actually look at farmland for sale, you will see that a lot of it is marketed as good for animals but not for crops. The good for animals land can be across the street from the good for crops land but not get enough sun for crops due to the shape of the hills. North facing slopes are used for grazing. Some "agricultural" land is advertised as good for hunting, or having an area that is good for crops surrounded by other land, that isn't good for much agricultural use.
In a lot of areas, agricultural has been a part time occupation for a century, and farm owners all have nonfarm jobs as well. Between 1902 and 1988, Kenosha produced millions of automobiles and trucks under marques such as Jeffery, Rambler, Nash, Hudson, LaFayette, and American Motors Corporation (AMC). The importance of manufacturing jobs in Kenosha continues to diminish with only 11.7 percent or 7,769 of the total workforce of 66,362 area residents involved, a decline of 22 percent since 1990. (Thanks Wikipedia)
Building "up" as a solution is stupidly simplistic as a policy recommendations. Nuance is urgently needed.
Building at "Hausmannian" density - 4-8 stories is what is needed. Such 'missing middle' densities are important to prevent sprawl in the burbs and are even a way to gently densify in NYC without destroying vibrant, already dense neighborhoods. Alas, nuance is absent in NYC, where "building up" is weaponized with "affordable housing" to justify overscaled towers everywhere, basically killing the neighborhood goose that laid the rare golden egg of great urbanity and turned once great places into corporate dystopias and alienating nowheres such as Yorkville and the UES avenues or Midtown.
1
@Le Paris' (Hausmannian) population density is 55,000 per square mile, which most Americans would never accept.
@Will We sure need it in NYC.
Endless development is not progress. Time to talk about sustainability...that means leaving half for nature & stopping endless population growth.
5
What an amazing article! It would have been even more amazing without the glitchy up and down photo toggle which was frustrating and tedious on a touch screen, as it moved the article up and down so a part of each photo was always obscured. An additional option to see the photos side by side would have been nice. This was obviously an article that took a lot of time and effort and the gimmicky presentation did not do justice to the creators’ work.
2
Excellent article and visualizations.
To each their own, but for the life of my I cannot understand how people can live in sprawling exurbs. I have relatives in Texas who live in such communities, and commute to work in traffic-snarled highways almost 90 minutes each way. Insane. And these "communities" are little more than cookie-cutter houses, big box stores and acres upon acres of parking. Such ugly and inefficient use of land.
3
They paved paradise
Put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?
They paved paradise
Put up a parking lot
Joni Mitchell
3
This article made me think of my trip back to TX for the holidays. All the small towns away from urban areas are depressing places. They are run down with junk cars and trailers and abandoned buildings. Houston continues its march into the hinterlands with nothing but hideous freeways and massive congestion and construction. The old part of these concrete jungles is still the best place to live if you can afford it. The infrastructure continues to fall apart as cities find it impossible to pay for it or keep up with it. Developers infill with the most unimaginative structures which meet the needs of those who spend their lives in the car or hidden in these 4,000 sq. ft. monoliths they call home. Many Americans never notice the ugliness we are building as we continue to swallow up beautiful verdant land.
7
I always like these interactive, pop-up book type of articles! It's also interesting content to boot. Given that I live in PDX, I kind of imagined Tilikum Crossing getting a mention.
1
I would like to see the depaved version of this. Aren't there communities ripping up old pavement, concrete and restoring land? I know there are on a small scale in Portland, Oregon (which is where the Depave organization is). We can't be alone in this.
I guess nature is not all it's cracked up to be. Only giving us life for that last 200,000 or so years. What was the planet thinking? Letting us in the door is like Dracula asking to come in your house and you say, "Sure, why not?"
And bear this in mind too - I'm sure there are huge Walmarts, Home Depots, 20 or 30 mediocre fast food chain joints and several big box churches close to each one of these developments.
All spreading the gospel of meh.
4
Shows the incredible extent of the Obama recovery; this was all happening before the current administration. Wow.
These developments are brought to you by our sponsors: fossil fuel energy and the petrocapitalist value system that it enables
I noticed that you state that the most development too place in the "sun belt", a place that will be intolerably hot in the coming years as well as a place with no water. Smart, we are soooo smart.
3
My aren’t we an industrious species... I can’t wait for the images from 2030!
1
People, please stop talking about mass transit as if everyone has access to it.
We live 16 miles from the nearest loaf of bread.
We cannot take the bus or hop the train, because there aren't any buses or trains. Nor can we ride a bike 16 miles there and back.
We do not run to town on a whim; we have always combined errands and will continue to do so.
I made a conscious decision to drive a hybrid, but we still rely on gasoline, as do many others in my neck of the woods (literally).
2
Until a new economic model comes along wherein wealth generation and prosperity aren’t dependent upon never-ending expansion and ever-increasing consumption, expect more of the same—until we hit a wall.
4
Brilliant use of satellite imagery. My low-tech contribution to the story. I read the article this morning after returning yesterday from Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico. I'd visited frequently between 1994-2004, staying in an enclave of large palapa-shaded tents on the beach. No electricity, the night sky was awe-inspiring. So was the sea life on the reef half a mile from shore.
I couldn't find it this time. And the stars have disappeared. Luxury resorts line the shore continuously. Try to imagine the impact of hundreds of thousands of toilets flushing where once there were wetlands and jungle. Then there's the ocean. Nothing more showed the human impact than the lifeless reef. Shockingly depressing to see a handful of fish instead of large schools of them, dreary dead remains of coral. Still promoted to divers and snorkelers, fooled by the timeless photographs taken decades ago.
Even the Paris Accord is too late for so much of our precious blue boat home.
6
Until the US questions its' zoning laws which specify individual housing, defines specific use areas, housing, shopping, business, gvt, recreation, putting people far from all the things they need and use, requiring cars and large roads, the sprawl will continue.
I would be curious to know how much time people actually spend in their yards, and how much time they spend in their cars.
I would also be curious to know how much people walk who live in apartments in city centers and how much people walk who live in these sprawling suburbs.
Cities used to be dense mixed use entities, with housing, stores, businesses, public buildings mixed together. You could walk or ride public transport to go to work, to church, to the library or to the store. In America's suburbs, you need to drive to all such places, often long distances.
2
Great article.
Now, show how many newer malls are sitting partially empty 5-15 years after construction.
The shrinkage of retail for online is real, but they keep gobbling up prime land for malls and McMansions.
Resource scarcity is a real concern and the matrix of housing, retail and industrial we are building is not well suited to the futre we are facing.
4
The Landsat images are a great archive of our built environments and their change over time. Another is the feature of Google streetview that lets you set the time back to a previous capture. Very cool to see how an area changes from the ground.
The amount of new development in Colorado over the past decade has been staggering. Areas of this state that were open space are covered by 3000 home communities and large footprint malls, with seemingly little thought given to traffic, drought, wildfire abatement or natural habitats. I think both R and D politicians welcome development revenue no matter the cost to the environment. It's a shame in my opinion.
4
Sometimes you got to get used with the fact that we as humans beings have to evolve and in order to evolve we have to make mistakes, fortunately this can be repaired.
I wish you a very happy new year!
1
This kind of development can't continue indefinitely. I wonder if after the mass extinction event historians (assume any are left) will later say "they should have seen it coming. Why didn't they see it coming?"
2
Seeing Calgary again this past summer after forty years was profoundly depressing. What used to be wonderfully virgin landscape at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains has become the worst case scenario for urban sprawl despoiling for the foreseeable future grand vistas of natural beauty and not incidentally creating conditions that seriously exacerbates springtime flooding in the most densely populated city within a thousand miles. Good job increasing the tax base, Calgary - a massive fail from every other perspective.
8
If you care about the environment, you must resist the down-zoning that maintains one-family houses in zones close to the city center. The world's population continues to grow and to urbanize. Inevitably cities will grow, either up or out.
The rule of the car is being cemented in place. The residential areas are all residential, with no stores or sidewalk life.
6
@sdavidc9 What are we supposed to do? Design our cities in a way we pretend cars don't exist?
Humans always optimize our lives around new technologies.
@Will
We could design our cities so that we can live without cars, or not use them most of the time, if we want or need to.
I live outside one of the crimson blobs in TX depicted on the US map in this article. The amount of construction in this area is bewildering, and shows no sign of slowing down. Developers are mowing down trees and paving over every blade of grass to build houses that sit six inches from each other and strip malls with the same repetitive array of stores nobody really needs.
