Survey respondents are land use planning officials in local governments with land use and zoning authority, which varies from place to place. Urban sprawl meaning in the cambridge english dictionary. The national longitudinal land use survey nllus was administered in 1994, 2003, and 2019. Learn more about the causes and impacts of urban sprawl. Creating and improving the knowledge base remains one of the strategic developments for the implementation of the eu strategy on green infrastructure. This perspective, which is based on the multidimensionality of urban sprawl, sets the foundations for the construction of new indicators to measure the various facets of urban sprawl. Urban sprawl is identified by a variety of names the. Many people, however, tend to think of sprawling cities as places where people make most of their trips by car, and nonsprawling cities as places where people are more likely to walk, cycle, or take. Department of agricultures natural resources conservation service nrcs is a major data source for agricultural land. This rapid increase of population is causing urban sprawl especially in.
Urban sprawl and the challenges for urban planning 1011 i. Download our english dictionary apps available for both ios and android. Sprawl is a singleuse, lowdensity, disconnected approach to community design. Urban sprawl or suburban sprawl mainly refers to the unrestricted growth in many urban areas of housing, commercial development, and roads over large expanses of land, with little concern for urban planning. Defining sprawl and smart growth community and regional. Today, there is no generally accepted definition of this term. Urban planners and other academic researchers have attempted to define urban sprawl, but few of the definitions have gained general acceptance. The report uses new datasets to compute these indicators for more than. Urban sprawl refers to the expansion of poorly planned and autodependant development which spreads out over a very large area of lands creating huge distances between residential and commercial uses. Urban sprawl is, pejoratively, any urban development pattern which is undesirable knaap et al. However, the existing literature provides little guidance for policy makers on how to reverse sprawl.
The policy watch section of the national association of home builders quarterly magazine featured our new article on sprawl repair. Urban growth and sprawl is a pertinent topic for analysis and assessment. Various definitions can made f or urban sprawl from diffe rent perspectives. Here our goal is to give a little more dimension to the explanation by showing some nuances to the definition of urban sprawl. Urban sprawl causes and effects alternative energy. By separating places where people live, work, and play and limiting direct connections between these activities, sprawl most often renders driving as the only rational travel option. How can cities reverse urban sprawl, increase transit use. Urban sprawl definition of urban sprawl by merriamwebster. However, some different opinions exist in academic fields on urban sprawl. The 90page report is available for free pdf download. Measuring sprawl and its impact smart growth america. His discourse thus far suggests that he regards any extension of urban space to be ipso facto urban sprawl.
Various definitions can made for urban sprawl from different perspectives. Suinyuy derrick ngoran 2014 socioenvironmental impacts of sprawl on the coastline of douala in english, anchor academic publishing, page 25. What density doesnt tell us about sprawl access magazine. Urban green infrastructure green infrastructure will play a key role in achieving eu policy objectives, especially when using nature based solutions to preserve natural capital. In general, the definition of urban sprawl is described in two aspects.
Urban sprawl, definitions, data, methods of measurement, environmental consequences, sustainability education. Urban sprawl definition in the cambridge english dictionary. Urban sprawl, fuelled by powerful market forces, is unlikely to be controlled by macroscale regional plans or by comprehensive reforms of the local government map. National longitudinal land use survey nllus urban data. The term sprawl, as used by land developers, planners and governmental institutions, critically describes a pattern of lowdensity, often unsightly, automobile dependent development that has been a common form of growth outside of urban areas since at least world war ii. Studies on the driving forces of urban sprawl provide profound insights in sustainable management of urban changes that alter the cities structure and pattern 1,2,3. Florida planner reid ewing, one of the architects of floridas statewide growth management plan, believes that sprawl. Rethinking urban expansion in a rapidly urbanizing world, cities are expanding up, out or in both directions. Urban sprawl, the rapid expansion of the geographic extent of cities and towns, often characterized by lowdensity residential housing, singleuse zoning, and increased reliance on the private automobile for transportation. In 2003 and 2019 it included the top 50 most populous cbsas. Commercial logging, urban sprawl, livestock ranching, and other activities are likewise of considerable importance, but lie beyond the scope of this paper. Population growth and suburban sprawl a complex relationship policies fuels haphazard growth. Sprawl everyday we wander through our meticulously designed network of highways and we watch the landscape evolve from commercial and city buildings to midtown housing developments to outer suburbia where. Rethinking urban sprawl moving towards sustainable.
This paper reports on a study of the concept of urban. In addition to describing a particular form of urbanization, the term also relates to the social and environmental consequences associated with this development. Urban sprawl article about urban sprawl by the free. By devon haynie assistant managing editor, cities feb. It does not allow for a straightforward assessment of the different impacts of urban sprawl. Many studies have shown that urban sprawl is associated with more driving and less public transit use, said dr holian. It is particularly used to counteract negative impacts of urban sprawl but also to frame future urban development.
