Sprawl Can Be Beautiful

What Valledupar is doing in Colombia is similarly clever. The street-planning idea was dreamed up by Shlomo “Solly” Angel, who leads the Urban Expansion program at New York University’s Marron Institute of Urban Management. It’s virtually costless because ranchers and farmers are happy to donate land that will be adjacent to a main road, Angel says. NYU has landed a contract to train 109 other Colombian cities in planning for expansion and is working with 18 cities in Ethiopia. “It is impossible to cut a road through a built-up area,” he says. “Either we do it now or we don’t do it at all.”