Highways are in decent (not great) shape and always seem to need widening; it's impossible to drive from where I live into the metroplex without passing through a caravan of road workers. Mass transit hasn't made it where I am (yet) and it's unrealistic to be a pedestrian or even ride a bike in densely populated areas. You've got to have a car.
I see photos of rolling hills and majestic trees and bodies of water in other parts of the country/world and stare at them as though I'm looking at close-up magic because what little of that we have in this part of Texas is vanishing.
I could keep lamenting the costs of relentless "development": damage to the environment, elimination of entire ecosystems, harm to animals and plants and vegetation, the fatigue that comes with too many choices. This article saddened me but I'm so glad it exists. Thank you.
9
@SLH The article is mostly positive about all the new development on the US landscape the last decade. However most of those who comment are negative as am I about it.
Texas hopes to double its population in the coming decades, with endless sprawl and development. Yes how depressing and very little organized resistance to it.
4
@Roy Sprawl has brought life to many rural areas that otherwise would've turned into ghost towns. And with the rise of synthetic meat, Texas will need to find something to do with all the surplus cattle ranch land it'll soon have
@SLH The TX state leg. is in the pockets of the oil and vehicle industries whi demand selling as much oil/vehicles as possible. Combined with seemingly endless space in all directions is that really surprising?
2
Flying over car-dependent suburban housing subdivisions, I’ve always been reminded of cancerous tumors on the landscape, eating land that could be used to grow food or given back to Mother Nature. We need to focus on sustainable, transit-oriented development, not keep ourselves dependent on automobiles.
6
@AD Those of us who live in car dependent suburbs are very happy and I've got more green space in my yard than you have in an entire quarter mile radius of where you live.
Since it is such an out-sized consumer of space, we may need to start mandating that tech start going vertical instead of horizontal. Especially true when it comes to those massive data centers that are devoid of most humans. There should be national, perhaps even international footprint standards. Of course this will be costly at first, but it should also end up being more energy and space efficient. You would think innovators would be capable of more innovation in this area.
2
OK, I've read so many depressing comments that I have to post something here... Relax, this is not the end of the world, we have plenty of land in the US. Here are some numbers. Only 3% of the US land is urbanized, 97% is not. Yes, this percentage has increased over time and there is urbanization but this is not at all an issue as 97% of the US territory is rural, agricultural or forests. Also, forests have expanded over the last decades which is great news. This is due to a lot of effort from the US Forrest Services. See below. There is no overpopulation in the US and the population growth is now fairly stable, actually, with the current birth rate, we can assume some population decline in the future which is not necessarily great news for our children. So yes, we should fight pollution, make sure we do what we need for recycling, manage resources wisely, but please let's stop scaring everyone, (our children are really becoming depressed),.
In the United States, deforestation has been more than offset by reforestation between 1990 and 2010. The nation added 7,687,000 hectares (18,995,000 acres) of forested land during that period. The trend in reforesting areas has been driven by organizations such as the U.S. Forest Service and the Arbor Day Foundation. Reforestation efforts were critical to maintain forest cover starting at the beginning of the 20th century, and they are the reason that there is a net positive trend in forest growth today.
4
@Ed Ed, land use trends are not so positive. Although urban land itself only covers 4% of the US it is often mixed with non urban land and affects a far larger area, with air, water, light, noise, and visual pollution spread over a much larger area.
Since 2010 US forests have not been increasing in acreage, and in many areas are covering less area. Just use Google Earth and see for yourself how forests are shrinking and being fragmented by urban sprawl, second homes, roads, transmission lines, pipelines, oil and gas wells, wind farms, livestock factories, etc. Urban sprawl is nearly continuous from Atlanta to Boston, replacing eastern and southern woodlands.
A recent US Forest Service study documented a rapid decline of urban tree cover in 48 of the 50 largest urban areas, with the loss of 36 million trees a year. Large canopy trees are being cut down at an alarming rate and not being replace.
The US Forest Service has also estimated that just 15 established invasive tree pests and diseases will lead to a 40% decline in US forest biomass. And if the Asian longhorned beetle, the spotted lanternfly, and Sudden Oak Death and other new exotic biological threats to trees spread widely, US forests will be devastated.
3
Very seldom is the world wide copious scale of development included in conversations concerning causes of global warming. Most often, cars and power plants are cited as the culprits. It would be interesting if development could be quantified as to the impact on global warming.
4
I grew up on the very edge of Dayton, Ohio. Our front door looked out toward the city and the back out the the old elementary school and miles upon miles of farmland and woods. Now it's miles upon miles of houses and shopping centers and of course, freeways. That transformation of course began before i was even born in the 1950s. The very house i grew up in is now over 60 years old. It originally sold for $11,000 brand new. It recently sold for well over $350,000.
1
@Martino Imagine if we had the same kind of comparisons except of being in the past decade they were from the pre-industrial revolution era to just afterwards or even several decades.
I recall my mother discussing having to ride the bus out to the hospital that was back then "out in the sticks". That same hospital today is almost considered to be downtown.. The hospital didn't move and she was comparing it to just 40 years prior.
@Martino Which is wonderful if you're the seller!
When I was a boy on Staten Island, I used to overlay the large paper maps (remember paper maps?) that my family had, going back decades, to track the creeping development and loss of woodland; my parents and grandparents used to tell me what had once been where.
Why not use your magical computer skills to illustrate the destruction of development closer to home, such as on Staten Island over the past sixty years, on Manhattan over the past one hundred and fifty, or perhaps the changes in density in Manhattan (walk-ups replaced by towers) over the past thirty?
4
This is a death sentence to all wildlife and native plants. Our ability to connect with the other half - nature and all that is so important for our human well being - is being extinguished right before our eyes. And who benefits? Certainly not humans who will decidedly live further and further away from any real connection to our earth. The developers are taking all of it away. There has to be a shift and I agree with others here who support building up and not out. Sprawl is death. Period.
3
What I would like to know is what part of America is developing these areas. I suspect it is not the lower half of the income bracket.
Look at older neighborhoods, you will see much decay - in houses that ought to be good to live in for over 75 years at least, with proper maintenance. The lower classes don't have money for repairs anymore. I know, I'm one of them.
3
It would have been nice if the article focused on global transformations.
3
Just a tiny detail which may irritate American readers for its irrelevance to their lives, but cricket is a summer sport. In autumn, the pitch is removed and the field is reclaimed for soccer or football or whatever else you'd like to play. Still a lovely observation though.
2
This country was established on freedom of development within zoning boundaries. And some, like in Texas, there is no zoning at all and it's freewheeling cowboy country. But seems to me, if many want strategically located cafes and the likes, then they want a Master planned community. Otherwise, a master zoning can be suggested by communities where developers develop within constraints. So, which way is preferable?
1
@Our Road to Hatred
Master planned communities are nice as shown by the success of places like Columbia, MD and Irvine, CA.
@Our Road to Hatred
I was a city planner in SE Texas in the 70s. The city I worked for did have zoning. At that time, anyway, Houston did not.
1
What are the solutions to this monster eating the earth?
Smaller houses, clustered a la the old European villages tied into mass transit that drastically reduces the need for private cars. Structures like office complexes and warehouse/distribution centers built underground topped by public use spaces and civic needs such as police/fire stations, lots for things like ice melt and top soil.Maybe even a tree or two.
We seem to have started in caves and maybe it's time to consider the advantages of housing units that require less room, energy and open space. Energy needs might even be reduce, i.e. AC
The concept of sprawling suburbs was the brainchild of the Levittown developers after WWII who wanted to take advantage of the GI Bill dollars and the millions of returning GIs. While that may have worked in the 1950's, the time for a new model is past due.
179
@jb Urban areas take up just 3% of US land area. We do not need to conserve land.
6
@Will Yes, we do need to conserve land.
42
@Will We need land for so much;, trees for example. Trees absorb carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. They provide cover which helps ease soil compaction and helps reduce runoff of excess rain and snow melt.
And, they provide habitat for scads of wonderful creatures, like "A nest of robins in her hair" and others creatures that help control noxious insects.
44
This suburban building is unsustainable. We are addicted to our cars, and this car centric exurb building, completely unwalkable, will ensure we always are. Great for big oil.
88
@Joe And good for those of us who want to be able to easily go more than 1/4 quarter mile away from our homes.
2
@Will
Some of us are capable - and willing! - to walk MUCH further than 1/4 mile!
Some of us also like biking.
Some of us save the longer trips for true adventures, not just getting to the Walmart that's just over 1/4 mile away.
