Up Above: The Geography of Suburban Sprawl in Southern California’s Antelope Valley

Matt Jalbert

The Responsibility of Capital

THOSE WHO CONTROL INVESTMENT HAVE a major role to play in the reshaping of suburban sprawl. Much of the monotony of the 1980s-style suburb was the result of extremely conservative investment decisions: not wanting to put funds at risk, developers and the banks which backed them stuck with tried-and-true subdivision designs. The shape sprawl took was guided by economics rather than malevolence or ignorance. Thus, implementing development plans that can advance beyond the usual sprawl requires that banks, developers, and federal mortgage guarantee programs see it in their interest to fund and build such places. Lenders could direct this by making traditional sprawl more expensive to finance than more efficient developments or older homes. This efficiency would be reinforced by rationalizing natural resource costs and building better mass transit systems, both of which would make non-traditional housing more attractive to consumers.

Lenders must take into account more than just the selling price of a home. Wrapped up in a home’s value is its proximity to employment, the environmental impacts of its building and maintenance, and even the value of lost time through commuting. Changing the focus of what kind of development gets financed means changing how lenders evaluate the long-term returns on their investments, returns which so far have not been sufficiently examined.

Though nearly everyone acknowledges that consumer debt in this country is a serious economic problem, neither the government nor lenders have made moves to remedy that. Much of the economic “growth” of the 1980s was nothing more than debt spending. The excesses of the decade have burdened individuals, corporations, and government with debts that are a major impediment to a sound economy. Despite the fact that fewer people can afford to own homes now than in the halcyon postwar years, the Antelope Valley boomed on the 1950s-style model of suburban development. As a consequence, buyers there took on considerable debt, in addition to high costs in maintaining their automobiles for the long commutes. Denser development which requires less driving can save residents money, both in home ownership costs and commute costs. This opportunity for debt-reduction can be used as yet another incentive to change growth’s form.

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© Matt Jalbert 1995–2002