In the 1970s, Real Estate Research Corporation, for which I worked, wrote a milestone report called the COSTS OF SPRAWL. This became the measuring rod for alternative forms of future growth. I did not work on this study myself, but it became quite famous. However, there were plenty of things wrong with this basic study, mainly because of the complexity of trying to estimate costs of alternative forms of development.

So a couple of years ago, Bob Burchell of Rutgers led a team of people to revisit this issue by examining the overall costs of two alternative forms of future development for the entire nation, paid for by the TRB. I was a member of that team. We wrote two books: COSTS OF SPRAWL REVISITED (1998) and COSTS OF SPRAWL 2000 (2002).

One of the motives for this study was to transform the discussion of sprawl vs. smart growth from an emotional debate among advocates to a reasonable estimate of actual costs and benefits made by a group of objective analysts - that is, us!

One form of future growth we analyzed was a continuation of uncontrolled sprawl. We defined sprawl as low-density growth, with unlimited outward extension, dominance by automotive transportation, and leap-frog development out into open space. The alternative is a more compact form of growth with higher densities, limited outward extension, more in-fill development and more emphasis upon transit.

The more compact form diverts about 11 percent of future growth from the outer edges to closer in, while permitting a lot of sprawl to continue. This is done at a national scale for the entire period from 2000 through 2025. The likely rate of growth for the entire period is projected by assuming sprawl will continue to be dominant. Then the same amount of growth is relocated under more compact assumptions.

First, this study sought to measure the cost savings from future development more compact than sprawl. Second, it also sought to identify the benefits that made sprawl so dominant in the 50 years after World War II. So it was not a simple-minded rejection of sprawl, but an objective look at the alternatives.

What did we find? On one hand, more compact growth saved a lot of money because it involved shorter trunk lines for roads and utilities, and kept more land in open-space uses. Also, housing units built at higher density were smaller in size and used less land.

Total population growth from 2000 through 2025 would be 60 million, 48 million in the South and West. That is a gain of 23 million households. Under uncontrolled sprawl, 742 of the nation's 3,091 counties would experience more sprawl. If compact growth was adopted nationwide, sprawl could be greatly reduced in 57% of those counties. That would require redirecting 11% of added households and 6% of added jobs in those 25 years. The West and South would experience the greatest redirection.

Uncontrolled sprawl would absorb 18.8 million additional acres of land, but compact growth would reduce that amount by 4 million, or 21%. Water and sewer line savings under compact growth would amount to $12.6 billion, or 6.7% over 25 years. Road and highway savings would be $109 billion, or 11.8%. Local public service costs would be substantially lower under compact growth than uncontrolled sprawl - perhaps by $4.2 billion annually in 2025. Housing costs would be 7.8% lower under compact growth, partly because of smaller unit sizes and more multi-family building.

Miles of travel would be reduced under compact growth, and more of it would occur on transit than in the sprawl scenario.

Altogether, savings of shifting from uncontrolled sprawl to national compact growth would be both very large and very small - depending on to what they are compared.

Those savings are very large compared to the expenditures of state and local governments on providing public services - perhaps a total of $550 to $600 billion over 25 years. That is $22 to $24 billion per year. And that does not include savings by private individuals of traveling less each year.

But those total savings are very small in relation to the nation's gross domestic product, which in 2000 was $9.87 trillion. The total savings of $600 billion over 25 years on an annual basis would be only 0.24% of $9.87 trillion. By 2025, if our GDP grows just 2% per year, GDP will be $16.2 trillion, 64% larger. So we could afford to continue sprawl if we believed its benefits were worth it.

Therefore, a key question is: what policies would we have to adopt in order to shift from our current uncontrolled sprawl to the more compact form in this scenario? We cannot gain those savings merely by continuing the status quo.

The most obvious change would be to encourage regional governance - though not regional government - in land use matters. This involves collective decisions on land-use and other issues of regional importance. It means shifting some power over land uses from the local level to the regional or state level. Without such a change, many local governments would continue engaging in exclusionary zoning and avoid higher density developments. That would inhibit shifting more future growth from far out to closer in. We needed more coordinated land development policies across entire regions.

Yet almost all elected officials today oppose any such change because it threatens the ability of homeowners to keep control over who lives near them - and might affect the prices of their homes. The only states that have made such a power shift are those threatened by environmental crises, such as Florida, Oregon, Washington, Kentucky, or Georgia, or by court actions threatening traditional zoning, as in New Jersey.

A second such change would be permitting construction of much more affordable housing in existing communities, even if that required more apartments and small homes there. Only if such housing is created could many households afford to live closer in. Today they keep on driving out farther to get cheaper housing, since prices fall 1.2 to 1.5% per mile farther out. This generates more traffic congestion for those living closer in too. But most suburban residents have so far resisted allowing lower-cost housing near their homes, since they want to protect the high market values of those homes - their key assets. They don't feel strong pressure to accept more density.

Thus, the alluring attraction of lower future development costs can only be achieved if homeowners in many suburbs are willing to risk slowing down the capital gains they have been receiving on their homes through exclusionary zoning. Until then, theorizing how to shift from sprawl to more compact growth, and how to move more future growth inward instead of outward, is merely idle speculation.

Only state governments with strong governors longing for more compact settlement patterns are going to make the pursuit of the economies of greater compactness and smart growth a reality.

Right now, governors are focused on coping with state budget deficits. In times of recession, such as the recent past, localities are more interested in encouraging growth than limiting it. But in times of prosperity, which we now seem to be entering, people's interest shift to limiting growth, since they don't need it then.

In fact, governors looking for popular issues should seriously consider becoming strong advocates of smart growth approaches to growth-related issues along the lines I have been discussing. We are now entering a likely period of prosperity when interest in limiting growth will reappear. So being for smart growth or more compact growth might be a good way to get re-elected.

As Robert Strauss once said to the President of the United States at a Gridiron dinner, "You can fool some people all of the time - and those are the ones on which you should concentrate your efforts." On that happy note, I will conclude.