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Discouraging, but far from unexpected. In an excellent post, blogger Kevin Drum summarizes the dilemma of making transit work in sparsely populated suburbs, using data from Joel Garreau’s Edge City. According to Garreau, the “floor-to-area” ratio (or FAR)—the ratio of the floor space of buildings to the land on which they sit—is highly predictive of transportation conditions. At an average ratio of 1.0 (that is, where the total floorspace of...

A comparison of Vancouver, BC’s growth during the 1990s with Seattle-Tacoma–and why Vancouver ranks higher at smart growth. Using census data and Landsat satellite imagery, Sightline researchers ranked municipalities’ and districts’ records in smart growth and pavement spread, and compared greater Vancouver with another fast-growing metropolis in the Pacific Northwest–the Seattle-Tacoma region.

Sightline’s study analyzes how the Puget Sound region did at curbing sprawl and developing efficiently in the 1990s. The report provides detailed rankings of counties’ and municipalities’ records in smart growth, and compares the Puget Sound region with the Northwest’s other two major metropolises, Portland and Vancouver, BC.

This analysis finds that in the 1990s, while greater Portland’s three Oregon counties “grew smarter,” neighboring Clark County sprawled–and lost more rural land and open space per new resident, as a result.