The sprawling suburbs of cities like Atlanta and Houston have hidden costs to the United States economy that come to more than $1 trillion a year, according to a new report.
The report to be released Thursday by the New Climate Economy and the Victoria Transport Policy Institute, both smart growth groups, looks at costs ranging from the drain on productivity and increased likelihood of obesity due to hours spent waiting in traffic to the loss of land to parking spaces.
“I think the message is really just to be aware that there is a cost for this development model, both for individuals who are stuck in traffic trying to get to their work on a daily basis, but there are also costs that they are imposing on others,” said Helen Mountford, program director for the New Climate Economy, an initiative of seven countries to look at economic growth and climate change.
One of the significant drains is car accidents, which can kill people at the prime of their working lives. Americans who live in suburbs with poor transportation access are two to five times more likely to be killed in an accident, the report says.
Per capita, car crashes impose a nearly $1,750 annual cost on both individuals and the larger economy, according to the report, titled “Analysis of Public Policies that Unintentionally Encourage and Subsidize Urban Sprawl.”
There are of course financial benefits to living in the suburbs. Land tends to be cheaper helping to keep housing costs low. Affluent suburbs tend to have better schools helping parents save on private-school tuition. Also, there are costs associated with living in the city, like more severe air pollution.
Todd Littman, executive director of the British Columbia-based Victoria Transport Policy Institute, said that part of the reason people are drawn to suburban areas is that they don’t fully shoulder the added costs of roads and school bus service. Policies that better reflect those costs would encourage people to move to denser areas with better public transportation, he said.
Mr. Littman acknowledged that putting a price tag on such a vast – one might say sprawling – topic is challenging. But he said the study does demonstrate that the outward creep of suburbs is imposing enormous costs on the economy.
“I’m not pretending to be super precise on some of these,” he said. “I am very confident that the research indicates that the costs of sprawl are large compared with other costs that are considered in conventional planning.”