What Causes Sprawl?
While many factors spur Americans' shift from urban to suburban living, the main force behind this transition is our increasing wealth. This has raised living standards and allowed widespread automobile ownership.
Economists Edward Glaeser and Matthew Kahn (2003) have shown that even in the absence of any government policies that encourage sprawl, low-density suburban communities still would proliferate because many people prefer living in areas with less traffic congestion, larger lot sizes and cheaper housing costs. Since the automobile has made transportation to and from urban centers easy and inexpensive, urban living has lost the advantage of convenience.