The Origin of

Urban Sprawl
 Urban sprawl is basically another word
for urbanization. It refers to the
migration of a population from
populated towns and cities to low
density residential development over
more and more rural land. The end
result is the spreading of a city and its
suburbs over more and more rural land.
In other words, urban sprawl is defined
as low density residential and
commercial development on
undeveloped land. Most of the time,
people will move from these areas to
try to find better areas to live. This has
been the way of the world since the
 Migration and urban sprawl isnt
something that is just now
becoming popular, as it has been
around for quite some time. Cities
and their suburbs are now
becoming overcrowded because of
this, but now it is time to look at the
causes and the effects of the urban
sprawl, so that you can gain a
better understanding of it.
Causes of Urban
Sprawl
Urban sprawl can be
caused by a variety of
different things.
These causes will
mainly include:
Lower Land Rates
Lower cost land and houses
in the outer suburbs of the
cities, because the centers
of urban development have
really made people want to
stop settling in these areas
and want to venture further
out.
Improved
Infrastructure

There is increased spending on

certain types of infrastructures,
including roads and electricity.
This is something that hasnt
always been available, and
there are still some areas that
dont have these luxuries. That
doesnt mean that they arent
working on it.
Rise in Standard of
Living
There are also increases in
standards of living and
average family incomes, which
means that people have the
ability to pay more to travel
and commute longer distances
to work and back home.
Lack of Urban
Planning
People love to find areas that are
less trafficked and more calm,
which leads them to sprawl out to
other sections of the town.
Unprecedented development,
cutting of trees, loss of green
cover, long traffic jams, poor
infrastructure force people to move
out to new areas.
Lower House Tax
Rates
Cities will usually have high
property taxes, and you can
usually avoid these taxes by
living in the outer suburbs
because the taxes are
usually lower than they
would be in other situations.
Rise in Population
Growth
Another factor that contributes
towards urban sprawl isrise in
populationgrowth. As number of
people in a city grows beyond
capacity, the local communities
continues to spread farther and
farther from city centers.
Consumer Preferences
People in high income groups
have stronger preferences
towards larger homes, more
bedrooms, bigger balconies and
bigger lawns. This also causes
urban sprawl as this option is not
available in crowded cities.
People generally look out for low-
density residential areas where
they can get home according to
their preference.
Effects of Urban
Sprawl
Now, we will take a look at the
effects of urban sprawl, now that
we have taken a closer look at
the causes of it. Some of the
effects include:
Increase in Public
Expenditure
They can actually play a part in
the increases of public costs,
because these changes in
infrastructures and building
must actually be paid for by
someone- and it is usually the
tax payers money that pays for
it.
Increased Traffic

Populations will begin to use

their cars more often, which
means that there is more
traffic on the roads, and there
is also moreair pollutionand
more auto accidents that you
have to worry with.
Health Issues

When people use their vehicles,

even to go to a very short
distance, people are going to be
more overweight and are also
going to have to deal with
ailments such as high blood
pressure and other diseases
that come about with obesity.
Environmental Issues

Sprawls can also cause

certainenvironmental issuesthat
you may want to be aware of. In
fact, when you think about going
out to develop these lands you
will have to worry about the
wildlife that lives in these lands.
You will be displacing them, and it
can really cause a ripple in the
environment.
Impact on Social Lives

