Almost 60 million more housing units will be needed by 2030, concludes a Brookings Institution report. | brookings | usatoday
By Haya El Nasser, USA TODAY
Residential and commercial development in the next quarter-century will eclipse anything seen in previous generations as the nation moves to accommodate rapid population growth, according to a Brookings Institution report Monday.
About half the homes, office buildings, stores and factories that will be needed by 2030 don't exist today, says Arthur C. Nelson, author of the report for the think tank in Washington, D.C.
The U.S. population is expected to increase 33% to 376 million by 2030, according to Nelson's analysis. That's 94 million more people than in 2000.
To serve that population, almost 60 million housing units will have to be built. About 20 million of these units will replace destroyed or aging homes. In addition, half of the largest metropolitan areas will have to add as much or more commercial and industrial space as existed in 2000, the report says. (Story: Report offers tool for development)
The projections are startling for a nation already coping with sprawl, traffic congestion and the strains they put on the environment. Phenomenal growth in the South and West has turned deserts and soybean fields into cities. The report projects that these regions, which face water limitations, will experience the greatest surge in construction in the next 25 years.
"That kind of statistic is either terrifying or a wonderful opportunity," says David Goldberg, spokesman for Smart Growth America, a national coalition of groups that support managing growth.
If development patterns don't change, subdivisions will continue to sprout on farmland farther from metropolitan areas, requiring more roads and sewer lines.
"We need to get this message out to planners so that they see the big numbers," says Nelson, director of urban affairs and planning at the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech in Alexandria, Va. "There may be no better time than now to plan the shape of the landscape."
For generations, Americans favored single-family homes on larger lots. Development spread to where land is cheaper but within commuting distance to jobs.
Communities must decide if they "want to develop policies consistent with those preferences or constrain them," says John Kasarda, director of the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. "Sprawl is a choice."
There are signs that people want more choices. Frustration with long commutes is mounting. Downtown housing is enjoying a revival. Even suburbs are creating city-styled town centers that combine stores, offices, condos and townhouses in a walk able environment.
But change is coming slowly, says John McIlwain, senior housing fellow at the Urban Land Institute, a research group that works with developers: "We're going to wind up with anywhere between 60% and 70% of development occurring where it's always occurred since World War II: on the outer edge."
[By Haya El Nasser, USA TODAY]
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