26
@Scientist Are you capable and willing to walk much further than ¼ of a mile when it's pouring with rain?
4
Cool! Now i want to see a report on how much real estate developers received in tax incentives to rebuild areas effected by natural disasters or to displace low-income land owners in the same areas, or built with taxpayer dollars while schools suffered. Always loved the Upshot, but I've also felt there's always more to the story.
235
@Jonathan The small scale shows jobs, housing, infrastructure, happy shopping centers, etc. But the big picture shows growth, to remain viable, needing more growth on an accelerating trajectory. It is impossible to some day just say stop. When you add up the pursuit of opportunity of every person you arrive at opportunism run amok. The metaphor of a creature feeding on itself is a good metaphor. All this is what a healthy economy conventionally looks like. The services of nature are vastly undervalued, like the replenishment of oxygen in the air, for one example. With every new foot of concrete those services are damaged.
6
Bucolic appeals to me.
The ability for those who want to preserve open land, prairie habitat and natural species diminishes with each hour.
When will we acknowledge that most families neither need, nor can afford, more than 2 children?
Amazing imagery for this article, but it saddens me immensely. The only good things I saw were Rust Belt homes that had been demolished with new trees planted, and the rail line from Denver's airport back into the city. A couple decades ago the only way to get from this remote airport into the city was either a shuttle bus from the hotel, or a cab hauling one party to their destination. Light rail should have been in place before the place opened.
109
@reid I have only flown into the Denver airport a few times, but the first time was right after it opened. I was convinced they made a mistake and built it in Nebraska. I was not planning to rent a car, but I could not figure out how to get to Denver except to rent a car.
8
@reid
A nauseating series of photos until the Rust Belt demolished homes having been replaced by young trees. Unbridled capitalism and runaway expansion has little to do with the quality of life. We have essentially become squatters on planet earth exhausting its resources and rewards.
Be selective. Quality wins over quantity every time, in my personal experience.
3
@reid Hey Reid - US fertility and immigration have ground to a practical halt. Lowest since 1918 I just read.
1
Build up, not out. Cities and towns need to emphasize redevelopment of current space rather than bulldozing forests and fields
132
@Steve The build up not out notion has not worked anywhere.
5
@Will loop
You'd be surprised! Japan has made it work quite well, building up (and down, significantly below street level!) for their cities. As long as there is a well developed public transportation system covering the city, it can certainly work.
18
@Will Again, I agree with you Will. It seems as though these comments are posted by a cadre of anti-development people. Build up? I am not certain I would choose to live in a condo atop a massive Amazon warehouse facility, let alone near the kitchen exhaust vent of a burger joint or Chinese restaurant.
3
"They paved paradise and put up a parking lot".
Living in Europe, I come home twice a year to visit family. Apart from the older East Coast cities and some nice neighborhoods on the west coast, it seems the architectural landscape of America is simply a blight of parking lots, one story single use commercial lite zones, and power lines.
As the social critic James Howard Kunstler aptly says with regard to building America post 1950 - "The greatest mis-allocation of resources in the history of mankind"
190
@Sean Every town has that strip. It's ugly, but economically dynamic. Generation after generation makes money there so that the kids can go off and have more refined tastes. You'll find immigrant-run small businesses, places to get necessary but perhaps uncool things like plumbing fixtures, and sometimes even arts spaces you didn't anticipate. One of my favorite little theaters is in the same commercial development with a place that rents out earth-moving equipment.
The houses are a couple of miles away, and much better landscaped.
10
@Sean You must live in a fancy big city in Europe. If you venture out to the suburbs, you'll find they look a lot like ours.
10
@Will
Perhaps in the upscale suburbs of Boston, but as someone from New England living in, well, you can figure that out, the areas outside of cities in places I’ve been to in ten countries I’ve spent a good bit of time in in Europe don’t look at all like the ubiquitous American strip that runs through the town I live in.
17
These pictures demonstrate the increasing isolation and boredom of the human condition in our society. Growing up in the woods or on a farm (or both), means knowing exactly what your neighbors are up to, and it isn't boring. The bears and the coyote make sure of that.
Living in the city means knowing exactly what your neighbors are up to, and it isn't boring.
But when I lived in the suburbs, I had little contact with my "neighbors," and it was boring. Given the choice, I would rather live in the woods or the city, but never a suburb.
66
@Skaid since the County of Albemarle has fiercely worked to protect its rural areas since adopting zoning in the late 1970’s, older development that were built in the 1960’s are now becoming convenient and fabulous places to live. I love meeting my neighbors who are original to this neighborhood. We talk about all the changes they have seen over the years. I love the diverse schools my kid now gets to attend. The house offers us a great opportunity to renovate a solidly constructed house to our taste and make substantial energy efficiency upgrades. Taxes are low, utility costs are low, neighborhood walkable, great mix of neighbors. Nothing boring here.
8
@Past, Present, Future
I live in a large city but suburbs are getting better...more walkable areas, cared for parks, fun restaurants and shop. They were far more boring 40 years ago. The added development has increased the opportunity for community and social interaction which many people years for.
7
@Skaid I'm the same way. Suburbs and developments that are strictly residential depress me, at least the way they are often built here.
For those complaining about the exurbanization you need to realize that the problem is one of population (we have too many people in the US and in the world). Until an effort to control population is undertaken exurbanization will continue to steamroll the nation.
142
@JimH I totally agree. No one talks about overpopulation anymore. It used to be a big issue along with ecology, women's rights, and all the other issues in the 60's/70's. I guess it's politically incorrect or something--but so true. The more people, the more we deplete our planet.
59
@JimH 3% of US land area is urbanized. 41% is used for raising livestock, and the need for the latter is being eliminated by Impossible Foods. There is no need to worry about running out of wilderness.
8
@Will What you mean? Trump is trying to get oil and gas drilling in the wilderness.
18
Depressing. My family has a farm in rural NC that is becoming a green island in the middle of sprawl. Already we have city folk buying up the land next to us and building big houses...then wandering around our property as though it’s a public park.
30,000 new houses are anticipated. Where will all the wild animals go?
The surrounding towns are full of unoccupied store fronts, but the developers just keep building more. And the architecture is ugly; nothing but brick squares and parking lots, no trees. What kind of air will we be breathing ?
I am sick at heart.
272
@Jean Yep, it's our wildlife that pays the ultimate price for all of our poor choices.
29
@Jean
In our small town, that is exactly what has happened. 40 years ago I never saw deer in residential areas. Now they are in my back yard (I live one block from our traditional commuter rail centered town center, which has old multistoryed buildings on lots with no green space front or back, and I am across from apartment buildings) and in my neighbor's back yards and I have had two deer car accidents from deer darting into traffic on the busiest very developed road in town in the last 5 years. All this has occurred as green spaces disappear and cement replaces them.
12
@Jean "Already we have city folk buying up the land next to us and building big houses."
True, but don't forget your neighboring country folk who enable and profit handsomely from this. Unchecked capitalism is the problem.
12
I wish I could find photo comparisions of the small town I live in, Hamilton, Montana. In the dozen or so years I've lived here, homes and apartment houses have filled, and are still filling, private lands. It was listed as the 'fastest growing' town in all of Montana. The things that people need who move here are not being properly addressed by the county and the state. Just 'build it and they will come', being the motto for greed, around here.
3
Now please show China, that should be an eye opener indeed.
3
Back in the late 80's very early 90's I lived in Philadelphia, DC and finally NYC. Philadelphia was empty in center city back then and I bought a house for $85k ... when I moved to DC I was able to buy about 6 blocks from the capital for $145k -- that one had an occupied apartment.
All quite possible with a decent job + 10k downpayment from my firm for moving. ...... when another firm wanted me to return to Philadelphia I bought one from a bank for $50k (1993) .. because the other was rented and I was not going to stay all that long.
Each of these properties allowed me to walk to work .... how could any of that be possible today?
I sold the DC house in 06 for $900k and bought a house in Bucks County PA .. the rents allowed me to buy my apartment in NYC.
2
The attacks on suburban sprawl are just another way the hoity toity crowd wants to control our lives. They have deemed suburbia to be bad and want to force us into cramped rowhouses where we have to walk everywhere with the excuse of preserving open space, of which we have more than enough.
2
@Will
Ah, just wait Will, you won't have to wait too long. Mother Nature will start in with her control methods soon enough. One of the first signs of that is what you are going to pay for a good loaf of bread. A pound of rice. Your cream for that morning coffee. Oh yeah, and that coffee. Oy!
