When I think of metropolitanism, I am reminded of something National Geographic magazine wrote about New Jersey. “Once isolated villages have expanded so rapidly that outsiders cannot tell where one ends and the other begins.” That sentence was written in 1933, when the state’s population was half what it is today.
No matter where you are from, this National Geographic description probably comes very close to describing the way suburban sprawl is eating up open space, creating mind-boggling traffic jams, bestowing on us endless strip malls and housing developments, and consuming an ever-increasing share of our resources.
Commentary
The Metropolitan Challenge: A Considered Opinion
September 1, 1998