The new study of volunteering rates in U.S. cities by the Corporation for National and Community Service contains some surprises — and a strong indictment of the toll taken on American society by geographic sprawl and a shortage of affordable housing, writes Tiziana Dearing in the PhilanthroMedia blog.

Ms. Dearing writes of being surprised by the strong showing by Minneapolis/St. Paul, which racked up the survey’s highest rate of volunteerism (40.5 percent) and also by Las Vegas’s bottom-rung ranking. Only 14.5 percent of the Nevada city’s residents volunteer, according to the survey, despite the city’s 64 percent population growth from 1990 to 1999.

The correlation between high commute time and decreased volunteering struck Ms. Dearing as noteworthy. “Those of us who live in major urban centers with sprawl and difficult commutes (I live in Boston) could have told you that instinctively,” she writes, “but having the data to support that instinct should both put pressure on cities to solve their commuting problems and the high cost of housing that forces people further out, while encouraging them to support smaller-scale development and urban revitalization.”

The blogger also pointed out the study’s finding that cities with high volunteer rates also tend to have higher rates of employment, and lower rates of crime. “Clearly, there is a chicken-and-egg question here,” she writes. “Does volunteerism drive these other traits, or do these traits drive higher rates of volunteerism?” The point, she suggests, is that “volunteerism is a lever to be pushed, right along with the popular revitalization levers of the day, such as smart growth, education innovation, or crime reduction.”

Read The Chronicle’s account of the new study of urban volunteerism.