The signs and symptoms that will follow that will be quite . . . . uncomfortable. She always has the last word. She'll let us know if you were right or, oops, so wrong.
1
Hooray to human domination and the growth of civilization!
I'd say, good riddance to all the greenery, the trees, shrubs and all. Good riddance to the plains, the prairies, and the hills.
Human advancement and domination are all that matters.
Upward and outwards, I'd say!
2
Images that would make Burtynsky cry.
2
Being an ex-Californian, the thing that blows my mind is that you read "statistics" about slow population growth ("anemic" at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/us/california-population-migration-slowing.html).... But when you live there, it's bursting at the seams with people. Something isn't right with the stats. More and more and more and more people everywhere you see and a steady deterioration in the quality of life. Somewhere something is amiss in our reporting.
4
There's no way there are aquifers to support those developments in the middle of deserts (Arizona and parts of Texas). Time bomb.
42
@K Henderson ¾ of our water is used for irrigation and power generation. Household water consumption is almost irrelevant.
1
@K Henderson: True, in Az we've already diverted the entire Colorado (with Ca) and, given the power of the urban areas, we will divert all the water we can from other parts of the state to continue our profligate ways. Too many people, too little water.
6
@Will
False"fact" there, Mr. Will. The average American family of 4, via their home only, use at least 12,000 gallons of water a month.
Now imagine how much each one of those people use out in the world. At school. At the office. At the car wash. To make their products. Just keep adding. You don't have the time to keep adding. Just keep adding though!
2
A decade of Urban transformation accelerated during the past 3 years seen from above is an indication of the American dream of owning a home being alive. In a newly developing subdivision about 2 miles from where I live, while walking, I was recently stunned by the sight of booming construction of homes surrounded by cranes, digging equipment, plumbing trucks and noise of nails holding wooden frames. With low interest rates and full confidence in the economy decisions to custom build a dream home is an easy one. Houses are also been for investment to rent them out or for resale.
Unfortunately, what is not happening is all this urban transformation is not sufficient to end "homelessness" in our mega cities and that is because there is no rent control and rents are too damn high. There are two groups of thought, one that America is full and immigration should be restricted to those who bring skills and contribute to a growing economy and the other side thinks we don't have enough people and we can invite more people irrespective of whether they bring any skills or are a part of chain migration. The 2020 election will be one that will favor one or the other let us see.
2
I live in a community with average lot sizes of 4500 square feet. Some have single family houses, some have duplexes, some have ADU's, some have triplexes, some have small 2 story apartment buildings. There are plenty of parks for recreation.
Most residents live within easy walking distance of a shopping district. But, since this area was laid out to be served by street cars, the shopping districts are not surrounded by 10 acres or parking. You walk down the sidewalk next to the street and into an establishment. There is decent public transit including multiple train stops.
This area cannot be built now, because zoning has changed and the nature of retail has moved to big box outlets that stock 15 varieties of every product, instead of just 2.
Unfortunately, the topography of this area is so rare that prices are astronomical. So, despite our household's ability to afford luxury cars, we own cheap cars that we barely drive. I may drive 5 miles per week. The kids bike to everything. One of us takes the train to work, the other walks. Someone with a lower income could save a lot of money by living here by not needing a car. But this type of environment is so rare that the competition for limited housing drives up prices.
It's not possible to recreate our environment, despite the clear evidence that many want to live like this. What levers need to be pushed and by whom to recreate the most desirable living environments in the country?
6
@Djt You may be happy that you can walk into the stores without going through parking lots, but have you considered how inconvenient it is for employees who live one town over?
Gee, all you people traumatized by fossil fuels and people flying on planes should call BIG REALTORS on this....
1
Comparing the exurbs with the downtowns, I see the
growing divergence in American carbon footprints. The
former, curving streets of ticky tacky, have an eery sameness
from above. The later, car-optional city infill in Boston
and DC; I hope those apartments do alright with the rising
ocean and rivers visible in the satellite pics.
1
We need to have a serious discussion about preserving our remaining open land and wildlife habitat before it's too late. Senators Udall and Bennett introduced a bill to save 30% of U.S. lands and oceans by 2030. The Wyss Foundation has a goal of preserving 30% of the entire planet in it's natural state by 2030.
28
Interesting ... The one of The Village in Florida seems to be of a complex built on a water body dominated by algae.
7
It's alarming to see the loss of so many trees and green spaces. Note the Florida images. There is a lot more algae in the pond at the bottom of the screen now than there was before all the houses were built.
7
people like to have homes. they like suburban living. they like the perceived safety of neighborhoods. Amazon buildings are transit-oriented development. The apple headquarters is beautiful. the oddity is that people in cities are giving up space to lawns instead of neighborhoods. that is a shame.
@Robert Fort Lawns are pesticide soaked dead zones.
Oh, let's ensure an unsustainable future, o.k.?
5
@Tim FYI, Tillicum crossing in Portland was for light rail and bicycles.
1
@LaPine Meaning nobody will use it.
So, let's imagine we took photographs of all the places in the world that were forever transformed to achieve one of these photographs. How many of them do you need to add up?
Maybe two shots of forest for the lumbers?
Three mountains for the metals (pipes, wires, cars, trucks, appliances)?
How many for the fuel to get all of them there (production, transmission, refinement, distribution)?
How many for the water, the aqueducts and sewage systems, power plants and electrical?
Some might say, well, there's enough. That's why we can do this--why, on the ground, where people live, new development is normal: because there's enough. That's people's intuition, it's what they believe, and it's what they want (in the form of new homes).
Now, you or I may know there's not enough. Maybe there's enough right now. But we know there's not enough to sustain us at the rate we're using 'em. Not with climate change, not with the rate of animal extinction. We don't know what the exact tradeoff is, because it's impossible to calculate, but we know it has to be horrifying.
The first group looks at the second like a bunch of arrogant know-it-alls: they don't know the actual tradeoff but they're horrified anyway? The second group wonders why the first so relishes its own destruction, buys vacations home and love sushi.
27
@David G
Sorry, that's supposed to say, "The second group wonders why the first so relishes its own destruction, buys vacation homes and loves sushi."
Got a lousy editor...
3
@David G
This is so true. My family are thinking of selling our homestead. Many acres of pristine Appalachian forest in what used to be a little town. Now, everyone faces the porch of their vacation home towards our mountain for the views. They cut down every tree for views in every direction. We look at their ugly houses. They look at our trees rolling up the mountain. Anyway, financially we would be idiots to not sell to some developer from NY or CA or TX. We could sell to develop 300 units easy. Big money. No trees, though...but they're already gone except ours. Since 1790 we lived this mountain.
I don't know. But the mountains ARE gone... and our people with them.
Sincerely, Melancoly just outside Asheville.
5
If you want to see any wild animals bigger than a rat you'd better hurry, because billions of human beings are taking over every square foot of lebensraum.
7
The informative power of the article could have been increased by discussing the side effects of land use change driven by human population expansion. Increased pollutant loading to water bodies from permitted stormwater systems, loss of habitat and species diversity, and increased carbon dioxide footprints from expanded transportation networks are but a few of the side effects the article could have discussed. Instead, the article seems to rely on slick graphics rather than comprehensive information.
5
So many low income and homeless people today could have used their own sweat equity to rebuild all those houses town down by government funded task-forces-of-destruction in Detroit and South Bend and elsewhere. That's the greatest crime, withholding solid structures back from the market and forcing people to make do by living in tents in parks, on sidewalks, and even in the flood channels like seen today all over Las Vegas Nevada, where we turn them into criminals for not being able to afford the monopoly rents of the investing classes. America is the definition of corruption.
4
@xzr56
It does seem that way -- but the reality is not what you think. It's typically more expensive to rehabilitate and old house vs knocking it down and rebuilding ... cost of operation going forward (heat) is lower with new.
I love old houses and have rebuilt quite a few.
2
@xzr56 They weren't "solid" houses. That is why they were taken down. The cost of rehabbing them was more than people could afford, and many people don't have the skills to rehab an old house. There were/are programs in Detroit to sell houses to people so they can fix them and make them a home. But there were far more houses than takers. When the economy crashed, many people abandoned their houses in search of places with jobs.
This paper has many articles on the topic, including this: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/27/us/detroit-foreclosure-photo-mosaic.html?searchResultPosition=2
@GT those torn down but perfectly good and repairable houses will never be rebuilt. The land will stay vacant in land banks for far-into-the-future profitable redevelpmemt. Meanwhile while poor people continue to live in tents all over America, or be warehoused in $40,000 per bed privately run shelters.
