It all started back in 2015 at the Congress for the New Urbanism's (CNU) Next Gen debate, hosted by none other than Chuck Marohn. One of the propositions that was debated was: "Sprawl Retrofit is a pleasant concept, but is not a viable solution to widespread sprawl." Kevin Klinkenberg debated in the affirmative. Here are some of the reflections he shared on that debate.

Robert Steuteville, a CNU member (and now editor of CNU's blog, Public Square), penned this response to Kevin's presentation at the debates, arguing that sprawl repair is actually essential and unavoidable:

Improving walkable urban areas and revitalizing run-down neighborhoods are critical projects for new urbanists, but we can’t leave the other 95 percent alone. It has too much impact on people’s health, social lives, and the economies of communities. The Charter of the New Urbanism speaks to the entire built environment—not just historic street grids.

Kevin then responded to this argument on his own blog, Walking the Walk, in an article entitled "Your Defense of Sprawl Repair." (We also republished this essay on our site so feel free to read it here if you want a juicy comment section discussion.) He argued:

There’s simply no upside to making un-walkable places into C- versions of walkable cities. Making marginal improvements to driveable suburbia really isn’t worth the effort. It actually builds mistrust since people’s lives haven’t been transformed like we’ve promised they will be. It gives the entire movement a black eye, and doesn't help us in our most important effort: continuing to build the constituency of people that support walkable, urbane places.

At this point, Strong Towns member Grant Henninger stepped in with a response:

We need people doing work in our suburbs and our walkable communities, but the work is different. The type of work that enhances walkable communities is insufficient when pursued in the suburbs, and the policy and advocacy work that’s needed in the suburbs is simple unnecessary in places that are already walkable. Making our suburbs more walkable is critically important, but we must be pursuing the right kind of work to achieve that goal.

Today, we're republishing Kevin's final response statement to Grant, originally published on Kevin's blog in November, 2015.

One last caveat: Kevin uses the word, "sprawl," a lot in this essay. You can read about why we don't often use that word at Strong Towns here. For the purposes of this article, however, we respect Kevin's nuanced use of the word and will include it.