Martie and Karla Webber have lived on a farm off the corner of Fuller Road and South 35th Street for over 20 years. “It’s not the same as it used to be, that’s for sure,” Martie says. “You used to come to this side of town when you got lost, and that only,” he stated. Martie has witnessed crop turn to sheet rock as hundreds (now nearly thousands) of suburban homes crowd long lost fields, transforming West Des Moines from “out there” to a strong population competitor.
The reason for this is known as “suburban sprawl.” An idea, which came about around 1893 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The United States of America has long celebrated its productive farms, ranches, and beautiful landscape through song and verse. In recent times, however, the country has grown familiar to newly built sights: housing divisions, the office complex, strip malls, and traffic jams. Translated loosely, America is presently experiencing an unprecedented loss of “open space.”
Although the amount of land in the U.S is very large, there are still particular details that suburban building seems to ignore. Dan Looker, business editor for the agricultural magazine Successful Farming explains that, “The United States has a lot of land, but certain crops depend on almost unique characteristics of regions that are threatened by development. California's central valley is one of the few places in the world that has hot, dry conditions in the fall that allow grapes to be sun dried into raisins. Once this land is developed into housing, the capacity to produce naturally dried raisins, for example, is gone forever.”
The sprawl is an idealized artificial system; much like the popular “One size fits all,” coined during the textile Industrial revolution. Suburban neighborhoods are seemingly rational, comprehensive, and consistent. Thus, leading to their popularity among families and their largely predictable performance.
Since 1980 the suburban population has grown ten times faster than that in the central city, averaging between 2.4 and 2.9 million per year. “Land is being lost there to development of "farmettes," or rural residences. In the central valley of California, housing developments are replacing fruit and vegetable production and dairies,” says Dan Looker.
Despite their romantic titles, such as “Pheasant Mills Crossing,” some citizens to the affected cities have begun to worry. Nate Looker, a student at Dowling Catholic High School, speaks openly about his views on the issue. “Besides destroying irreplaceable wilderness,” he says, “urban sprawl displaces small farmers who don’t have the money to survive in the prefabricated jungles of shopping malls and housing developments.” Sharing a strong opinion on the situation he later adds, “Finally, [urbanization] starves the culture of the Heartland.”
“Suburban development also has an economic effect on areas far from big cities,” says Dan Looker. “For example, farm families living on the edge of Chicago's suburbs eventually have to sell out as property taxes rise and their land is surrounded by housing tracts. Suburbanization makes it difficult to move tractors and farm machinery from one field to another. They also are offered prices for their land that are difficult to turn down, say $20,000 to $40,000 an acre. When they sell land for such high prices, they often buy more land at lower prices in western Illinois or even in Iowa. If they buy land within about a year, they can delay having to pay capital gains taxes on the land they just sold…exchanges tend to drive land prices higher than they would be otherwise…it becomes even harder for young farmers to get started if they want to buy a small amount of land to get started farming on their own.”
Other than targeting agriculture and the economy, suburban sprawl also can expect to hit the environment with force. Daniel C. Williams, author of the book Suburban Sprawl, says that by the year 2020 the total miles driven by people is said to increase 70%, the highway capacity will only expand 20%, and rush hour traffic will triple. Tailpipe emissions would have to be reduced by 25% just to reach clean air standards. Yet sprawling patterns force drivers to travel more miles, offsetting reductions in pollution.
“I’m unaware of the problems suburbanization may bring elsewhere, though for myself it doesn’t bother me,” says West Des Moines resident Martie Weber. “The reason I chose not to give in to the trend is simply because I love what I do,” he adds. Martie raises horses and partakes in horse showings and events.
Studies show that suburban households use vehicle transportation 31 more percent and consume more than twice the amount of gasoline as their central city counterparts. As suburbia grows, political support for higher gasoline taxes and greater urban subsidies for public transit will both fall. The U.S is likely to reduce its greenhouse gas production through higher carbon taxes and greater public transit infrastructure investments. So promoting a change and progression in technology is inevitable to decrease the effects of global warming through suburbanization.
Although the situation of suburban sprawl continues to rise there are still proud citizens, such as Martie and Karla Weber, who refuse the state buying of private property in return for centralized convenience. Groups around the nation protest the action, and some states (such as Oregon) are beginning to set an example for the struggle to maintain American culture. As for the future of rural America, there is fortunately room for optimism.
“Today, farmers who grow corn, cotton, soybeans, wheat and rice receive billions of dollars in subsidies when prices for those crops are low,” says Dan Looker. “Cars and trucks are going to be powered by ethanol made from corn, sugar beets and other crops and from biodiesel fuel made from soybeans, canola and other oilseeds.”
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