Reason Magazine Horizontal Cities
"For those of us who grew up in "suburbia"--that geographic and psychic region that has long been synonymous with all that is "plastic" and "soulless" in American life--the April 9 edition of The New York Times Magazine was a real stunner. Who would have expected one of the nation's great arbiters of taste and sensibility to sanctify "The Triumph of Burbopolis" with a special issue that actually had some good things to say about the suburbs? One story even went so far as to praise Levittown, Long Island, that reportedly irradiated Ground Zero of the post-war suburban explosion: "Held up as an example of conformity and monotony, Levittown's 17,000 identical capes have mutated into an exuberant architectural Babel: the sparrows on a wire have each grown their own distinctive plumage."

Such thoughts underscore a significant shift in elite opinion regarding suburbia, the place where most Americans--138,231,000 of them, according to the Census Bureau--now choose to live."

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The New York Times Magazine Exiles on Main Street
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"If drug dealers drove minivans, this is the kind they'd drive. I'm in a black-on-black, top-of-the-line Dodge Grand Caravan ES, with phat spoilers, muscle grillwork, road-hugging fog lights and 10 Infinity speakers blasting out alternative rock. I'm in my element weaving through the suburban streetscape of Bethesda, Md. I'm hunting for a parking spot, passing by the Ancient Rhythms furniture gallery, the Outrage Cafe and Terra Cognita, a Material Culture-type store that sells tribal rugs, folk art and kilims. Parking is supposed to be easy in the suburbs, but it's always tough in a retail hub like Bethesda. My eyes narrow with that sharp, hungry look I used to get when I lived in Manhattan, hunting for an apartment or on rainy evenings desperate for a cab. Finally, I spot an empty space up the street in front of Three Dog Bakery, which makes fat-free apple-oatmeal biscuits, cheese and herb treats and gourmet carob chips -- for dogs. "

Feed Sprawl of America
"You're stuck in traffic again. As you creep along a highway that was widened just three years ago, you pass that awful new billboard: "Coming soon: new homes!" Already the bulldozers are plowing down pine trees, and a thin layer of mud is oozing onto the roadway. How could this be happening? Over the years, you've seen a lot of forest and farmland replaced by rooftops, but these one hundred acres had been left unscathed, at the whim of a wealthy owner. Now, it is said, the owner has passed on, the children have cashed out, and the property has fallen victim to the incessant pressures of growth.

Why, in this country in which growth is considered tantamount to well-being, in which economic health is measured in "housing starts," is the prospect of these particular houses starting near yours so threatening? What has happened to our manner of growth, such that the thought of new growth makes your stomach turn?

How did sprawl come about? Far from being an inevitable evolution or a historical accident, suburban sprawl is the direct result of a number of policies that conspired powerfully to encourage urban dispersal."

Christian Science Monitor California nearly 'sprawled' out
"In a story with hard implications for the frontier American mindset - the dream of a family home with a yard - a soaring number of people in America's end-of-the-rainbow state say they have reached the end of the line, and their wits, over sprawl.

After a decade of population influx averaging 600,000 people per year, as many as 18 million more - the current population of New York State - are due before 2025.

The threats to farming, water quality, clean air, and quality living have prompted several moves to help force regionwide solutions to state problems. Groups such as the Great Valley Center in the mid-Central Valley, the Fresno Business Council to the south, and Valley Vision Regional Action Partnership in Sacramento are building regionwide coalitions that include environmentalists and farmers, business people and residents. The idea is to pool resources and ideas, create long-term agendas, and open dialogue between antagonistic sectors."