less congestion but drive longer distances resulting in commutes that take as long or longer. Proponents Edward L. Glaeser Rollin Stanley Criticism Robert Bruegmann, professor of art history, architecture, and urban planning at the University of Illinois at Chicago and author of Sprawl: A Compact History, stated that historical attempts to combat urban sprawl have failed, and that the high population density of Los Angeles, currently the most dense urban area in the United States, "lies at the root of many of the woes experienced by L.A. today." Wendell Cox is a vocal opponent of smart growth policies. He argued before the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works that, "smart growth strategies tend to intensify the very problems they are purported to solve." Cox and Joshua Utt analyzed smart growth and sprawl, and argued that: Our analysis indicates that the Current Urban Planning Assumptions are of virtually no value in predicting local government expenditures per capita. The lowest local government expenditures per capita are not in the higher density, slower growing, and older municipalities. On the contrary, the actual data indicate that the lowest expenditures per capita tend to be in medium- and lower-density municipalities (though not the lowest density); medium- and faster-growing municipalities; and newer municipalities. This is after 50 years of unprecedented urban decentralization, which seems to be more than enough time to have developed the purported urban sprawl-related higher local government expenditures. It seems unlikely that the higher expenditures that did not develop due to sprawl in the last 50 years will evolve in the next 20 - despite predictions to the contrary in The Costs of Sprawl 2000 research. It seems much more likely that the differences in municipal expenditures per capita are the result of political, rather than economic factors, especially the influence of special interests. The phrase "smart growth" implies that other growth and development theories are not "smart". There is debate about whether transit-proximate development constitutes smart growth when it is not transit-oriented. The National Motorists Association does not object to smart growth as a whole, but strongly objects to traffic calming, which is intended to reduce automobile accidents and fatalities, but may also reduce automobile usage and increase alternate forms of public transportation. In 2002 the National Center for Public Policy Research, a self-described conservative think tank, published an economic study entitled "Smart Growth and Its Effects on Housing