The paper, ‘Analysis of Public Policies That Unintentionally Encourage and Subsidize Urban Sprawl’, is the last of the studies by LSE Cities for the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate.

The report is written by Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute, and investigates evidence that current development policies result in economically excessive sprawl. It defines sprawl and its alternative, “smart growth,” describes various costs and benefits of sprawl, and estimates their magnitude.

Here is a selection of the media coverage generated by the launch of the report:
Wall Street Journal – The cost of sprawl: More than $1 trillion per year, new report says, Laura Kusisto
Washington Post – The steep costs of living so far apart from each other, Emily Badger
Houston Chronicle – Report: sprawl damaging to health and the economy, Nancy Sarnoff
Inter Press Service – In thrall to the mall crawl and urban sprawl, Kitty Stapp
ClimateWire – Urban sprawl costs US billions annually — report, Manon Verchot
City Lab – How much Sprawl costs America, Tanvi Misra

The paper, ‘Analysis of Public Policies that Unintentionally Encourage and Subsidize Urban Sprawl’, is available to download here.

Philipp Rode gave a presentation on ‘Cities and the New Climate Economy: The role of Urban Form and Transport’ at the Urban Redevelopment Authority in Singapore on Monday 9 March. Rode presented findings from the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate’s New Climate Economy (NCE) project.

For further details click here.