[andrewia]

As someone who grew up in Elk Grove since 2001 and still visits every few months, it's an example of both NIMBY and YIMBY policies. It seems Elk Grove's city hall followed NIMBY tendencies and zoned many areas as RD-5 or worse, prohibiting multi-family dwellings. Its sprawl was partially caused by developers doing "hopscotch development" - Delta Shores was empty for over 20 years before that was infilled and the lots behind it are still empty. Same applies to the Costco and Mercy Hospital near Trader Joe's. Moving on, Elk Grove also has redeeming qualities - it is a suburb that is very racially diverse, partially thanks to the newer, relatively affordable houses in the south. I attended Cosumnes Oaks High School when it was still a lottery admissions system and saw this myself (and after it was switched to a zone admissions system that favored low-income neighborhoods, heardabout the subsequent increase in fights). However, an interesting highlight is the concept surrounding Laguna Town Hall (created when Laguna was trying to split off into its own city). There's apartments, restaurants, a large park, and an Apple campus within walking distance of each other. You can also see good ideas like new senior apartments being built right next to the Trader Joe's in Costco shopping centers for walkability. And I'd be remiss if I'd I didn't mention Elk Grove's network of bike trails, which my father says are enjoyable to ride.

So I'd say Elk Grove's sprawl was driven by NIMBY-style regulation that encouraged low density housing and failed to address the effects of hopscotch development. Within those failures, Elk Grove has a few gimpses of higher density and urban planning, as well as anecdotes about the benefits of mixing different socioeconomic classes.