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Once it has occurred sprawl must be dealt with as it is, and reactions to it are often directed at easing the pain it causes rather than preventing its spread. Examples include: expensive treatments for polluted lakes (China Lake); facelifts to obscure unsightliness (Route 1, Falmouth); building new schools, roads, and expanding town services; and, as Gorham and Windham are now considering, promoting industrial growth in currently undeveloped areas to offset tax increases caused by residential sprawl.

If actions like these only treat the symptoms, what is the cure? Experts agree that there is no single answer, and that real solutions will depend on the will of Maine's people."

"There is no shortage of solutions...If, and only if, Mainers agree that the cost of sprawl outweighs its benefits, will those solutions fall into place." So says Maine State Planning Office (SPO) Director, Evan Richert.

And Governor Angus King has said, "We've got to broaden a discussion that involves all the people of Maine...to start with familiarizing people with what it's costing them...State policy can have an influence, but ultimately, the long term shape of things is going to be created by individual decisions."

SPO has intensively studied options available to the state to help contain sprawl, but they are painfully aware that those options are limited by the fact that sprawl is the pattern of development favored by Mainers.

Towns facing the challenge of sprawl face the same limitations. Casco Town Manager, Dave Morton, says, "People resent towns trying to address sprawl, control it, because it involves limitations and control over property. That's a real tough issue when you tell people they can't build in areas, it doesn't work well. We try to preserve open space, but ...people right now want to build in the country...it's an issue for society. It's more cost effective to deal with populations in concentrated areas. The unfortunate part is that people move out into the country and still demand all the services and amenities they had in the cities."

Even faced with such attitudes, there are three broad, related arenas of potential action: elimination of state subsidies that encourage sprawl, establishing subsidies that encourage growth in urban areas, and requiring people who choose to move to outlying areas to be responsible for the costs of that decision.

Richert says, "The state is right out front in rewarding the outward flight of population and penalizing the reverse. We reward it through our community revenue sharing program which is population...based through school construction policies...through road funding formulas...through pricing policies with respect to utilities...the cost of basic telephone service in Portland is the same as it is in Jackman...with no regard to the actual cost of providing the service..."

And, Richert says, the state should lead by example by establishing priorities for focusing state infrastructure dollars on urban communities and other locally designated growth areas; by broadening farm and timber laws; by investing in, and protecting rural lands, and establishing priorities for acquiring open land; by redeveloping abandoned rural facilities, such as shopping malls; by giving tax credits for historic building rehabilitation; by expanding the state home ownership program to those choosing to move into the urban core.

Imposition of impact fees--fees charged to developers to cover added town costs incurred by new development--is a method of spreading costs more fairly. Gorham is in desperate need of recreational space so they are considering a plan that would require developers to set land aside for recreation or pay $500 per building lot toward other recreational facilities. Windham has discussed the possibility of impact fees for future water and sewer services. Freeport is considering imposing impact fees to help with education. Other towns are considering such fees for fire protection, ambulance service, and snow plowing.

Examples of other tough decisions surrounding the issue include: reducing minimum building lot sizes (larger lots tend to disperse sprawl's effect more rapidly over a wider area), eliminating sales taxes on electricity used for agricultural production; funding schools that kids can walk to.

Some framework is needed to put the numerous, disjointed options in perspective to create a vision of Maine's future. So, of all tools available, planning may be the most important. SPO says, "We need to meet the demand of municipalities for establishing new, or updating existing, comprehensive plans... There needs to be a statewide dialogue among citizens, developers, environmentalists, and municipal officials to define the problem and develop solutions..." and, "We need to identify the part of the housing market that prefers the traditional, compact New England town setting, get that information to developers, and reduce obstacles ...work with municipalities to streamline zoning and subdivision ordinances as necessary..."

Because it involves basic freedoms of choice, sprawl is one of the toughest issues Maine faces today and, as with most social problems, there is no single solution; it is a tough, cumulative problem, and its resolution requires tough cumulative actions. Whether or not those actions are taken will determine the condition of this great state as it passes from generation to generation.