Introduction urban sprawl is often discussed without any associated definition in planning literature harvey and clark, 1965. Research paper quantitative analysis of urban form. Uncertainty on definitions and explanations of urban sprawl hamper the design of policy measures. Explaining the apartheid city 21 examples is david hemsons doctoral thesis on the durban dockworkers, written in the 1970s at a time when such an approach had currency. The direct implication of such sprawl is change in land use and land cover of the. The urbanization of the developing world began to accelerate in late twentieth century timberlake, 1987, although there was no clear trend in overall urban growth in less developed countries due to inconsistent definition of urban and the lack of quality in their census data. Key contributors were john ottensmann of indiana university, who processed census data and. In 1994, the survey included the 25 most populous corebased statistical areas cbsas in the us. Critique of the relation between the optimum urban.
Urban sprawl in europe european environment agency europa eu. Most definitions indicate sprawl is a phenomenon involving. The effects of urban sprawl on spatial fragmentation and. Urban sprawl definition european environment agency. Todays debates have no anchoring definition of sprawl, which has contributed to their unfocused, dogmatic quality. Measuring sprawl and its impact is the product of three years of research. Urbanization and urban sprawl issues in city structure. Information on the environment for those involved in developing, adopting, implementing and evaluating environmental policy, and also the general public. Urban growth management has become a common term to circumscribe strategies and tools to regulate urban land use in metropolitan areas. Urban sprawl is one of the distinctive phenomena in cities undergoing rapid urbanization processes 1,2,3. Nationwide, land consumed for building far outpaces population growth. This report provides a new perspective to the nature of urban sprawl and its causes and environmental, social and economic consequences.
Definition of urban sprawl from the collins english dictionary. Urban sprawl affects the environment due to the migration of the people from very crowded towns and cities to the outskirts of the city or in rural areas. Density measured in different ways tells divergent tales about urban form. Urban sprawl definition and meaning collins english. The term to describe unplanned and rampant suburban and urban growth because of the way it eats up the landscape and sprawls out the extent of a metropolitan area. A case study on the mitigation of sprawl in omaha, ne and portland, or william matthew semple an introduction to sprawl. Urban sprawl definition is the spreading of urban developments such as houses and shopping centers on undeveloped land near a city. The amount of space the theme of urban sprawl is an urgent contemporary problem on the agenda of national and european institutions. There is little consensus about how urban sprawl affects everything from housing affordability to open space preservation to racial segregation 1.
Lowdensity sprawl is the highly consumptive use of land for urban purposes along the margins of existing metropolitan areas. Urban sprawl and growth management drivers, impacts and. Urban sprawl definition of urban sprawl by the free. According to wassmer 2002, the term, urban sprawl, was first used in 1937 by earle draper of the. Understanding smart growth savings victoria transport policy institute 3 defining smart growth and sprawl smart growth is a general term for policies that result in more compact, accessible, multimodal development, in contrast to sprawl, which refers to dispersed, urban fringe, automobiledependent development, as indicated in table 1. The implications for the education of urban sustainability are noted. Urban sprawl, romanian cities and towns, mobilities, residential areas, new factories and commercial buildings areas, urban development. Although there is no formal definition of decentralization, urban areas today are highly. The same can be said for urban sprawl, a concept that for some is just as offensive and equally hard to explain, mostly because everyone seems to have a different definition for the term. Other subtleties about the definition of urban sprawl. The authors wish to acknowledge numerous individuals who generated or processed data upon which our sprawl and outcome measures are based. From cambridge english corpus comasina has been eaten up by the urban sprawl and is no longer a peripheral area in the same sense. The impacts of sprawl on travel and transportation. Dynamics of urban sprawl and sustainable development in.
Sprawl development consists of three basic spatial forms. Antisprawl definition of antisprawl by merriamwebster. For hemson the durban local state was an instrument of capital, and class struggle was the essential dynamic of the citys. We discuss recent challenges of urban growth in 6 european and 2 us american cityregions. Thus, the purpose of the present study is to analyze the status and trends of urban sprawl research output for the last three decades 19892017 in order to help the researchers to understand the panorama of global urban sprawl research, and predict the dynamic directions of it. Beyond that, in many but not all regions, rapid population growth further fuels sprawl. Typical things associated with sprawl are megastores, identical housing, large yards, and 8lane roads. The hallmarks include bad traffic, a flurry of strip malls and an out, not up development strategy, but ultimately sprawl is in the eye of the beholder. Urban sprawl or the built environment is an emerg ing issue that has recently been. The proposed sprawl repair provides maximum flexibility, a mix of uses, and a full range of human environments from rural to urban. This paper emphasises two mechanisms that determine the rules of the game of local development and public regulation of urban sprawl. Anti sprawl definition is opposing or restricting urban sprawl. Although accurate definition of urban sprawl is debated, a general consensus is that urban sprawl is characterized by unplanned and uneven pattern of growth, driven by multitude of processes and leading to inefficient resource utilization.