1
I have to admit the tapping of my down arrow on my keyboard alongside the "After Disaster, Renewal" was fun to watch. Sick when you dissociate from the suffering, but hey, a lot of money was made by some people.
I just wish we could rejuvenate the planet as quickly as we modified it?
3
Reston, Denver, and Portland are the only cities that seemed to include new transit with their new development. I particularly admire the pedestrian/light rail/bike only bridge in Portland and the new transit line laid down over existing highway medians in Reston. Contrast this to the Seaport in my native Boston where no thought went into extending nearby subway and BRT lines into the new neighborhood. No thought went into climate mitigation in a sea level neighborhood now home to thousands more than ten years ago. No thought went into affordable housing. Oh and the local businesses oppose the proposed car free bridge. I don’t miss the barren surface level parking spots from a decade ago and there are a lot of vibrant restaurants and shops in this new neighborhood, but planning could have been much better.
5
@James Completely agree. The Seaport is Anywhere USA to me. Completely lacks anything that makes it feel like Boston. The concept that the Silver Line was "rapid transit" is a joke. It runs too infrequently and the route from South Station to Logan takes forever. I'm still trying to understand how we ended up with such a poor system in place. If the MBTA and Logan were smart, they would acknowledge the failure and figure out a direct connection (not a slow bus that sits in traffic) from the Blue line to the terminals.
3
Being a native of Norway and now living in Switzerland, I find it interesting in these aerial views how little space there is between homes for something like a yard. Why didn't the developers just use a little more land, there seems to be plenty of it. In Switzerland building codes prohibit houses being built that close in a new project.
5
@john fiva One thing missing from the photos is a sense of scale. I have lived in Europe and in the US. I would suggest that the area of land that the home sits on is the same size or larger than in a European suburb but the US home is much larger so it looks cramped. The other thing to remember is that the lifestyle of many precludes having a large yard. Most of my neighbours hardly venture outside and pay a lawn company to mow the grass, so a big yard is a negative thing.
6
@daqman. I have to second daqman. For the most part we are looking at 1/4 acre lots in these USA pics and in most of Europe's surburban areas that would be considered "large."
1
@john fiva This is Arizona we're talking about. People do not exactly enjoy being outdoors.
Amazon has taken great strides to build at least superficially innovative urban development in the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle. Compare those dense buildings and vibrant streetscapes to the fulfillment centers shown in this article in FL, SC and WI, where they have developed greenfield parcels into the most banal and efficient development - where it appears not a single tree was planted that was not required by code. No solar panels on roofs. Acres of surface parking. Stormwater detention basins that offer no value beyond meeting land use requirements (in other words, no public benefit or innovative design). Quite a contrast between the urban face of the company and its exurban one, hidden in plain sight.
31
3,000 square foot homes are the cause. As a poor (including in the financial way) city dweller this seems just way too much space a family could need.
13
@xyz. As a NY'er, yes and no. If you have kids that arent babies you want at least 1200 sq feet minimum and most homes anywhere in the USA are closer to 2400 sq feet --not 3k sq feet. Most family in NYC with more than 2 kids go to NJ for sq footage. I wonder if xyz has kids?
2
this was a terrific piece of digital journalism, much appreciated.
my wife and i have a vacation house in the sierras and we commute through the central valley of california to get there. the "big box" warehouses have sprung up along the freeways, the better to serve the selfie nation with things it thinks it needs.
but this is the model of the future, for as far as the eye can see and until events change: flatten the topography, build little cheek by jowl boxes for domestic drama, and don't worry about the transit carbon costs of the suburban commute.
out here, people don't just commute to the bay area from 30 miles away. many of them commute all the way from sacramento. in an age when the 40 acres have become exorbitantly priced, the gas guzzler is still everyman's mule.
8
@drollere Isn't it hypocritical to criticize others for their carbon costs when you have a vacation home in the Sierras?
3
@David It really depends - what if, by building or buying one vacation home, you are preventing the subdivision of land for many more houses — and, what if the vacation home is only heated or cooled part of the time or has eco friendly systems?
1
The problem is that neither urban or suburban planners are seriously acknowledging how our wildlife can sustain themselves in environments whereby their habitats are being destroyed in order to make room for more people.
45
@Cheryl R Leigh The increases in agricultural productivity have resulted in an increase in open wilderness over the years as less land is needed to feed the people. In Connecticut, there are stone walls going in the middle of forests, a legacy of farms that used to be there.
2
@Cheryl R Leigh The problem is that neither urban or suburban planners are planning anything except profits. Near where I live a vast area of trees were cut down for a high tech park. The plans shown at the public comment stage were of well planned buildings in woods with walking trails and natural space. In reality all the trees were razed. The first thing built were "shops for the high tech workers to shop in" then "apartments for them to live in". Four years later only one office building has been built. The retail is a strip mall with a vast paved parking area, the apartments, built for the high skilled workers, are all rented, and are ugly boxes.
18
@Will. Yes and no Will. on the one hand you are right that much of Southern NE was farmland in the 18th and 19th centuries BUT increased corporate level farming with genetic plant seeds seems like a time bomb. It all "works" to produce lots of food -- until it doesnt.
8
All of this growth reflects the high end of investment in the built environment. Big box distribution centers and clusters of largish single family homes packed with maximum density don't address a widespread affordable housing crisis. The problem is profit motive. Private business cannot afford the altruism necessary to offset the hidden costs to society from inadequate housing.
That means we need a community level renewal in housing construction funded by all levels of government. If the federal government had spent $1 trillion on housing instead of war in Afghanistan, they could have funded a lot of houses. Let's say $1000000000000 / $250000 per home = 4000000 new homes paid off, not mortgaged. Sure beats the calculus of dropping $100000 bombs on mud huts 10000 miles away.
23
@larkspur A children's book, Farewell to Shady Glade by Bill Peet, was very popular with our kids as they grew up. It summarizes the plight of defenseless animals where urbanization was encroaching, and this book was written over 40 years ago.
I guess we never learn.
The only thing that seems to happen is any available land, and some that's not, gets gobbled up by developers and mined for every penny they can squeeze out of it. Lately being a developer is worse in the public's mind than being an attorney for an occupation.
14
You can clearly see oil & gas development in the Permian (West TX), Eagle Ford (South TX), and Bakken (NW ND) shale plays on here, too.
5
The Moore, OK neighborhood seems to have doubled the size of the houses and eliminated most of the green parts of the landscape. Where there was once a two-bedroom ranch, there is now a 4,000 square foot mcmansion monstrosity with no yard built to within 12 feet of the house next door.
No thanks.
51
yeah, I've noticed this trend in Colorado: huge houses that occupy the entire lot. it's sad that people no longer seem to value lawns.
6
@Barbyr I'm from Moore, and these houses are actually around 2,000 square feet. The previous houses were older homes, built around the '60s. The new constructions are actually quite popular for middle to upper-middle class people in the OKC metro area. They aren't Oklahoma McMansions by any means, though. Drive ten minute drive south of the photo's location and you'll see the 4000-5000 sq. ft. homes. The homes pictured have high roofs---I understand how they can give the McMansion impression.
6
I live near an urban area which has grown very rapidly over the past forty years, transforming what used to be primarily fruit growing land into a typical new medium-large city. It's Santa Rosa, California. I was there two days ago and noticed again that in public areas you almost never see people. Only cars. On streets that are several lanes wide, feeding into freeways people need to use in order to buy a quart of milk somewhere. It's a very, very lonely-looking environment, though it's full of beautiful ranch-style houses segregated from each other by trees.
24
I’ve already seen some commenters mentioning this, but our population numbers need some serious discussion. We continue to build so as to accommodate more and more people. We had around 160 million people living in the US in the 1960’s. We currently have around 335+ million and are projected to have 450 million by 2050.
Must we really continue to take in 1+ million every year? When will we be allowed to say we have enough people without being accused of either being racist or xenophobic. What’s the number? 500 million? Maybe 700 million? We need to be able to have an open discussion about this issue. I’d like to see a question on this topic in the next Democratic debate.
More people coming in means more houses built, more coal burning, more cars on the road, even more crowded hospitals and schools, more water usage, etc... we only have so many resources to use.
31
@A.B. the island of Java, which is about 1/3 the size of California, has 140 million people. South Korea, the size of New Jersey, has 51 million people. China is basically as large as the USA, and has over a billion people. A lot of China, like the USA, is also desert/arid.
