Agrarian Past Drives South Atlantic Sprawl

North Carolina, writes Bill Fulton, is like California during the period after World War II, when rapid growth threatened to overwhelm unprepared governments. North Carolina has "an unrelenting pattern of sprawl that is driven partly by the state's own rural past. Half of the state's residents use septic tanks and a third use water wells. Most residents aspire to the very large lot in the woodsy, rural-style landscape. There is virtually no urban tradition."

California's urban areas, however, are bounded by huge tracts of public land that limit the extent of low-density sprawl. Not so in the South Atlantic states, which struggle every day with a growing tension between a rural, agrarian past and an urban future.