In 1997, a new city master plan painted an idealistic image of San Antonio's future.

We would become a city of responsible urban design and protected natural and culture resources, with the foresight to build infrastructure ahead of new development.

Our community would become pedestrian friendly and decreasingly car dependent.

It all sounded very nice on paper.

Then San Antonio's economy took flight. New residents — many of them from California and South and West Texas — poured into San Antonio and its suburbs.

The region went on a record-breaking home-building spree, adding more than 123,000 single-family houses in the years following the adoption of the master plan, according to data from the housing research firm Metrostudy.

That's a quarter of all single-family homes in the entire metropolitan area, which includes Bexar and its surrounding counties.

Job growth and an affordable housing market — kept affordable, in part, by few limits on development — have combined to power San Antonio's growth, and continue to help buoy the city through these rocky economic times.

But at the same time, nearly all of those 123,000 homes sprouted in traditional suburban neighborhoods on the edge of Bexar County and beyond, where people typically commute long distances to work and drive for every errand.

A report from the Texas Transportation Institute last year estimated that residents spend 39 hours a year stuck in rush hour, twice as much time as they did in 1995. More tree canopy has been lost, and as early as 2002 the Bexar Appraisal District estimated that more than half of the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone on the North Side already had been developed.

What happened to the master plan's goal to “influence and manage the development of the community”?

In a word: reality.

“This was a statement about what we would like to have happen, but not what we thought we would achieve,” said Char Miller, a Trinity University urban studies professor teaching environmental analysis and history this year at Pomona College in California.

Former San Antonio Mayor Howard Peak took office just as the master plan was passed and oversaw related updates in 2001 to the city's Unified Development Code.

He said that since then, the city has seen investment and growth in and near downtown and to the south, but that change has been gradual.

“You can't turn around something like growth patterns absent some dramatic event,” Peak said. “It's like trying to turn an aircraft carrier. It's a long, wide turn.”

Home buyers move away from the central core for a variety of reasons, including home prices, perceptions of school quality and deeply ingrained ideals. Texas cities and counties have a limited ability to slow development.

And suburban sprawl is far more complex than the standard urban planning argument that cities are good, suburbs are bad.

But now, suburban homeowners are bumping up against high gas prices and limited transportation options for commuting.

“The people on the edge of town are going to be the first ones to get really stuck with the transportation costs,” said Stephen Colley, architect and program coordinator for Build San Antonio Green. “That's a lot of people.”

The exodus to the suburbs has been a decades-long trend for virtually any American city, said Jim Gaines, research economist at the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University.

“People have to go somewhere,” he said.

Dense urban areas — Manhattan, San Francisco and the like — ended up that way because they bump into mountains or bodies of water that prevent them from spreading too far.

“We can kind of ooze in 360 degrees because of the geography,” Colley said.

Mayor Phil Hardberger said the San Antonio River extension and other improvements in and around downtown should give residents an incentive to live inside Loop 410, but noted that San Antonio has been unable to avoid sprawling.

“That is contrary to what every planner and master plan wants to do with the city of San Antonio, which is to strengthen the inner city,” Hardberger said. “People who live near and in downtown are more involved citizens, they are more engaged. Often, they're critics, but that's OK, too.”

Money can drive home buyers to the edge of Bexar County and beyond. Land often costs less on the edge of town, lowering the per-square-foot price of a home.

Being in an unincorporated area eliminates city property taxes, cutting monthly housing costs a bit more for homeowners. Not paying city taxes saves $867 a year on a $150,000 home.

“People didn't seem to mind too much going farther and farther out,” Colley said. “The idea was that you keep on driving until you can afford the house.”

Subdivision developer Norman Dugas said it's a simple equation.

“Three things drive the housing market in San Antonio: perception of security, perception of school quality and proximity to work,” he said.

The suburbs may not really be safer than the city, and the schools may not be any better, Dugas said. But people are convinced they are.

In particular, the search for schools has driven thousands of home buyers into the North East and Northside independent school districts.

Stan Drezek, director of resource planning for Northside, tracks plans for every piece of land in the district to try to puzzle out how many new schools are needed and where they should be located.