In other words the USA can easily have more people. Instead of sprawl, we should build upward. Instead of more freeways, we should be building better transit. Alas, the single family home is considered sacred by many Americans, and consequently we build out instead of up.
26
@Fedee Building upward is a great idea! I’m still weary of continuing to add more people though. I don’t want the US to become so crowded that all our day-to-day amenities get overrun.
If you don’t mind answering though, do you think the US should have a max population?
For example after 550 million people we will stop accepting newcomers. Although I admit that idea is extreme, but we don’t know what resources we’ll have left in say 40 years. In my view, the more people we add the more we lower our standard of living.
3
@Fedee
You can always pack in more sardines into the tin, but why would you want to? Can America remain a release valve for countries that are already overpopulated? That hardly seems equitable. My personal bias is toward conserving the wild spaces that took millions of years to create in favor of a human that can be created every nine months. It's nourishing to enter wild spaces away from the things if man.
16
I look at these pictures and all I see is the destruction of my children's future. No trees, or certainly much less; more cars. Towns must start thinking of what they are taking away from controlling the ever-increasing heat and loss of oxygen of this planet.
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@Barbara Franklin Take heart and look at the Apple Park. Now find the solar panels. What solar panels? The whole of the roof is a solar panel! Trees? Huge oak trees, and orchards! It's a stunning achievement - check it out on Google Earth. This is being done.
Find the other solar panels. What are they not on every roof?
@Barbara Franklin Not true, relax, children will be fine. Forests are expanding in the US. You can look at the statistics. Forests account for about 30% of the US land, way more than the 3% urbanized areas and have been growing over the last 50 years thanks to the efforts of reforestations (see below).
In the United States, deforestation has been more than offset by reforestation between 1990 and 2010. The nation added 7,687,000 hectares (18,995,000 acres) of forested land during that period. The trend in reforesting areas has been driven by organizations such as the U.S. Forest Service and the Arbor Day Foundation. Reforestation efforts were critical to maintain forest cover starting at the beginning of the 20th century, and they are the reason that there is a net positive trend in forest growth today.
https://education.seattlepi.com/rates-deforestation-reforestation-us-3804.html
3
@Ed those numbers are not true. Please don’t spread fake news here.
An awful lot of that newly developed land in California is in wildfire territory.
18
No wonder the birds and the insects are disappearing.
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I have new high speed fiber optic cable, hard wires to everything, and a powerful computer. But your graphics in this article load like I'm using dial-up in 2001 on my original powerbook, circa 1994. In fact, I quit 1/4 of the way through the article because I was just staring at unchanging images. Whoever wrote this programming needs to do some homework on how to do this much better. Updated photos should appear at one click, not after waiting 30 seconds for a dissolve.
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@larry bennett No problem for me. I scanned the whole article in less than two minutes, stopping to read some of the attached descriptions of what was being shown. And I live in the country, about as far from the internet provider as anyone on this system.
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@larry bennett I'm not having any trouble at all and I live in a county with about 25k people.
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@larry bennett I'm so glad you posted! I was having exactly the same problem, and I quit because of it. I do have lousy internet speed, living in the country, so I attributed it to connectivity.
1
'Pave paradise......' etc.
4
IMO, this is what Hell must look like.
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The before and after effect is a wonderful example of “shifting baseline syndrome,” illustrating how small changes over time add up and how individuals frequently do not perceive those changes or their effect on local ecosystems. Sometimes these transformations can be relatively rapid and dramatic; in those instances, they are readily apparent and disturbing, more likely to produce a response. Most often, these shifts take place insidiously, over long time frames. Think death by a thousand cuts, and yet, we are blind to them. Is doesn’t have to be solely clear cutting in the Amazon that wreaks havoc. It is what happens in our own back yards that brings environmental damage, and toward this, we must be constantly vigilant. These photos, therefore, are an important tool in raising our awareness.
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As far as housing goes, I'm not surprised. In 2000 the US had 280M people. We now have almost 330M (thanks, Google). We've had to create housing for 50M people. That's a lot. I agree denser, taller communities would be better, but I am not surprised we need the extra space.
Also, for all those bemoaning these images ("like a cancer on a host"), you could probably to a mirror article of this showing how tons of rural areas have been disinhibited with nature reclaiming the land. Grass and trees growing over old homes, bridge, structures, etc. Sure, people are clustering around cities, but many are also leaving rural and small towns behind.
9
The [relatively] low level of new land development in Oregon, coupled with the profile of Portland's new transit-oriented and car-less bridge gives me hope that Oregon's "urban growth boundary" approach to land development is actually working.
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@Becca C Me too, Becca. The way the city is getting denser inside the UGB is remarkable...
3
@hd Still only half as dense as Los Angeles.
@hd Portland's population density is half that of Los Angeles.
Do American houses typically not have minimum space standards? As a UK architect, looking at some of these developments it's crazy how little space there is between them.
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@Malcolm They do--but minimum side and back yards, and front yards actually provide a lot of the required space. What American houses also need are MAXIMUM interior areas--but that is not likely to happen as long as the house-building industry maintains its influence.
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@Malcolm Most communities dictate for residential development a maximum permitted lot coverage, minimum required open space, and minimum side, rear and front lot widths, which can vary with the desired density.
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@Malcolm It depends on the zoning, which will vary from place to place. Some places permit higher density and/or taller buildings. Some require more space per house and more space between buildings. Still others favor row houses over detached structures.
3
“...Vast new exurbs have been carved from farmland...”
This is not a positive thing. People building, consuming and wasting in complete denial of looming water, food, and climate crises.
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This is a great tool for planners (urban and otherwise), but we must also remember that with each of the housing buildings, there are real people involved. Sometimes using the big overview loses the human impact. I was in planning for more than 20 years (mostly transportation), and similar tools were available with more localized aerial photography. But we always had to consider the impact on those people that were actually there on the ground. But as a tool to track what has been done, these aerial photographs really show the impact of what has changed.
1
There are good reasons the few large urban areas of the US are so desirable to live in. Bars, cafes, and restaurants you can walk to. Public parks. Denser cultural opportunities closer at hand. Not to mention how much more aesthetically pleasing places are when not dominated by parking fields and big box stores.
I'll go as far to say that suburbs built on the scale they're on have been a colossal mistake. They're resource-inefficient, isolating, and force people to rely on expensive, fossil-fuel burning personal vehicles to do the most basic errands. They've buried millions of acres of wildlife habitat and farmland in just a few decades. At the very least, urban planning in the US must shift back toward higher density housing around public transit. For society and the planet, we can't keep building out and out.
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@Ted B "They're resource-inefficient, isolating, and force people to rely on expensive, fossil-fuel burning personal vehicles to do the most basic errands. "
Oh the horrors! They are so isolating (NOT). Suburb living is far superior. People are not meant to be packed in like sardines into small apartments. That's why people got out of the cities when they had the chance during the 20th century. So much nicer to have a little space.
12
The point of owning a car is so you don't have to walk to. And your walkable restaurant may be convenient to you, but it's not convenient to the employees who live one town over and have nowhere to park.
3
@Dave I can say that the big city of 2019 is far more livable than the city of the white flight era. As as someone who grew up in a suburb, I can also say a lot of suburbanites' folk memories of city living is dated to around mid 20th Century
5
To those who see this kind of development as blight, I sympathize but you're criticizing way too late in the development process.
It's people who want and will pay for all these structures, so developers and cities build them. People's wants are the first step in development. The buildings themselves come at the end.
If you want to change these development patterns, you have to address the wants and needs of the people at the outset—give them other ways of conceiving their lives.
Unless you can do that, resisting or resenting construction is pointless.
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@Chris Whose responsibility do you think that is?
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@Chris Wrong! Most of us have no say in what gets developed.It is big developer money, often international, that calls the tune.
3
@Chris it is way past time that "people's wants" should be at the center of the equation. The anthropocentric worldview (read selfish) must be challenged and adjusted, especially in so-called first world countries where people are very spoiled.
3
So many times I hear/see/read outrage from North Americans when "jungle" is being replaced by farm land abroad. But NGO's and Wildlife orgs are silent about greenery being replaced by massive parking structures in their own home turf.
What's the logic behind this? It seems like taking care of Mother Earth in the USA is a lost cause.
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@Mauricio Criticizing far away governments and people in foreign lands does not "bite the hand that feeds". Environmental groups depend entirely on donations, most of which are from Americans generally living very wasteful lives. We use way more than our share of the planet's resources.
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@Paul That's exactly my point.
