Carroll, G., Heiston, P., Sweeney, J. & Williams, E. J. Demographic Trends in the 20th Century Technical Report, November (US Census Bureau, 2002).

Putnam, R. D. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (Touchstone Books/Simon & Schuster, 2000).

Ewing, R. & Cervero, R. Travel and the built environment: a meta-analysis. J. Am. Plan. Assoc. 76, 265–294 (2010).

Article 

Google Scholar
 

Glaeser, E. L. & Kahn, M. E. The greenness of cities: carbon dioxide emissions and urban development. J. Urban Econ. 67, 404–418 (2010).

Article 

Google Scholar
 

Newman, P. & Kenworthy, J. Cities and Automobile Dependence: A Sourcebook (Gower Technical, 1989).

Levinson, D. & Kumar, A. Density and the Journey to Work Working Paper 199701 (University of Minnesota: Nexus Research Group, 1997).

Frank, L. D. & Pivo, G. Impacts of mixed use and density on utilization of three modes of travel: single-occupant vehicle, transit, and walking. Transp. Res. Rec. 1466, 44–52 (1994).

Cervero, R. & Kockelman, K. Travel demand and the 3D: density, design, diversity. Transp. Res. D: Transp. Environ. 2, 199–219 (1997).

Article 

Google Scholar
 

Grannis, R. The importance of trivial streets: residential streets and residential segregation. Am. J. Sociol. 103, 1530–1564 (1998).

Article 

Google Scholar
 

Crane, R. The influence of urban form on travel: an interpretive review. J. Plan. Lit. 15, 3–23 (2000).

Article 

Google Scholar
 

Barrington-Leigh, C. & Millard-Ball, A. More connected urban roads reduce US GHG emissions. Environ. Res. Lett. 12, 044008 (2017).

Article 

Google Scholar
 

Jackson, K. T. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (Oxford Univ. Press, 2006).

Wheeler, S. M. The evolution of urban form in Portland and Toronto: implications for sustainability planning. Local Environ. 8, 317–336 (2003).

Article 

Google Scholar
 

Southworth, M. & Owens, P. M. The evolving metropolis: studies of community, neighborhood, and street form at the urban edge. J. Am. Plan. Assoc. 59, 271–287 (1993).

Article 

Google Scholar
 

Howard, E. & Osborn, F. J. Garden Cities of To-morrow (MIT Press, 1965).

Duany, A., Plater-Zyberk, E. & Speck, J. Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream (North Point Press, 2000).

Talen, E. (ed.) Charter of the New Urbanism 2nd edn (McGraw-Hill, 2013).

Strano, E., Nicosia, V., Latora, V., Porta, S. & Barthélemy, M. Elementary processes governing the evolution of road networks. Sci. Rep. 2, 296 (2012).

Article 

Google Scholar
 

Conzen, M. R. G. & Conzen, M. P. Thinking About Urban Form: Papers on Urban Morphology, 1932–1998 (Peter Lang, 2004).

Boeing, G. Off the grid…and back again? The recent evolution of American street network planning and design. J. Am. Plan. Assoc. 87, 123–137 (2020).

Article 

Google Scholar
 

Cleveland, H. W. S. A Few Hints on Landscape Gardening in the West (Hazlitt & Reed, 1871).

Creese, W. L. The Search for Environment; the Garden City, Before and After (Yale Univ. Press, 1966).

Stern, R. A. M., Fishman, D. & Tilove, J. Paradise Planned: The Garden Suburb and the Modern City (The Monacelli Press, 2013).

Robinson, C. M. Modern Civic Art; or, The City Made Beautiful (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1903).

OpenStreetMap contributors. Openstreetmap (2021); https://www.openstreetmap.org

Wheeler, S. M. The evolution of built landscapes in metropolitan regions. J. Plan. Educ. Res. 27, 400–416 (2008).

Article 

Google Scholar
 

Salazar-Miranda, A. The micro persistence of layouts and design: quasi-experimental evidence from the United States Housing Corporation. Reg. Sci. Urban Econ. 95, 103755 (2022).

Article 

Google Scholar
 

Talen, E. Arcadia for everyone? The social context of garden suburbs in the U.S. J. Plan. Hist. 22, 1–22 (2022).


Google Scholar
 

Leyk, S. & Uhl, J. H. HISDAC-US, historical settlement data compilation for the conterminous United States over 200 years. Sci. Data 5, 180175 (2018).

Article 

Google Scholar
 

Hamidi, S. & Ewing, R. A longitudinal study of changes in urban sprawl between 2000 and 2010 in the United States. Landsc. Urban Plan. 128, 72–82 (2014).

