"If we allow sprawl to continue in the state, we will lose our community and become a homogenized and undifferentiated part of our larger region." (Howard Dean, Vermont Governor, January 1998)
When Vermont Governor Howard Dean gave his 1998 State of the State address, he focused on an issue of mounting concern for many Vermonters--sprawl. Citizens, legislators, planners, activists, and other professionals, along with the governor, increasingly believe that sprawl is seriously threatening Vermont's traditional rural landscape and sense of community.
Compared to many other states, Vermont has fewer examples of sprawl. The typical Vermont landscape of compact rural villages, towns, and small cities surrounded by open countryside dotted with farms is still common. But more and more, these landscapes are being replaced by corridors of strip commercial development, clusters of "big-box" retail stores, low-density residential subdivisions, and ten-acre residential lots scattered over farmland and forestland.
This new landscape already has begun to compromise Vermont's uniqueness. If sprawl advances, it will continue to increase auto dependence and driving, magnify air and water pollution problems, eliminate farms, forests, and natural areas, fragment wildlife habitat and displace species, destroy scenic beauty and repace it with ugly roadsides, contribute to the decline of downtowns, increase infrastructure costs, and erode our sense of community.
What is Sprawl and Why Does It Happen?| Evidence and Impacts of Sprawl| What We Can Do|
Developing land always impacts the environment and the landscape, but some forms of development have more impacts that others. Sprawl is defined as low-density development outside compact town centers, and in contrast to compact development, it has relatively harmful impacts on environmental quality, the traditional Vermont landscape, and some important community values.
Towns in Vermont and much of the rest of the country originally developed in a compact manner because people traveled only by foot, horse, or horse-drawn vehicle; thus, it was important for homes, workplaces, and commercial establishments to be close together. Later, the invention and use of streetcars caused commercial "strips" to spring up along the streetcar lines in many towns. Residential areas often followed. As the automobile caught on, more roads were built, more businesses moved out to the edge of cities, and more people moved out to the suburbs. These trends took off even more after World War II, when car ownership and suburban home ownership grew phenomenally.
Today, sprawl is the standard form of development in many areas, Within Vermont, sprawl development continues for a variety of reasons, including:
Vermont has always been a rural state, but people have been moving to rural areas at accelerated rates since 1960, leading to more residential sprawl. As illustrated by Chart 1, Vermont's rural population grew by 59% between 1960 and 1990, while the urban population grew by 21%. In Chittenden County, the trend is even stronger. The combined population of Burlington and Winooski remained about the same between 1960 and 1990, while the population of the rest of Chittenden County increased my 173%. (See Chart 2.) In Washington County (a more typical, rural Vermont county), a similar but less pronounced trend has occured. The combined population of the five most populous towns in 1990 grew by only 9% between 1960 and 1990, while the population of the rest of the county grew by 90%. 1
While rural population has been increasing in Vermont, the number of farms and number of acres farmed have been falling. The number of acres farmed in Vermont has dropped from about 3.9 million acres in 1945 to 1.3 million in 1992, and much of the previously farmed land is now sprawl development. Sprawl is slowly reducing Vermont's already limited supply of agricultural soil, and the losses are essentially permanent.
Homes on large lots in farmland and forestland are responsible for much of Vermont's sprawl, but industrial parks, office buildings, malls, commercial strips, "big box" retail stores, and ski areas are also responsible. In particular, the spread of retail stores outside downtowns has received much attention in recent years. In Chittenden County, retail sales in Burlington and Winooski have remained about the same for the past 20 years, while sales in the rest of the county have skyrocketed (taking inflation into account). Retail sales in Burlington and Winooski were about $385 million in 1992, compared to sales of $966 million in the rest of Chittenden County. (See Chart 3.)
And the split is now even more pronounced due to the recent explosive retail growth in the Williston area. Downtowns will continue to struggle and decline until retail sprawl is checked.
The growing rural population and increasing commercial sprawl mean people must drive more for work, shopping, and leisure activities. Sprawl is partly responsible for Vermont's phenomenal growth in vehicle miles traveled, which rose from 1.6 billion miles in 1960 to 602 billion miles in 1995. This increasing use of cars and
trucks has worsened our air and water quality, increased our reliance on oil, increased fatalities and injuries from car crashes, and required us to spend millions of dollars on bypasses, highway upgrades, and other transportation infrastructure projects. (See related fact sheet Vermonters and Trasportation.)
Sprawl also leads to a host of environmental problems. Because it fragments land, sprawl displaces certain wildlife species and introduces those more tolerant of humans. Wetlands are destoyed, forests are cut down, and views are ruined, Because more land is covered with impervious surfaces, more run-off into lakes and streams is polluted. Groundwater also is more easily contaminated from run-off, septic discharges, and leaking underground storage tanks. (See the related fact sheets Vermonters and Wildlife Habitat and Vermonters and Wetlands.)
1 The five most populous towns in Washington County in 1990 were: Barre City, Barre Town, Montpelier, Northfield, and Waterbury. The rest of Washington County towns are: Berlin, Cabot, Calais, Duxbury, E. Montpelier, Fayston, Marshfield, Middlesex, Moretown, Plainfield, Roxbury, Waitsfield, Warren, Woodbury, and Worcester.
2 The rest of Chittenden County towns are Bolton,Buel's Gore, Charlotte, Colchester, Essex, Hinesburg, Huntington, Jericho, Milton, Richmond, St. George, Shelburne, S. Burlington, Underhill, Westford, and Williston. Sprawl is not the landscape of Vermont, nor can it be the landscape of the country's long-term future. Sprawl is a wasteful form of development -- wasteful of energy, land, natural recources, infrastructure, and money -- and as environmental constraints grow in the future, wasteful lifestyles will become less feasible.
Unlike much of the rest of the country, Vermont's towns are not yet completely engulfed by sprawl. This gives Vermonters an important challenge: we still have the time to check sprawl before it becomes overhelming. To begin to work toward wiser forms of development, we can:
Evidence and Impacts of Sprawl
What We Can Do