ABSTRACT
This wide-ranging chapter examines evidence about the impacts of current patterns of housing development or sprawl on two sets of variables: socioeconomic well being and health of the population. New home construction matters both in terms of its magnitude (how much) and its pattern – how it is distributed over space and where it is located relative to existing construction, for example. The primary land use measure of interest in this chapter is population density, because within economics this is an important predictor of productivity and well being. Readers interested in measures of sprawl related to neighborhood design and street arrangements should refer to Ewing et al. (2003a) and Sokolow 2004, chapter 18 this volume. This chapter touches only briefly on these measures as they relate to health consequences for the population.
