Knowing no boundaries : stemming the tide of urban sprawl in several southern Connecticut towns and the lessons for other strong home rule areas

Abstract

Land use regulations and development patterns of several southern Connecticut towns and cities were studied in order to determine how the individual municipal land use controls in each town have contributed to urban sprawl in Southern Connecticut. Additionally, the historical foundations for the absence of strong regional governmental entities in southern Connecticut were studied to provide a baseline for developing potential regional solutions to suburban sprawl in Connecticut. Drawing upon analysis of land use regulations, regional governmental structure, existing sprawl typologies and professional and academic literature, remedies for preventing the proliferation of suburban sprawl in Connecticut through municipal action, framed within a multiple-town urban design corridor and a regional compact construct, were proposed and discussed. The potential applicability of these remedies to other areas of the United States where there are many independent municipalities concentrated in a relatively small area, each making land use decisions without a regional framework, was investigated.