Perverse Cities: Hidden Subsidies, Wonky Policy, and Urban Sprawl

Pamela Blais

ಜುಲೈ 2011 · UBC Press

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Urban sprawl – low-density subdivisions and business parks, big box stores and mega-malls – has increasingly come to define city growth despite decades of planning and policy. Most urbanists view sprawl as an expensive and unsustainable pattern of development. Yet a few defend it as simply a reflection of consumers’ lifestyle preferences.

In Perverse Cities, Pamela Blais argues that both views fail to recognize the market distortions and flawed policy that drive sprawl. Crude public policies and mis-pricing create hidden, “perverse” subsidies and incentives that promote sprawl while discouraging more efficient and sustainable urban forms – clearly not what most planners and environmentalists have in mind. Blais makes the case that accurate pricing and better policy are fundamental to curbing urban sprawl and shows how this can be achieved in practice through a range of market-oriented tools that promote efficient, sustainable cities.

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Pamela Blais is a city planner and principal of Toronto-based Metropole Consultants.