There are good reasons to expect that attributes of local public finance may impact urban land use and, specifically, sprawl. A detailed and novel investigation of U.S. metropolitan areas published in 2006 1 provides substantial insights into the causes of sprawl, but it overlooks the main characteristics of local public finance (taxes and user charges). Using a subset of the data matched to city public finance data, a parallel analysis gives insight into the impacts of local public finance on

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... prawl. There is evidence that greater reliance on local property taxes reduces sprawl. The evidence that user charges (primarily for water, sewerage and solid waste services) could have a similar effect is weak but suggestive. The combined effects of a high reliance on property taxes and user charges (compared to typical levels) might reduce sprawl by as much as one-third. For Calgary and Edmonton, this means that the current heavy reliance on property taxes in both cities reduces sprawl and that the adoption of alternative local taxes-that reduce reliance on property taxes-is expected to increase sprawl. Further analysis of the impacts of local public finance on urban sprawl is warranted. †