A General Accounting Office (GAO) report released in April, 1999, estimated that 19 million acres of rural land had been developed between 1970 to 1990. Huge chunks of redevelopment had taken place in areas that were originally covered with farmland and forests. Is "green space" a dying national resource? Whose responsibility is it to save green space in areas where developers tend to buy up large chunks of land and chop them up into densely zoned chessboards of two-acre lots?

Once upon a time, sprawl was a mostly neutral term for car-dependent, low-density economic growth beyond the bounds of older suburbs. Now, its name connotes the dark side of that growth: traffic, long commutes, loss of open space, more smog and higher taxes to perpetuate the cycle of new schools, sewer lines and roads.

The area surrounding Washington, D.C. is quickly becoming one of the country's largest sprawl problems. Fairfax, Virginia now has a larger population than the District does, and its job total has doubled over the past two decades as liberal zoning laws have attracted industries and developers. The Washington Beltway, which was constructed in the early 60s as a bypass for travelers, has become a congested magnet for developers. The time commuters spent stuck in traffic climbed 69% between 1982 and 1994. While the area has a burgeoning middle class population, it doesn't have the money or schools to support it. 30,000 acres of farmland have disappeared from Fairfax since 1976, and some say the area could be devoid of farmland by 2020.

Since development takes place in a number of different forms, attempts to control the use of land space have varied greatly. Across the country, 240 local ballot initiatives have passed and tens of billions spent in local and federal initiatives to protect open space and find new ways to address the needs of the developers and the communities alike.

The federal government initiated attempts to control sprawl on several levels. In January 1999, the Senate Smart Growth Task Force announced the establishment of a bipartisan committee to explore the possibilities for new development policies. This included a request for $92 million and $50 million for EPA and HUD brownfield cleanup bills aimed at reducing the large numbers of underutilized or abandoned sites which are one of the symptoms of sprawl. The Intermodal Surface Transportation Act of 1999 was designed to reduce the complexities of American highways with a unified national system of highways, which would prevent uncontrolled spread of settlement along interlocking and congested roadways.

On One Hand...

Across the nation, sprawl is destroying our parks and our farms, crowding our streets with more cars, and polluting our air and water. Federal and local governments need to take responsible steps to curb the harmful effects of sprawl.

Unplanned or poorly planned development and the expansion of the nation's suburbs pose growing threats to the quality of life in suburban communities across the country as rates of pollution, traffic and congestion. Sprawl that goes unchecked leads to the deterioration of the quality of life for many communities.

Government should stop building highways that encourage sprawl and induce traffic, stop subsidizing construction in flood plains where year after year losses are costing taxpayers billions of dollars, and stop giving grants and tax incentives that encourage developers to fragment wildlife habitat and countryside.

On the Other Hand...

Despite claims that land is being gobbled up at unprecedented rates, the nation still has abundant land. In 1992, the last year detailed land-use data were available from the Agriculture Department, about 4.7 percent of the nation's land was developed.

Moreover, land development is a local issue. State and local policymakers, not federal lawmakers, need to change zoning codes and comprehensive plans to allow real-estate markets to meet consumer demand for development.

Citizens should be wary of attempts by federal and state officials to influence the pace and pattern of local land development. Market-oriented approaches rather than government mandates are more likely to create the housing diversity and efficient land uses that meet the needs of the 21st-century city and its citizens.

• American Farmland Trust reports that 70 percent of prime or unique farmland is now in the path of development.

• Clinton's Lands Legacy Initiative includes $150 million through LWCF for matching grants to state, local and tribal governments, and nonprofit land trusts, for acquisition of land and easements for urban parks, greenways, outdoor recreations, wildlife habitat, and coastal wetlands. Grants will be awarded on a competitive basis, with priority going to projects consistent with statewide "smart growth" plans.

• Howard, Frederick, Calvert, and Charles counties in Maryland together have been projected to lose 144,000 acres - more than 13 acres a day - between 1990 and 2020.

• Leaders of Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia pledged on June 28 to reduce by 30 percent the rate of development around the 64,000-square-mile bay watershed by 2012. This is being cited as the first-ever agreement between state, local and federal government to control sprawl in a coordinated attempt to enforce "smart growth." The agreement is voluntary and builds on a 1987 agreement. It calls for restoring 114,000 acres of grass and 25,000 acres of wetlands.

Lands Legacy Initiative; Washington Post