Living a wasteful live should be regulated and taxed accordingly and these organizations should be the ones pushing for it. Most of the resources used by wasteful developed economies, come from developing countries trying to keep up with hiking Global growth rates. Lumber, Mining, Soybeans, Oil, Bamboo, Veg Oil, Fruits, Meat, you name it.
Holding smaller economies back so one can grow fatter, doesn't make sense to me.
The biggest and most developed economies should value their own natural resources and lead by example.
4
The views from above are positively bacterial. And with no "antibiotics" beyond thoughtful local zoning, development, and variance rules the nation's lands will one day look like a hodge-podge of petri dishes.
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@JFR I think cancer is a more appropriate analogy.
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@Chris
True, but the image that comes to mind when flying across the country and looking out the window at cities, especially suburbs, is of bacterial communities. You're right that the effects are much more cancerously malignant.
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@JFR
Those "petri dishes" are HUMAN cultures. It's "sprawl" only when you're looking down on it!
1
Some of the most unfortunate words in the language are "real estate development."
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@mollykatz yes, it is just part of the bigger "money game" that is being played everywhere. The people who profit from it buy ranches and farmland and ocean front estates that are large and surrounded by open land. What care they for how the "masses" live? Sad.
Terrible ! Zoning laws should have prevented the developer from squeezing folks in like this.
People should not have to live on top of each other.
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@Getreal Hopefully zoning laws will encourage living on top of each other. The days of cheap gas and unlimited time to get to your 'affordable' 4 bedroom in the 'burbs are over. The automobile focus of these exurban developments will be their downfall. They will become the slums of 2050.
4
@Glen if not 2030
1
@Glen
Humm, I bought a 1/3 acre lot in the burbs for $35,000 just outside Detroit.
I can pay for a LOT of transportation costs compared to the cost of living in a downtown.
The new residential developments have so little - or none - open space and parkland! Sell every square inch seems to be the model.
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@Jim Yeah they do, they're called lawns.
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@Will Lawns are dead zones, full of pesticides.
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@Bill P. Tell that to the gophers living under my lawn.
Curated before and after shows inevitably oversimplify. Urban runoff tends to get treated and point sources require permitting, while rural runoff does not. Most river and lake pollution is caused by agricultural runoff. The vast majority of soil degradation, wetland draining, stream channelization, and habitat loss is the result of industrialized rural agriculture and timber mining.
16
This is definitely on the road to Trantor.
8
All those acres of asphalt parking lots baking in the sun, throwing off heat waves from hot metal cars all day long, increasing the temperature of everything around them. Why not build a supermarket on top? Why not build a preschool on top of the supermarket? Why not utilize that great big tar footprint to add vertical value?
Having recently spent many months in Houston, where the temperature was in the triple digits for days, I guarantee that all those workers coming back to a hot metal box at the end of their shift would be happy happy happy not to have to drive to yet another hot parking lot to pick up dinner and the kids.
6
Interesting. One of the biggest growth areas on the map is in the Permian Basin of West Texas and SE New Mexico.
That development is not residential or commercial, it is industrial, and it is all related to oil and gas development. The same with a swath that starts east of San Antonio and arcs toward the US/Mexico border. I'm guessing the same type of development is what the map is displaying in eastern North Dakota. I'm guessing there's no urban transformation taking place in easter North Dakota.
These mapping anomalies, appearing, seemingly out of nowhere, demonstrate our over dependence on oil and gas. That's frightening.
17
When are we going to admit that climate change is really about increase in population, and each of those numbers of people, me included, wanting that half acre, that house that generates all kinds of greenhouse gases, or we want the stores, the pavement, the roads, et al?
We are slowly (maybe not so slowly?) suffocating ourselves and the beautiful earth and its other residents, to death.
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@Kate Shrewsbury Not primarily about population growth. More about development. If the entire population of China consumed at 1st world levels (Us), we'd be in bad shape with climate change, much worse. (I'm paraphrasing Jared Diamond's "Collapse.") Or if sub-Sahara Africa made the same transition. Even with the same population, we will need to scale back pollution, CO2 etc.
6
@WayneDoc
And that is exactly where China and India are headed. China has already outstripped us in carbon emissions, and India is not far behind.
But if our population was 9 million instead of 9 billion, this level of consumption would not be a problem and would not be driving climate change.
Primarily it is a population problem.
9
Fascinating but is it sustainable? The buildings that replaced the fields and shores consume water, energy and produce waste. "Big Tech's Big Boxes" "million square feet in size" buildings don't even have solar panels. We're plugging all of this new development into our obsolete infrastructure - roads, bridges, sewers, water, electric grid - that wasn't designed to handle the demand. Gawd...we're gluttons for punishment.
24
Interesting that most of the big box/data center examples come with new, massive lagoons. Is this a function of groundwater management/runoff control, or somehow part of heating/cooling? Genuinely curious, if anyone knows.
And whats going on with all of the red in Western North Dakota? I assume it is the fracking fields/mancamps, would love a closer look. Fascinating work, NYTimes, bravo.
6
This is a great way to show development. My own small town of Ithaca NY would be dramatic if done today against 10 years ago. Multiple new eight-story buildings in a few blocks of downtown. I wish this story had the pull left and right between the before and after images. The scroll down feature makes it very hard to compare. I realize that the pull left and right switching of photos would be a challenge for the three photo sequences, but I believe they would be best served by two separate pull left right images. Maybe it's so it works on phones?
7
Horrifying. What will be left for the other lives that inhabit our planet? Humans take a scorched earth policy to development, eradicating any native plants and animals before embedding the approved, low-maintenance landscapes in sanitized suburbs and cities. The environmental movement of the 1970s is surely not being expressed by people today, who value convenience, comfort, and security above preservation.
18
@Boudicca Horrifying is EXACTLY the same word I used when reading this article. Horrifying that humans consume green spaces like a commodity, rebuild in disaster-prone space, and build in space that is environmentally difficult/costly to control. Most gut-wrenching was the retirement community picture.
10
Indeed, dense land use for housing is destructive on the environment.
Next up, before and after photos of vast areas of California’s mountain grasslands and deserts industrialized for ‘green energy’ wind and solar farms.
Abusive land use that is just as destructive on the environment as dense housing but is somehow supported by urban envoronmentalists.
5
@EGD Please cite studies showing wind and solar "farms" are just as destructive as suburban development.
5
@AJF
Well, you won’t find any ‘studies,’ obviously, because the money that funds the climate change agenda is behind greater expansion of wind and solar farms because people have been told they’re helping the environment.
Anecdotally, though, at least 45 square miles of grassland and mountains west of Mojave, CA have been industrialized for wind towers and solar fields. From my area, what was a classic America the Beautiful-like view of purple mountain majesties at sunset is now a sea of towers with flashing red lights.
And in my area, what had been fields of spring wildflowers, poppies, and Joshua trees are now square miles of solar panels. All paid for by taxpayer subsidies.
We will be paying to clean up this ‘green’ strip mining of the land someday.
2
@EGD Simply drive Highway 33 from Maricopa to McKittrick through the Naval Petroleum reserve, then take Highway 58 up to California Valley and the solar fields. This drive takes just over an hour and is a remarkable transition from extremely messy oil production to a serene solar field setting. No doubt, we rid ourselves of oil, we clean up the environment.
3
Sad to see that loss of farm land and forest, but encouraging to see the re-development of existing areas. Sprawl is an evil enemy of the environment and efficiency. Many people do not want to live in the dense core of a city, but the fallacy of moving to the edge is that the edge keeps moving and those victims of "progress" are swallowed into suburbia.
Designing and planning WITH nature is not a new concept, but it is not well utilized or understood, especially in those conservative areas where looking forward is equated with communism and the delusion of looking backwards, as making America 'great' again.
19
If an organism like suburban sprawl, the strip mall or the big box store, was found on your body, it would be surgically removed immediately after it was discovered. The toxic sprawl of our built world is everywhere metastasizing at a ferocious rate. The way we build causes cancer. You cannot make the world sick and expect to be healthy.
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@Harris silver You see cancer, I see people's lives and their hopes and dreams. Most of us want quiet spacious homes.
4
@Will There is a reason that no path in nature resembles the dead end roads of a suburban cul de sac. Nature doesn’t build stupidly and nor should we.
@Harris silver There are no paths in nature
The medium is the message and in this case the story becomes almost secondary to poorly designed graphics. Watching the images transform from the past to the future requires more time and patience than necessary. Too bad as I think the story needs to be written.
