The Environmental Protection Agency is on its soapbox again, promoting urban living as a way to save gasoline and green fields. It purports to have proof that Americans are shifting their preference toward the cities.

Unfortunately for Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, the agency admits it's hard to distinguish what constitutes urban redevelopment and what constitutes new suburban development. Places like New Tampa, though technically part of the city, are little more than distant leafy suburbs, not gritty urban cores.

Nevertheless, with that proviso in mind, the EPA says the urban core's share of residential building permits in the Tampa Bay area has grown from 8 percent in the early 1990s to 28 percent in 2007.

I don't need to remind you, however, that much of that construction sits vacant. Investors placed deposits on hundreds of condos in Tampa's Channelside but most lack mortgage paying residents.

The full report is here: Download epastudy.pdf