Land
Sprawl
and Transportation
Tennessee’s abundant natural resources, scenic rural landscapes, and productive
pastures and cropland are rapidly being lost to suburban sprawl.
An average of more than 80,000 acres are developed each year in
Tennessee–the seventh highest amount of land lost in the country—and the
Nashville and Knoxville areas have been rated among the most sprawling
metro areas in the U.S. In
addition, scattered development, coupled with a transportation program
that has focused on road building and slighted other transportation alternatives,
has spurred increased driving. Nashville and Knoxville have some of the
highest driving rates in the country. Rampant sprawl and escalating driving
are among the primary causes of most pressing environmental problems,
from air and water pollution to loss of open space, wetlands, and farmland.
State regulations and investments
play a tremendous role in shaping transportation and land use patterns,
and there are significant opportunities for policy changes that can enable
Tennessee to capture the benefits of economic growth while reducing the
mounting fiscal and environmental costs of sprawl.
We urge the Governor and the General
Assembly to:
-
Make smarter growth and more sustainable
transportation a top priority
-
Increase land conservation by strengthening
tools to encourage private land conservation and provide funding to
protect farms and land
-
Promote community revitalization by revising
state policies such as building codes that can make revitalization more
costly and direct the location of state offices to existing communities
and historic buildings
-
Provide greater planning resources to localities,
since cities and counties have primary responsibility for planning communities,
neighborhoods and rural areas, but often lack the necessary resources
-
Provide a greater range of transportation
choices by increasing funding for alternatives such as public transit,
freight rail, walking, bicycling, and ridesharing.
