We will talk about the Cauchy problem of the three-dimensional isentropic compressible Navier-Stokes equations. When viscosity coefficients are given as a constant multiple of density's power, based on some analysis of the nonlinear structure of this system, by introducing some new variables and the initial layer compatibility conditions, we identify the class of initial data admitting a local regular solution with far field vacuum and finite energy in some inhomogeneous Sobolev spaces, which solves an open problem of degenerate viscous flow partially mentioned by Bresh-Desjardins-Metivier (2006, Anal. Simi. Fluid Dynam.), Jiu-Wang-Xin (2014, JMFM) and so on. Moreover, in contrast to the classical well-posedness theory in the case of the constant viscosity, we show that one can not obtain any global classical solution whose $L^\infty$ norm of $u$ decays to zero as time $t$ goes to infinity under the assumptions on the conservation laws of total mass and momentum.
