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1 Visualizing Density to comfortably accommodate many people. William H. Whyte’s research into the use of public spaces revealed how this can be true. The two plazas that New Yorkers cited as the most pleasing and the least crowded—Paley Park and Greenacre Park—were also the most heavily used per square foot (Whyte 1980). They attracted and held the highest density of users, but left people with the impression that there was plenty of room. Livable, or “good,” density requires a state of balance between housing and population. Even if many people live within an acre or square mile, enough housing units are avail- able to shelter them comfortably. In residential settings, the perception of crowding may be the result of too many people trying to fit into too few housing units. Measured in persons per square mile, some areas of South Central Los Angeles are the densest neighborhoods in the country, but measured in units per acre they have a relatively low density. They are dense in population, but not in housing units. Another phenomenon, known as “dense sprawl,” is growth that is simultaneously dense and sprawling. Recent growth in desert cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix has forced us to rethink our assumptions about density and sprawl. The word “sprawl” means spread out, so it’s natural to assume that den- sity is its opposite. In fact low-density development has long been a key component of the standard sprawl definition. But sprawl as a land use pattern is defined by other characteristics as well. In sprawling environments, uses are separated by geo- graphic area, and the circulation and storage of vehicles are prime generators of form. Development gathers along highway corridors and leapfrogs across open space in a haphazard pat- tern. Growth in the desert Southwest fits this description, but it’s occurring at a higher density. A remote 500-acre subdivi- sion of single-family homes on cul-de-sac streets, located near a highway interchange, but with a relatively high density of 8 units per acre, could be accurately described as sprawl. It’s just a denser version of sprawl. 050528-0055