“Intuitively, I thought that gas prices would impact the subdivisions in our outlying areas, but up through six months ago it hadn't,” Drezek said.

Developers say that until the urban-vs.-suburban schools riddle is solved, empty nesters and young professionals will be the primary home buyers in the city's central core while families flock to districts like Northside.

The ability of wealthier suburban school districts to attract the best-qualified teachers also can create inequities. A recently study done for the Texas Association of Professional Educators showed schools with lots of low-income students have more instructors teaching out of their subject area than do wealthier schools.

Recent Texas school ratings ranked Northside, North East, Randolph and Lackland as recognized school districts. Bexar County had 44 schools with an exemplary rating, and just two schools rated unacceptable — one in San Antonio ISD and one in Somerset ISD.

Busby said it's ridiculous that Texas has 1,054 school districts, but says it heavily influences real estate.

“You can keep the wealth in your own neighborhood and continue to perpetuate substandard schools elsewhere,” Busby said. “But what sells houses at the end of the day in Texas is schools. Because we don't have viable schools in the inner city, people are moving to the suburbs. That's what drives the Northside and North East housing market. That's why Alamo Heights is in such demand.”

Miller said it's not just developers who create the market.

“It's shaped by people's cultural desires,” Miller said. “The notion that you have a house with a two-car garage, possibly three, and you buy on a periphery in a good school district is very strong. That's how we've built our homes since World War II.”

Ed Garza, the mayor from 2001 to 2005 and an urban planner, said the annexation of outlying areas also contributes to sprawl and the decline of older parts of the city.

“The city grows its revenue by annexation,” Garza said. Thus, San Antonio always wants to annex.

Garza pointed to landlocked cities such as Dallas. Surrounded by its incorporated suburban cities, Dallas has invested heavily in its downtown and in light rail as ways to find new growth when annexation wasn't an option.

Garza said the abundance of land in Texas encourages the belief that a swelling metropolitan area isn't a problem.

“People think sprawl isn't bad because we have the resource,” he said. “And culturally, a lot of success has been defined as moving farther out, whether it's to a rural environment or to a new house.”

Schools are a powerful motivator for families.

Donna McGinnis and her family just moved from a neighborhood off U.S. 281 and Bitters to a neighborhood near Evans and Bulverde roads north of Loop 1604.

“We up and moved into all of the traffic,” McGinnis said.

But her children, who have been attending private school, wanted to switch to public schools. And moving to the new neighborhood will allow her daughter to attend North East ISD's new Lady Bird Johnson High School.

The 116-acre campus will have an athletic compound with fields for football, soccer, softball and baseball, gymnasiums, dance team facilities and a 775-seat performing arts center.

“It seems like it's going to be amazing,” McGinnis said.

And for the McGinnis family and others, brand-new schools are worth the extra traffic, especially if work hours are flexible or an alternate route can be found.

Teacher Gayle Turner moved to Timberwood Park 13 years ago, drawn by the trees and the large lots. Now she commutes to Castle Hills, driving along Blanco to avoid U.S. 281. The drive usually takes 30 minutes, but she expects roadwork on Blanco will make that route just as slow.

“The traffic has at least tripled since we moved out here,” Turner said. “It might be a tough couple of years getting to work.”

Cities have dealt with urban sprawl by trying to encourage certain types of development, or by trying to direct or limit development.

Not all sprawl is the same, Gaines said. But he said it's nearly impossible to write a regulation that distinguishes between good and bad.

“What you want to do is stop bad sprawl,” Gaines said. “It's like obscenity. You can't define it, but you know when you see it.”

San Antonio's 2001 development code made room for different kinds of neighborhoods.

It allows for conventional and enclave subdivisions, which often feature the curvilinear streets, cul-de-sacs and large yards associated with the suburbs.

But it also gives developers and builders the flexibility to design conservation neighborhoods, where large swaths of land are left untouched; and transit-oriented developments or traditional neighborhoods, which combine walkable, interconnected streets with commercial uses.

So far, transit-oriented, conservation and traditional subdivisions have proved to be about as popular as showing “Heidi” at a sports bar.

“Why would you ever want to do it?” asked Randall Allsup, manager of the San Antonio division of Metrostudy. “It's outside the box. It's expensive.”

