It’s simple, you can’t keep building L.A. style where everyone has their own house and yard. If you pepper single family homes over the landscape, that’s what you get: Los Angeles sprawl.

One solution is to build an apartment/condo for every 15 single family homes. That way people have a choice of where to live within a higher density community.

Traffic problems occur because each of those single family homes has 2 or 3 cars, there is no effective public transportation, and because sprawl lessens the ability to walk.

Many towns throughout the U.S. could be designed more compactly, it is not too late. Towns should have a good overall plan for city growth which developers can access and design their plans in accordance with. Unfortunately, most U.S. towns have horrendous growth plans.

If more people want to come to designated growth areas, they should be encouraged. But more people and more development should have a well planned framework to come to: compactly designed, walkable, and public transit supported.

The sprawl and growth problems of cities boils down to one general solution: make it walkable with efficient public transit options. Communities that are walkable inherently means built more compactly, or that their home, office, and shopping needs are built closer together.

Email everybody at the Wicomico County and Salisbury Planning and Zoning Department, or the officials in your own sprawling town, and tell them their planning and zoning stinks!

Remember, the reason our cities and landscape look like crap is because you’re still twiddling your thumbs.