In a September speech, Vice President Al Gore took a stand on an issue that will no doubt establish him as 2000's leading presidential contender—suburban "sprawl." Gore declared: "Acre upon acre of asphalt have transformed what were once mountain clearings and congenial villages into little more than massive parking lots. The ill-thought-out sprawl hastily developed around our nation's cities has turned what used to be friendly, easy suburbs into lonely cul-de-sacs, so distant from the city center that if a family wants to buy an affordable house they have to drive so far that a parent gets home too late to read a bedtime story."

Gore deplores the tendency to build "flat, not tall," instead endorsing "smart-growth" plans calling for denser city-like enclaves with strict building restrictions on outlying areas, preferring multi-family townhouses to single-family homes, and rail transit to automobiles—all the things suburbanites apparently want to get away from. But by reducing commuting costs, Gore insists suburbanites would have more money to send their children to college.

[Ed.: The average automobile commute time runs less than half an hour, less than by rail. Roads are cheaper to build than rail systems, and are far more flexible in their use, as exemplified by the recent trend towards inter-suburban commuting. Steven Hayward, of the San Francisco-based Pacific Research Institute, also notes that "sprawl" is a sign of economic health, and many of the metropolitan areas now leading campaigns against it—St. Louis, Chicago, and Pittsburgh—would have begged for growth of any kind twenty years earlier.]

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