What Can We Do

What Can We Do?

Encourage Congress
to allow the U.S. population to stabilize.

Since 2002, population growth has accounted for more than two-thirds – roughly 12,000 square miles – of the loss of open space in America.

Local policy makers sincere in trying to curb sprawl in American cities have a number of policy actions and instruments at their disposal. Beyond the short term, however, local officials supportive of growth control and management can hope only to slow population growth — not stop it — if the national population continues to increase by some 2-plus million additional residents each year.

Federal immigration policy is projected to drive nearly all future population growth. Thus, long-term population growth in the United States is in the hands of federal policy makers.

Work on local solutions.

A stabilized population ALONE does not prevent sprawl. The role of increasing land consumption per person has fallen in the country as a whole, but it has always been a factor in the loss of open space in America.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a website devoted to Smart Growth at: https://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth. It contains a number of practical resources for planners, activists, developers, and local officials to help promote smart growth, which EPA defines as: “a range of development and conservation strategies that help protect our health and natural environment and make our communities more attractive, economically stronger, and more socially diverse.”

What Can We Do?

Encourage Congressto allow the U.S. population to stabilize.

Since 2002, population growth has accounted for more than two-thirds – roughly 12,000 square miles – of the loss of open space in America.

Work on local solutions.

Two Decades of NumbersUSA Studies on Population Growth and Urban Sprawl

Encourage Congress
to allow the U.S. population to stabilize.