It was the "surprise" political issue of 1998, a key factor in successful Democratic gubernatorial candidacies in Georgia and Maryland, and a key initiative for a Republican governor in New Jersey. Voters from coast to coast approved some 200 ballot initiatives on growth management, many of which authorized new public spending to buy up "open spaces" vulnerable to development. It is a red-hot issue in the new-growth Sunbelt, and a red-hot issue in the old-growth Northeast. Vice President Al Gore made it a centerpiece of his 1998 campaign speeches, and his most distinctive contribution to the Clinton-Gore Administration's post-impeachment domestic agenda. It is, of course, "sprawl."

For all its novelty on the campaign trail, the issue of sprawl -- a.k.a. suburban sprawl -- is not new. As the environmental movement took root in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the "paving of America" through suburbanization was commonly cited as a major threat to the quality of our land, air, and water. During the energy crisis of the late 1970s, many experts confidently predicted that suburbanization would come to a halt once transportation costs made it prohibitively expensive to commute long distances. And during the long "urban crisis" that afflicted America's great cities from the 1960s through the early 1990s -- and in some places, continues -- a whole host of liberal critics attributed the poverty and social dysfunction of the inner cities to the flight of wealthier citizens made possible by rapid and ever-widening suburban development.

In other words, the old sprawl critique was essentially aimed at suburbanization itself, and indirectly, at the lifestyle choices of suburbanites. With those suburbanites now themselves in an uproar about sprawl, there is a huge temptation on the Left to say, "we told you so," and to revive policy proposals that would address sprawl by discouraging suburbanization and forcing urban infill -- i.e., pushing new development back into the cities. Give up those "sports-utes" and big back yards, liberal critics seem to say to suburbanites, and get ready to experience the joys of cluster-housing and mass transit.

Conservatives are deeply conflicted about dealing with sprawl -- it arises from the concerns of their suburban core constituency, but inherently involves governmental activism to shape private development decisions. But conservatives do know a weak straw man when they see one. Much of their commentary on sprawl has been in the form of blasting the liberal critique of suburbanization, and suggesting that the sprawl issue is just a pretext for getting government into the business of dictating development patterns and lifestyle options.

New Democrats have an opportunity, and an obligation, to overcome this stale Left-Right argument and offer a "third way" of dealing with sprawl without demonizing the suburbs. It is certainly a political imperative to avoid the Left's back-yard-barbecue bashing. One of the reasons the Democratic Party spent so many years in the political wilderness in the 1970s and 1980s was that Democrats were perceived as choosing the wrong side in the "growth debates" that grew out of the environmental and population control movements. Democrats have now fought their way back to a competitive posture in the suburbs, in part by championing economic growth and fiscal discipline. President Clinton carried 24 of the 28 largest suburban counties in America in 1996.

Suburbs are only going to grow larger and politically stronger in the future. Congressional Quarterly estimates that suburbanites will make up a majority of the population in 212 of 435 U.S. House Districts after the 2000 census and reapportionment. Republicans fear, and Democrats hope, sprawl can become a wedge issue in the suburbs, much like education. But any anti-suburban bias or overweening federal-government paternalism in Democratic approaches to sprawl could backfire horribly.

In creating a "third way" approach, here are a few simple facts to keep in mind about sprawl.