3
These pictures resemble the growth of a virus on a host, and instead of using an electron scanning microscope, satellites are used. Peace be with you.
11
This is not sustainable. Humans are causing their own extinction.
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@Paulie
We are a cancer on this planet - quite literally, with predictable results for both the host and the cancer itself.
4
....and we wonder why our wild bird populations are declining precipitously.
26
Remarkably little redshade around the Bay Area. Is it any wonder homes are so expensive there?
Northern Virginia is now unrecognizable. Close your eyes and you could be any ugly subdivision anywhere in the country. And the data centers.....
If this is progress, no thanks.
20
Living in large apartment buildings and commuting by elevator and rail are by far the most energy-efficient modes. If we wanted to minimize our footprint on Earth we would live and work in block-square 100 story buildings, each surrounded by a few acres of parks and all connected by subways, and leave the rest of the planet alone.
19
50% needs to stay wild, according to E.O. Wilson. Its not good enough to be a conservationist anymore, the world needs restorationists now.
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Is it insurrection to say I preferred the green spaces? And that South Bend doesn't look like an improvement--at least from above? Looks more like a McKinsey reconfiguration.
7
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.
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@Martin Alexander
Actually, the original "paradise" which was the subject of that song (the" Alhambra")was a motor inn/residential hotel frequented by musicians, actors and everyday workers, and it actually had a parking lot of its own.
1
@Martin Alexander
That is precisely what they did in my town. Not pink but same basic idea.
What happened to South Bend? It looks like it got hit with a bomb.
1
@John Doe Aside from the changes from demolished abandoned/neglected homes, that's the only picture that shows a change of season. Before was high summer, after dead winter. On purpose? who knows.
2
It's a shame that a wasteful development pattern (exurbanization) continues apace. If we're ever to deal with climate change, we need to build sustainably. Building car-dependency and forever into the wilderness is not the way to do it.
34
@LEM Electric cars solve that problem.
1
@Will They don't. First, because their electricity still largely comes from fossil fuels. Even if it didn't, they still need roads, parking, etc. Not to mention the fact that they're still 4,000-pound machines that take up space, run over animals, etc. We need a cure for the car addiction, period.
11
@BF A decreasing portion comes from fossil fuels. And who cares if they need roads and parking? We've got tons of space.
I’m a city planning professor and in the 1980s I started using aerial photography to map urban change in world cities (Bangkok, Karachi, Jakarta, etc). In the 1990s we switched to satellite images, and over the next three decades, the resolution of satellite images vastly improved. Now planners can use satellite images to track changes in housing stock and slum formation, plan infrastructure investments, design better land use policies and assess the impact of climate change on cities. This article gives you a good sense of what can be done with satellite imagery.
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@David
So what is being DONE with this information? From what I see here, is that nothing has been done, and a complete laissez faire approach to land development has been pursued with little concern for anyone but the developers themselves.
15
Some of these example suggest the "paving over" of productive farmland.
It's unfortunate to see valuable agricultural land destroyed forever in the name of suburban expansion.
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@Ron B : If farms are replaced with housing then they weren't particularly valuable. Also, be careful not to mistake "farmland" for "nature". Farms are machines, biological Solar energy collectors built and operated for human purposes. Replacing forests with suburbs is much more nearly a crime.
14
@Richard Schumacher
Your argument is flawed
In many cases agricultural land is developed because of economic gains associated with development.
Developers are usually driven money not altruism
13
@Ron B That agricultural land is not 'valuable' which is why it's being paved over.
2
Wow, the visual changes, especially Apple headquarters; then the tornado/fire before during and after, are photographs amazing! Then thoughtful, the impermanence of our designs and our lives.
2
A few thoughts...
Sad to see open spaces consumed. People and wildlife need them.
Why aren't data centers build underground? Wouldn't it stay cooler? It's not like they have windows...
Nice to see the older cities rebuilding.
12
@ALB Building underground costs more. We're also not even close to running out of open space, less than 5% of land in the US has been paved over.
3
@Will
What’s a few passenger pigeons or buffalo?
There was plenty.
Public lands in public hands.
7
@Will
Are you seriously considering cost as a factor in building more data centers? If so give some real consideration to the cost to the rest of life on Earth which doesn't have the massive piles of cash that data centers have!
6
Seems anybody that might be somebody moved urban or suburban. Country towns and bumps in the road has gone the way of the buggy whip. The rural exodus is an amazing commentary because anyone remaining rural are painted with the Trump brush. A scorched earth without gumption or truth.
2
@terry brady Well, the truth is that there are a lot of Trump supporters in rural town. I live in a rural area and have many Trump supporters as neighbors. We avoid discussing the orange menace and manage to get along fine.
2
I live in of of those quasi urban developments, sprouting everywhere. Unfortunately many of those places lack broader infrastructure, like parks, sidewalks, green areas, kids play places, communal recreational areas, simple squares. And what about little cafes when you can meet with friends or small restaurants, you can have lunch or dinner at?
Surely lots of those developments have spacious, comfortable houses, some even modern, but they still more resemble desert than human habitation.
87
What strikes a European (I live in Fife, Scotland) is the sheer pace of change on the US. This has been true more or less all the time since Europeans first arrived in any numbers. Changes that would take decades in Europe happen in years in the US.
In contrast, Britain (which was a world leader in building infrastructure from c. 1750 to 1914) is so slow at getting things done that whole lifetimes can pass before planned changes occur. The textbook example is a new airport for London. A large, expensive, enquiry produced weighty arguments in favour of one site in 1964. It was immediately dismissed because vested interests in the existing airports lobbied politicians to nix the new location. Instead we have had decades of patchy and inadequate incremental change that leaves us all more congested than ever. The current consensus is that Heathrow (the busiest London gateway) might get a new runway by 2030. Maybe. And when it opens it will already be over-capacity.
7
@Chris We have our fair share of forever delayed infrastructure projects. New York is just getting around to building a subway under 2nd avenue 90 years after it was first proposed.
Also, population growth must be considered. The UK had 38 million people in 1900 and it now has 66 million, a 73% increase. The US had 76 million people in 1900, and has since then more than quadrupled to 330 million.
That means more villages over the years will find themselves going from rural to urban, especially as in 1900 we still had lots of empty land that could be made productive and habitable by diverting water from rivers (e.g. California and Arizona) or draining wetlands (e.g. Florida).
Our experience is much the same as other frontier nations like Australia and Canada.
5
Amazing, disturbing, informative, beautiful! You hit another one out of the ballpark NYT. Thanks
11
I'm amazed at how quickly the areas destroyed by fires and tornadoes were rebuilt.
8
@Mike We have a lot of practice at rebuilding housing developments damaged by natural disasters. Probably because we are dumb enough to keep building in these areas.
14
A tad too spread out and not user friendly.
It a shame because I am sure it is interesting. Just don't have the time to navigate it.
One thing I learned about RE. One cannot predict the future.
If somebody told be twenty yrs. ago that my lower middle class extremely affordable immigrant neighborhood of Greenpoint would become one of the most expensive and desirables neighborhoods in the world, I would have had them committed to a mental hospital.
36
Funny.
Looks just like cancerous growths.
But the earth is preparing to exterminate the infection.
Not going to be pretty.
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@William Zoom out a little further. All over the planet. Plenty of space left. Majority of scientists know the planet can sustain far more people than currently exist. Stop fear-mongering.
6
@Full Name
Yeah, you just keep on believing that. Just sit on your hands. Nothing at all to worry about.
When the doom hits, just don’t be surprised.
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@Full Name
Sure, Earth can sustain more people, just not at the same time as it sustains wildlife and sanity.
But I'm just another one of those "scientists".
21
Blight, blight everywhere and not any culture to be seen.
107
Great article - how things change!
2
Oh boy, if the Durham picture had zoomed out to show a few more blocks to the right (East) it would have been 10x as dramatic...dozens more new building just out of the photo.
4
Resilience re-writ. This is an excellent descriptive article.
When we take seriously the rising sea levels, the development emphasis should move inland by miles. Along the eastern and southern seaboards especially, development needs to move inland. The flood plain areas will never become less.
This is as an emphatic warning as could be offered.
4
Fascinating! It would be interesting to use the dataset for other purposes, like looking at tree cover or loss of wetlands. Could it be used to target areas for regenerative agriculture or restoration?
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@PlainsEdge Not quite what you were asking but the Times did a piece a little while ago about using satellite imagery to see the rise in sea level in major cities. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/29/climate/coastal-cities-underwater.html
4