Article 

Google Scholar
 

Barrington-Leigh, C. & Millard-Ball, A. A century of sprawl in the United States. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 112, 8244–8249 (2015).

Article 
CAS 

Google Scholar
 

Festinger, L., Schachter, S. & Back, K. W. Social Pressures in Informal Groups: A Study of Human Factors in Housing (Stanford Univ. Press, 1950).

Small, M. L. & Adler, L. The role of space in the formation of social ties. Annu. Rev. Sociol. 45, 111–132 (2019).

Article 

Google Scholar
 

McCarthy, H., Potts, H. enryW. W. & Fisher, A. Physical activity behavior before, during, and after COVID-19 restrictions: longitudinal smartphone-tracking study of adults in the United Kingdom. J. Med. Internet. Res. 23, e23701 (2021).

Article 

Google Scholar
 

de Oliveira da Silva Scaranni, P. et al. Work from home and the association with sedentary behaviors, leisure-time and domestic physical activity in the ELSA-Brasil study. BMC Public Health 23, 305 (2023).

Article 

Google Scholar
 

Hayden, D. Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820–2000 (Pantheon Books, 2003).

Angrist, J. & Pischke, J.-S. Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist’s Companion 1st edn. (Princeton Univ. Press, 2009).

Angrist, J. & Pischke, J.-S. Mastering Metrics: The Path from Cause to Effect (Princeton Univ. Press, 2015).

Hirano, K., Imbens, G. W. & Geert, R. Efficient estimation of average treatment effects using the estimated propensity score. Econometrica 71, 1161–1189 (2003).

Article 

Google Scholar
 

Conzen, M. R. G. Alnwick, Northumberland: A Study in Town-Plan Analysis number 27 (Hassell Street Press, 1960).

O’grady, T. Spatial Institutions in Urban Economies: How City Grids Affect Density and Development (2014).

Hajrasouliha, A. & Yin, L. The impact of street network connectivity on pedestrian volume. Urban Stud. 52, 2483–2497 (2015).

Article 

Google Scholar
 

Portland Bureau of Transportation. PBOT Development Review Manual: Creating Public Streets and Connections Technical report (City of Portland, Oregon, 2022).

Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Big Dig: Project Background (Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 2025); https://www.mass.gov/info-details/the-big-dig-project-background

Washington State Department of Transportation. Targeting Pedestrian Infrastructure Improvements: Report 519.1 Technical Report 519.1 (WSDOT, 2001).

Li, Z., Ning, H., Jing, F. & Lessani, M. N. Understanding the Bias of Mobile Location Data Across Spatial Scales and over Time: A Comprehensive Analysis of SafeGraph Data in the United States (Public Library of Science (PLOS), 2023).

Athey, S., Ferguson, B., Gentzkow, M. & Schmidt, T. Estimating experienced racial segregation in US cities using large-scale GPS data. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 118, e2026160118 (2021).

Article 
CAS 

Google Scholar
 

Moro, E., Calacci, D., Dong, X. & Pentland, A. Mobility patterns are associated with experienced income segregation in large US cities. Nat. Commun. 12, 4633 (2021).

Article 
CAS 

Google Scholar
 

Abbiasov, T. et al. The 15-minute city quantified using human mobility data. Nat. Hum. Behav. 8, 445–455 (2024).

Article 

Google Scholar
 

Manson, S., Schroeder, J., Van Riper, D., Kugler, T. & Ruggles, S. IPUMS National Historical Geographic Information System: Version 18.0 (IPUMS, 2023); https://www.nhgis.org/

Leyk, S. & Uhl, J. H. HISDAC-US: historical built-up intensity and settlement boundaries for the conterminous United States. Harvard Dataverse https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/PKJ90M (2018).

US Environmental Protection Agency. Smart Location Database, Version 3.0 (United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2021); https://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/smart-location-mapping

US Geological Survey. 1/3 Arc-Second Digital Elevation Model (United States Geological Survey, 2021); https://www.usgs.gov/the-national-map-data-delivery

US Environmental Protection Agency. Level I Ecoregions of North America (United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2024); https://www.epa.gov/eco-research/ecoregions-north-america

Stanford Geospatial Center. National Atlas of the United States: Cities and Towns (2004); http://purl.stanford.edu/js689mk1912

Internal Revenue Service. SOI Tax Stats—Migration Data (Internal Revenue Service, 2020); https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-migration-data

Salazar-Miranda, A. Replication data for: Neighborhood design and the environmental and social costs of suburbanization. GitHub https://github.com/ariannasm/neighborhood-design (2026).