News Roundup

Centered New Orleans Avoids Mistakes Stemming from Sprawl

New Orleans CityBusiness
Elisabeth Butler, Staff Writer

Although tourists sometimes become confused when New Orleanians give directions using “lakeside” and “riverside” references, the city’s unique design has earned praise from Smart Growth America.

The coalition partnered with researchers from Cornell and Rutgers to measure sprawl and its impact on quality of life.

New Orleans earned positive marks as a minimally sprawling city. Out of 83 metropolitan statistical areas, the New Orleans area ranked No. 10 for its lack of sprawl in Orleans, St. Tammany, Jefferson, St. Bernard, Plaquemines, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist and St. James parishes.

“New Orleans was frankly a surprise for us,” says John Bailey, associate director for Smart Growth America. Bailey expected cities in the Northeast to score better than southern or western locations. New Orleans outranked all but four Northeastern metro areas.

Reid Ewing of Rutgers University in New Jersey and Rolf Pendall of Cornell University in New York partnered with Smart Growth America of Washington, D.C., for the research. Smart Growth America is a coalition that promotes farmland protection, neighborhood revitalization, affordable housing and increased transportation options.

The study measured a city’s sprawl index four ways: residential density, neighborhood or downtown strength, street network accessibility and the mix of homes, jobs and services.

“New Orleans blasted the stereotype,” Bailey says.

The study ranked New York the least sprawling metro area. Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif., was the worst. In the South, Atlanta sprawls the most and it was No. 5 overall. Houston’s sprawl ranked No. 32.

Baton Rouge and its surrounding parishes, which ranked No. 24, were the only other Louisiana area studied.

Joe Perret, a Jefferson Parish research planner, says Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River create sprawl barriers for New Orleans.

“We don’t have to make a concerted effort to prevent sprawl here,” Perret says, because wetlands prevent developers from venturing outside the levies. Instead, people tend to redevelop existing areas within the parishes, a strategy that Smart Growth America encourages.

Reinvesting in the fabric of the existing area reduces sprawl, Bailey says. And improving mass transportation, such as New Orleans’ plan to lengthen its streetcar lines, also helps.

Older cities typically fared better in the listing than younger towns, Bailey says. New Orleans was designed to suit people traveling by horses rather than cars, so the streets of the French Quarter and downtown are narrow. Small blocks with mixed-use buildings decrease the city’s sprawl factors, too.

The compact, mixed-use qualities of New Orleans likely raised the metro area’s overall score, he says.

The study also measured how much the index affects quality of life. Bailey says the research is the first comprehensive analysis of its kind.

The study showed that people living in sprawled cities are more likely to: drive further, own more cars per capita, breathe more polluted air, die in car crashes and walk less. However, no relation was found to a city’s sprawl index and its amount of traffic congestion.

With an overall sprawl index of 125.4, New Orleans outscored Baton Rouge’s index of 90.1 on every impact level.

As the 10th least sprawling metro area, New Orleans still has 27.9 fatal car accidents per 100,000 people; 15 miles driven daily per person; 1.4 cars owned per household; and 5.9% of the population using mass transit.

As the 24th most sprawling area, Baton Rouge has 51.6 fatal car accidents per 100,000 people; 22.2 daily miles driven per person; 1.7 cars owned per household; and 1% of the population commuting via mass transportation.

11/04/2002 - Vol. 118 - Issue 123 - Page 11