Sprawl in Colorado - our "white paper"
January '02

What is sprawl?

Sprawl can take a variety of different forms. Whether it is a massive suburban development that consumes agricultural land and open space or is a number of large lot houses that dot the countryside breaking up migration patterns or eco-systems, both of these types of sprawl have detrimental effects on our quality of life and environment. While no universal definition of sprawl exists, the Random House Webster's Dictionary defines sprawl as "to spread out or be distributed irregularly."

In terms of land use, Dr. Anthony Downs of the Brookings Institute (an independent policy analyst group) identified the ten following "traits" that are most commonly associated with sprawl.

Ten Traits associated with Sprawl

1. Unlimited outward expansion

2. Low-density residential and commercial settlements

3. Leapfrog development

4. Fragmentation of powers over land use among many small localities

5. Dominance of transportation by private automotive vehicles

6. No centralized planning or control of land use

7. Widespread strip commercial development

8. Great fiscal disparities among localities

9. Segregation of types of land uses in different zones

10. Reliance mainly on the trickle-down or filtering process to provide housing to low-income households

The Vermont Forum on Sprawl best summarizes sprawl as "dispersed development outside of compact urban and village centers along highways and in rural countryside."

The Problem
Around the nation, in communities in all states, people have started to recognize the degree to which they have lost control of their communities and their civic destinies. Overly influential developers and business interests have bullied, bribed or tricked local governments into development projects that reap private profits at public expense. Colorado is just one of many areas where public anger at badly managed growth patterns is boiling over and turning into civic action and community organizing for political change.

One of the biggest factors aggravating sprawl in Colorado (as well as the biggest impediment to responsible growth) is the fact that so many business interests benefit from runaway growth, and that they have been so effective in convincing local governments to buy into their "over-development" vision. Land speculators, developers, mortgage brokers, contractors, construction interests, realtors. . . even sand and gravel companies - all have a vested interest in maintaining a rapid growth ideology and recognize and take action to protect that fact.
Because of their finances and sustained political will, the "growth-lobby" is able to spend the time and money to effectively lobby local governments to re-zone property, fund environmental impact studies and extend city services (at taxpayer expense), and to receive approval for sprawling developments even over extreme local citizen opposition. Likewise, pressure and mis-information from these same agencies have created a common perception that efforts to "reign in" or regulate development could bring about job-loss, decreased tax-revenue, and even recession. But the obvious question remains. . . how does a new development on the edge of town better the lives of anyone in the existing town? Traffic worsens, city services become more thinly spread, water becomes scarce, and, as poll after poll has shown, out-of-control growth becomes something the local citizens come to fear rather than something they welcome.

Solution: What is Smart Growth?

The American Planning Association recently defined smart growth as "the planning, design, development and revitalization of communities to promote a sense of place, the preservation of natural and cultural resources, and the equitable distribution of the costs and benefits of development. Smart Growth enhances ecological integrity over the short and long term and improves quality of life by expanding the range of transportation, employment, and housing choices in the region in a fiscally responsible manner."

The principles of Smart Growth are based on the belief that development patterns and land use decisions directly affect our quality of life. Smart Growth can range from local planning decisions that strictly lay out future land use patterns to new developments that enhance community character.

Without embracing the principles of responsible growth management, the current political system rewards developer interests at the expense of the expressed desires of the people. With such well-funded and willful opponents already so firmly entrenched in political system, it is imperative that local citizen groups be given the resources, tools, and advice they need to run effective campaigns more effectively achieve a voice in debates shaping the creation of their local communities. To this end, citizens need to be informed in advance where developments have been proposed, what the character and size of such developments would be, and the costs and specifics of how their local county or city plans to provide services and water. . . and at what price. In short, it is imperative that efforts be made and steps taken to ensure that local citizens have the ability to effectively organize and express their concerns, and to be heard over the lobbying and influence that developer interests currently wield.

CoPIRG's Colorado Sprawl Action Center is designed to ensure that citizens have the voice they deserve in local planning processes, to counter developers' misinformation concerning citizen and government rights. Through dissemination of information, statewide networking services and leadership training at our citizen organizing conferences, the Center already does more than any other organization in the state to foster this much needed kind of activism. Through our pro-bono training sessions on campaign planning, lobbying, working with the media, fundraising, group-building and public speaking, the Center provides an unparalleled resource for the training and improvement of citizen action and democracy itself. By giving local citizen groups the ability to be an effective voice FOR their community, IN their community, the Colorado Sprawl Action Center helps ensure a permanent, localized citizen-advocate force to counter the so-pervasive influence and dollar power of pro-development business interests.

Many of these resources and tools are available through the Colorado Sprawl Action Center and on this web-site. For more information of responsible growth management and smart growth, see The Growth Management Toolkit and the Smart Growth Hall of Fame. Both documents are available on this site.

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