How a Suburban County Beat Back Sprawl
A study of US metro areas shows how the Bridgeport, Connecticut, region went from one of the most sprawling to one of the least.
Stamford, Connecticut, has encouraged development downtown, reversing its reputation for sprawl.
Photographer: Alex Potemkin/E+ via Getty Images
Several decades ago, the communities lining the southwestern corner of Connecticut were emblematic of quintessential suburbia — low density, single-family development, the need to drive everywhere, the lack of a town center.
Nearly all of the job growth in Connecticut between 1979 and 1991 was in towns of less than 50,000 people, while anchor cities like Bridgeport and Stamford were hollowed out. In 2002, a landmark study found that the Bridgeport metropolitan area was the seventh worst region in America for so-called urban sprawl.