USA's National Science Foundation says divorce contributes to sprawl!

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Written By H. Pike Oliver

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On December 4, 2007, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced that divorce is bad for the environment.  This is the conclusion of a NSF funded study by Jianguo "Jack" Lin and Eunice Yu of Michigan State University.  The research documents the fact that more households with fewer people are created as a result of the soaring divorce rate.  In turn, the additional households take up more space and use more energy and water.  Click on this link Broken Homes Damage the Environment to see a PDF of the NSF news release.

While the study did not address it, there could be a positive side to the trend toward smaller households. These are precisely the household types that market researchers tell us are likely to be interested in living in higher density mixed used neighborhoods. This type of development could offer the opportunity for people to walk instead of drive, and possibly reduce negative impacts on the environment.

H. Pike Oliver

Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, H. Pike Oliver has worked on real estate development strategies and master-planned communities since the early 1970s, including nearly eight years at the Irvine Company. He resided in the City of Irvine for five years in the 1980s and nine years in the 1990s.

As the founder and sole proprietor of URBANEXUS, Oliver works on advancing equitable and sustainable real estate development and natural lands management. He is also an affiliate instructor at the Runstad Department of Real Estate at the University of Washington.

Early in his career, Oliver worked for public agencies, including the California Governor’s Office of Planning and Research where he was a principal contributor to An Urban Strategy for California. Prior to relocating to Seattle in 2013, Oliver taught real estate development at Cornell University and directed the undergraduate program in urban and regional studies. He is a member of the Urban Land Institute, the American Planning Association and a founder and emeritus member of the California Planning Roundtable.

Oliver is a graduate of the urban studies and planning program at San Francisco State University and earned a master’s degree in urban planning at UCLA.

https://urbanexus.com
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