The densification of metropolitan areas has been going on for some time and Sacramento is rated twelfth in infill of thirty-seven metro areas (rankings are about halfway down at the jump), with an infill rate of 6.8%, in this article reporting on US Census figures from New Geography,
An excerpt.
“The Process of Infill
“Although embraced with often religious passion within the urban planning community, infill is neither good nor bad in terms of social or environmental impact. Infill always increases population densities and that means more traffic. If road capacity is increased sufficiently, traffic congestion can be kept at previous levels. If on the other hand, nothing is done, traffic congestion is likely to increase along with population. This means slower traffic and more stop and go operations, which inevitably increases the intensity of air pollution with the potential to cancel out any reductions in greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) that might occur if average car trip lengths decline. Similar difficulties can occur with respect to other infrastructure systems, such as sewer and water. Expanding roads, sewer and water systems in already developed areas can be far more expensive than new systems on greenfield sites. Regrettably, boosters of infill routinely ignore these issues.
“But infill has been going on for years, along with suburbanization, both in the United States and in other first world nations. This is indicated by the general densification trend that occurred in US urban areas between 1990 and 2000 and the longer term densification trends that occurred in a number of southwestern urban areas, such as Los Angeles, San Jose, Riverside-San Bernardino, Phoenix, Dallas-Fort Worth and Las Vegas. All these traditionally “sprawling” areas have, in fact, been densifying since 1960 or before. Since 2000, 33 of the nation’s 37 urban areas with a population exceeding 1,000,000 population experienced population infill to their 2000 urban footprints.”