When people move further out,

they also have an impact on their
social lives. They dont have
neighbors that live as close, which
means that they wont really stay
as social as they should. This isnt
always the case, but it is something
that should be taken note of.
Several decades of unchecked
urban sprawl have resulted in a
host of environmental, economic,
and social problems.
1.Loss of Agricultural Lands
The continued growth of suburban areas has often
come at the expense of loss of productive agricultural
lands. It is estimated that between 1982 and 1992
more than four million acres of farmlands were lost to
urban development. Presently, there are large areas
of high-qualityfarmland in the path of
developmentthroughout the country. The long-term
impacts of this trend are troubling. American farmers
will be called upon to produce ever-increasing
quantities of food due to the demands of population
growth from ever-decreasing amounts of land due to
the loss of acreage to urban development.
2.Loss of Forests, Wetlands,
and Wildlife Habitat
Just as farmland acreage is lost to
urban sprawl, so too are natural
areas of woodlands and wetlands
which are important wildlife
habitats. The threats of urban
sprawl to wildlife are particularly
acute for those species that are
already threatened or endangered.
3.Alterations in Hydrology
The process of urban development alters
the hydrology of an area in multiple
ways. The actions of bulldozers and
graders to prepare the land for
development will often change the
existing drainage patterns of land.
Pavement, culverts, and sewers will
further alter the drainage pattern. Paving
over of the land by concrete and asphalt
will reduce infiltration of water into the
soil. This reduced infiltration will
interfere with aquifer recharge. Also, the
rapid run-off of precipitation from paved
surfaces will enhance the probability of
flooding from heavy rains.
4.Increased Air and Water
Pollution
The increased automobile use
necessitated by urban sprawl
generates increased air pollution from
vehicular traffic. Sprawl also
contributes to water pollution as run-
off from paved areas carries pollutants
from cars, homes, and businesses and
industries into waterways. Erosion from
lands cleared for development can
carry excess sediments into streams,
smothering aquatic habitats.
5.Increased Petroleum Use
and CO2 Release
Sprawl requires anincrease in vehicle
milestraveled per person. While
population of the United States
increased by 23% from 1969 to 1989,
vehicle miles traveled per person
increased by 98%. These longer drives
put greater demands on depleting
reserves of petroleum, negatively
influence America's balance of trade
by requiring more oil imports, and
result in larger release of CO2,
contributing to global climate change.
6.Increased Infrastructure
Costs
Accompanying urban development is
the construction of new roads, curbs,
sidewalks, sewers, wastewater
treatment plants, and utility (electric,
gas, water, and telephone) lines. With
increasing sprawl, the distances
traversed by these infrastructure
additions become increasingly
expensive, particularly when computed
on a per person/household basis.
7.Degradation of Inner
Cities
As people migrate from cities to
suburban areas, businesses and
industries follow. This erodes the tax
base of cities and citizen commitment
to maintenance of inner city areas.
Older buildings, abandoned as people
and commerce flee to suburbs, fall into
disrepair. Neighborhoods, business
districts, and historic sites of the inner
city decay and fall into ruin.
8.Loss of a Sense of Place
With powerful and provocative
rhetoric,James Howard Kunstlerhas
described the landscape created by
urban sprawl as "the geography of
nowhere" and as "a cartoon of a
human habitat." In the past, there was
a distinctiveness to geographic regions
of the country, individual cities, and
areas within a single city. This
uniqueness has given way to the
homogenization and sameness created
by urban sprawl. Kunstler argues that
urban sprawl is both a symptom and a
cause of a troubled culture.
 Solution to those
problems:
- Urban Growth Boundaries
- Infill Development
- Transfer of Development Rights
- Open-Space Zoning
- Conservation Easements
1.Urban Growth
Boundaries
Urban growth boundaries
are a means for
municipalities to designate
areas in which growth and
development will be
promoted or prohibited.
2.Infill Development

Infill development takes

advantage of underutilized areas
within existing urban areas for
the construction of new homes,
businesses, and industries.
Rather than development of rural
areas ever farther from the heart
of cities, infill housing promotes
redesign and growth within
existing urban boundaries.
3.Transfer of Development
Rights
is a tool by which
communities can regulate
the density of development
of designated geographic
areas. Certain areas are
allowed higher-density
development in exchange for
lower- density development
in other areas.
4.Open- Space Zoning

is an alternative to conventional
housing development in which the
land is evenly divided into relatively
large parcels with little open space
between the parcels. Under open-
space zoning, houses are restricted to
a relatively small portion of the land
under development and the
remainder of the area is reserved for
open spaces, natural areas, and
farmlands.
5.Conservation Easements