Garza admits developers take a big financial risk by trying something different. He spearheaded the creation of City South, a 64-square-mile area targeted for old-fashioned neighborhoods with sidewalks, tree-lined streets, front porches and rear-entry garages.

“As a developer, why would I want to change the formula to something I've not done before in a market that's not proven?” Garza asked. “The master plan, City South and the UDC update have tried to encourage more sustainable development. The best the city can do is provide incentives for things that do achieve those goals.”

Two large master planned communities on the South Side — Verano and Espada — come closest to the master plan's goals of walkable communities with a mix of housing types edged by commercial property. Verano will be developed alongside the new Texas A&M campus.

“Even the City South developers are not from San Antonio,” Garza said. “It underscores how we have a lot of work to do locally.”

Dugas said the city offers no “carrots” to encourage developers to try something other than what's already proven popular with homebuyers.

And Busby, whose Galo Properties designed a conservation neighborhood in Georgetown, said it's so expensive to develop such a subdivision that most homebuyers are priced out from the start.

The Georgetown neighborhood will set aside between 35 percent and 40 percent of its 1,900 acres for parks, hiking trails and open spaces.

“You're selling homes above $300,000,” Busby said. “People always say, ‘How do you get affordable housing in there?' You can't.”

Ed Davis, assistant director of the city's Economic Development Department, said most of San Antonio's development incentives are geared toward commercial, mixed-use or market rate housing downtown — not the suburbs.

“The growth is going to occur where it's going to occur,” Davis said. “We try to incentivize those areas where it needs help.”

Miller said vested rights create another hurdle to controlling growth.

By the time the UDC passed in 2001, development plans already had been filed on much of the vacant land in Bexar County, grandfathering the properties.

“Bexar County is basically all built out,” Miller said. “The periphery keeps moving and expanding. You jump county lines.”

Hardberger calls vested rights “property rights on steroids” and said regulations won't stop sprawl.

Vesting has allowed some developers to level trees and hills, the mayor noted, eliminating the features that draw people to the fringes of the city in the first place.

“You don't get the benefit of outdoor living that you think you would get by moving out. It is not a country experience,” Hardberger said. “The people who were once in the country now find themselves looking at a convenience store or warehouse or 50 other homes. The sprawl overtakes them.”

Portland, Ore., famously drew an urban growth boundary around itself in the late 1970s as a way to slow the encroachment on forests and farmland. The boundary focused roadwork, development and city services in certain areas and actively discouraged it elsewhere.

Other places that have attempted such boundaries include Boulder, Colo.; the Twin Cities in Minnesota and Ventura County, Calif.

But such a solution is unlikely in Texas, where the real estate industry holds sway at the state Legislature and doing what you want with your property is a cherished right.

“I just can't see it,” Peak said. “You couldn't get something like that past the Legislature in our lifetime.”

Texas counties for years have unsuccessfully asked the Legislature to boost their authority over development with impact fees and the ability to set subdivision density.

Recently, a coalition of 15 Hill Country counties, including Kendall, banded together to bring more attention to their concerns over water availability, traffic, drainage and environmental problems associated with rapid development.

“We're not trying to slam the door,” Kendall County Commissioner Gene Miertschin said. “We want people who come here to have the proper services and to have the ability to turn the faucet on and have water come out.”

Historically, the counties have gotten “zip” in support from lawmakers, he said.

“We go up there to testify before the committees and all the counties from all over the state will say it's a good idea,” Miertschin said. “Here comes the Texas Realtors Association and the Texas builders saying it's a terrible idea, and then here come the professional engineers. All of those people have a strong lobby. We're just local government guys saying ‘Help, help.'”

San Antonio's job growth and healthy economy have drawn new residents for years, fueling the housing boom.

But where are all of these people coming from?

Most from South and West Texas and California, according to county-to-county migration data from the IRS and the U.S. Census Bureau.

Between 2000 and 2006, Nueces County, which includes Corpus Christi, provided more new residents to Bexar County than any other county in the country, followed by El Paso, Webb and Cameron counties.

But Bexar County also gained more than 4,200 residents from California during those years.

