[Yuri]

Originally Posted by craigs

Atlanta's sprawl was intentional. It was purpose-built to be the low-density, car-centric suburban sprawl that we see today.

That is not generally true of Boston's sprawl. First settled in the 1600s and 1700s, most of the area we now consider metropolitan Boston was already settled. Farms, villages, towns, cities, institutions--they were everywhere, and they operated independently of Boston's commuter shed for, in many cases, over three centuries. For example, the town where my parents met was first settled in 1651 and multiple industries (textiles, shoes, baseballs) came and went in the three centuries before it became part of suburban Boston. It was not built to be, nor did it function as, a suburb of Boston until the big land developers began constructing modern tract homes between the historic areas in the 1960s. It is an accidental suburb, as is so much of today's "sprawl" outside Boston.

How and where Boston could expand its commuter shed in recent decades was dictated by that historic quilt consisting of patches of towns, villages, cities, conservation land, colleges, hospitals and other institutions and stitched together by a colonial road network and 19th century rail system. The regional commuter shed eventually grew with white-collar employment and swallowed up those independent communities, filling the interstices with suburban housing tracts and modern highways.

Today's sprawl outside of Boston was not intended to be what it has become. Atlanta's surely was.

I'm pretty sure this: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bo...!4d-71.0588801 or this: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bo...!4d-71.0588801 or this: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bo...!4d-71.0588801 or this: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bo...!4d-71.0588801 or this: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bo...!4d-71.0588801 didn't exist three centuries ago.

Boston does have old towns that are now part of its urban area but it also has modern ultra-low sprawl. I don't understand this urge to make looking Boston perfect while bashing Atlanta over the same sins. Georgia is also an old state and I'm pretty sure Atlanta sprawls also has engulfed old villages, old farms as well.

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Boston's isn't... real "sprawl". The towns were already there. They were settled 100s of years ago. Atlanta's suburbs didn't exist 70 years ago.

We need better language to differentiate what Boston is from what Atlanta is.

All those old towns were already all built up by 17th century? They are linked together precisely by modern ultra-low density sprawl.

If Boston were located anywhere in the world aside the US east of Mississippi, its urbanized footprint would 1/3 of the current size.