are a legal mechanism

for the long-term
protection of natural
areas and farmlands
from the threat of urban
development.
Consequences of
Urban Growth and
Sprawl
Housing of poor urban
people
Major consequences of urban
sprawl can be summarized as
follows:
Inflated Infrastructure
and Public Service Costs
Sprawl is usually accepted as being inordinately
costly to its occupants and to society
Sprawl is blamed due to its environmental cost
and
economic cost Cities have experienced an
increase in demand for
public services and for the maintenance and
improvement of urban infrastructures
such as fire-service stations, police stations,
schools, hospitals,
roads, water mains, and sewers in the
countryside. Sprawl requires more
infrastructures,
since it takes more roads, pipes, cables and wires
to service these low-density
The Costs of Sprawl and other studies have shown
that development of neighbourhood
infrastructure becomes less costly on a per-unit
basis as density rises
(refer Priest et al. 1977; Frank 1989). As long as
developers are responsible for
the full costs of neighbourhood infrastructure, and
pass such costs on to homebuyers
and other end-users of land, lower-density
development patterns will meet the
test of economic efficiency (at least with respect to
infrastructure costs).
Energy Inefficiency
Higher densities mean shorter trips but more
congestion. Newman and Kenworthy
(1988) find that the former effect overwhelms the
latter. Even though vehicles are
not as fuel-efficient in dense areas owing to traffic
congestion, fuel consumption per
capita is still substantially less in dense areas
because people drive so much less.
Urban sprawl causes more travel from the
suburbia to the central city and thus more
fuel consumption. Furthermore, it also causes
traffic congestion. More cars on the
roads driving greater distances are a recipe for
traffic gridlock resulting in more fuel
consumption.
With electricity, there is a cost
associated with extending and
maintaining the service
delivery system, as with water,
but there also is a loss in the
commodity being
delivered. The farther from the
generator, the more power is lost
in distribution.
Disparity in Wealth
There is marked spatial disparity in wealth
between cities and suburbs; and sprawled
land development patterns make
establishing and using mass transit
systems difficult. Sprawl is also
implicated in a host of economic and social
issues related to the deterioration of urban
communities and the quality of life in
suburbia. In many cases private utility
systems serving the main segment of the
settled area cannot be
expanded for technical and financial reasons.
Urban sprawl often occurs in peripheral
areas without the discipline of proper
planning and zoning; as a result, it blocks
the ways of future possible quality services.
 Impacts on Wildlife and
Ecosystem
In areas where sprawl is not controlled, the
concentration of human presence in residential
and industrial settings may lead to an alteration
of ecosystems patterns and processes
.Development associated with sprawl not only
decreases the amount of forest area and open
space but also breaks up what is left into small
chunks that disrupt
ecosystems and fragment habitats. The reach of
urban sprawl into rural natural areas such as
woodlands and wetlands ranks as one of the
primary forms of wildlife habitat loss. Roads,
power lines, subdivisions and pipelines often cut
through natural areas, thereby fragmenting
wildlife habitat and altering wildlife movement
Fragmentation of
wildlife habitat
The fragmentation of a large forest into
smaller patches disrupts ecological
processes and reduces the availability
of habitat for some species. Some
forest
fragments are too small to maintain
viable breeding populations of certain
wildlife
species.
Loss of Farmland
The loss of agricultural land to urban
sprawl means not only the loss of fresh
local food sources but also the loss of
habitat and species diversity, since farms
include plant and animal habitat in
woodlots and hedgerows. The presence
of farms on therural landscape provides
benefits such as greenspace, rural
economic stability, andpreservation of
the traditional rural lifestyle.
Increase in Temperature
 Poor Air Quality
Increased temperature in urban areas also has
indirect effects on air pollution. As the
temperature rises, so does the demand for
energy to power fans, air coolers, water
coolers, and air conditioners; requiring power
plants to increase their output. The
majority of power plants burn fossil fuels, so
increased demand of power in summer results
in higher emissions of the pollutants they
generate, including carbon dioxide,
particulate matter, sulphur oxides, nitrogen
oxides, and air toxics. Furthermore, 34 2 Causes
and Consequences of Urban Growth and Sprawl
ozone formation from its precursors, nitrogen
oxides and hydrocarbons, is enhanced.
 Impacts on Water
Quality and Quantity
In the urban area, water runs off into storm
sewers and ultimately into rivers and lakes.
Extra water during heavy rain can
dramatically increase the rate of flow
through wetlands and rivers, stripping
vegetation and destroying habitats along
riverbanks. It can also cause damaging
floods downstream and lead to an increase
in
water pollution from runoff contaminated with
lawn and garden chemicals, motor oil and
road salt.
 Impacts on Public and
Social Health
One of the original motivations for migration
to the suburbs was access to nature.
People generally prefer to live with trees,
birds, and flowers; and these are more
accessible in the suburbs than in denser
urban areas. Moreover, contact with
nature
may offer benefits beyond the purely
aesthetic; it may benefit both mental and
physical health.
In addition, the sense of escaping from the
turmoil of urban life to the
suburbs, the feeling of peaceful refuge, may
be soothing and restorative to some
people.
In these respects, there may be health
benefits to suburban lifestyles
(Frumkinblamed for its negative impacts
on public health.
 Other Impacts
Exurban development can place additional
burdens on rural economic/land-use
activities such as forestry, mining, and
farming, since the values of exurbanites
may clash with those of traditional users
regarding the most suitable uses of rural
lands. Urban sprawl, a potential
manifestation of development, has its
negative impacts
in coastal regions also, where beach-oriented
tourism and amenity-driven population
growth and land development are prominent