“They're buying because San Antonio has cheap housing,” said Kevin Ankenbauer, president and CEO of Ward North American Van Lines in San Antonio, which has moved both retirees and corporate transfers from California to the San Antonio area.

San Antonio's median home price is around $150,000, while the median price in Los Angeles is $459,000, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Gaines said the new residents influence development.

“You have people coming into our cities in Texas from the Northeast, Florida or California and they're very used to sprawl and having to commute long distances and having to pay high prices for housing,” Gaines said. “This is nirvana. The drive is nothing.”

But it isn't just new residents pushing to the edge of the metropolitan area.

Bexar County residents, too, are leaving in favor of suburban and rural communities.

Between 2000 and 2006, Bexar County had a net loss of more than 6,900 residents to Atascosa, Bandera, Comal, Guadalupe, Kendall, Medina and Wilson counties.

The most popular destinations: Guadalupe and Comal counties, home to burgeoning suburban areas such as Schertz, Cibolo, Garden Ridge and New Braunfels.

Nancy McBeth, community development director for the city of Cibolo, said smaller cities have had to reassess everything from streets and drainage infrastructure to parks.

“It's insane,” McBeth said. “Every year, we've grown 100 percent.”

Rhonda Richardson and her family moved from Encino Bluff on the far North Side to Comal County four years ago. They were searching for a larger lot, good schools and an escape from traffic, and couldn't be happier now. Her children attend Smithson Valley High School in Comal ISD — a school that's grown hugely popular with families.

“I would never move back to town,” Richardson sad. “There's no way I could go from living out here to living there. I'd feel claustrophobic.”

But she said not everyone feels the same, especially people who have a long commute along crowded U.S. 281.

“Once you hit Stone Oak it's awful,” she said. “281 is a concern and the gas prices are a concern. A lot of people don't want to move out this far because of that. And actually, some people are moving back in.”

Music teacher Jennifer Kalan Quin recently bought a home north of Loop 1604. Luckily, she and her husband work close to home and don't have to worry much about rising gas prices. And the traffic jams pale in comparison to those in her hometown.

“This is nothing compared to Houston,” Kalan Quin said. “When I go home to visit family, I try to be in town by 2 p.m., but I'm still stuck in rush-hour traffic.”

High gas prices, if they last, could change the market demand for suburban homes, Busby said.

“The bloom is off the rose,” he said. “The gas prices will severely limit the ability for people to go to Bandera and commute in. Everyone buying homes that cost $150,000 to $300,000 is affected by this. They don't want to take their kids all over creation for school and sports.”

Texas is expected to add millions of residents in the next 30 years, which raises more questions about the direction development will take.

“Where are you going to put them?” Busby asks. “There's no dense housing. There's no public transportation.”

Already, Gaines said the property value of the central city is rising.

“It's the pure bedroom communities where you have to commute that will start to hurt,” Gaines said. “Builders are starting to see resistance from buyers.”

Real estate agents say the trend started showing up in San Antonio in 2006, when home buyers suddenly starting asking for homes located inside Loop 1604 to avoid traffic, following years of moving outside the loop.

This year in the Stone Oak area, it takes about 100 days to sell a home, compared with about 78 days last year, according to the San Antonio Board of Realtors. The San Antonio average this year has been in the mid-80s.

Harberger said people now have to weigh fuel costs, along with time spent sitting in traffic, when they consider where to buy a home.

“If you live away from town, you're continually driving back and forth,” he said. “It becomes reasonably expensive.”

Dugas, who develops subdivisions, said the market is evolving.

“Everyone expects to see a change overnight,” Dugas said. “Changes in real estate and development patterns are a very long-term process.”

And Miller, the Trinity professor, said there's a chance people will adapt to higher gasoline prices and continue the march to the urban fringe.

“We need to look at the financial and time resources spent on sprawl and create something better. It's what the master plan idealized,” Miller said. “There may be ways of getting at some of these issues and guiding people toward a different life. But that presumes that's the life they want. I have all sorts of ideas about how other people should live. That doesn't mean it's the life they want.”

Database editor Kelly Guckian contributed to this report.

The future

Who's moving here?

Development codes

Why sprawl?