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The term urban sprawl is is used widely and inconsistently and is usually associated with negative connotations of urban expansion. The definition means, variously, unplanned loss of agricultural and other land to sub(urbanization) where there is minimal or no coordination of service and infrastructure provision, through to planned urban expansion that provides appropriate services and infrastructure but converts land to urban uses. The term could be more accurately expressed as suburban sprawl. As Richard Peiser notes, the term sprawl is used to mean different things, including “the gluttonous use of land, uninterrupted monotonous development, leapfrog discontinuous development and inefficient use of land.” In terms of sustainability, each of these problems labeled sprawl invokes different solutions in order to make cities more sustainable.

Historical Context

The use of the term urban sprawl has increased as people have become more concerned about the environmental and social impacts of urban expansion and are advocating that cities become more sustainable. This is not to say that urban expansion is new. For example, relative to English cities, some American and Australian cities were spread over large areas in the 19th century. Whereas today the expansion of cities is often seen by governments, planners, and many ordinary people as a problem, the spread of the city was understood as being beneficial for health, sunlight, and to reduce the risk of disease. Spreading the city out was one way of overcoming the damp, unhealthy, overcrowded conditions of older European cities. It was also considered part of the moral health of citizens to garden and demonstrate pride in maintaining their dwelling and yard. This way of thinking was also important in England, where one of the common elements of many planned towns in the 19th and early 20th centuries (including Saltaire, Bourneville, Port Sunlight, Letchworth, and Welwyn Garden City) was the provision of space, gardens, and access to sunlight. Importantly, the reduction in urban densities was often accompanied by clear urban boundaries to prevent the city “spilling over” onto other land uses.

Transportation

The spread of cities is closely related to the means of transport, and influenced by factors such as topography, population growth, and industrial development. When walking was the only available and affordable means of transport, the urban density was very high. Improvements in transport enabled people to commute over longer distances. The expansion of cities such as Melbourne in the 19th century and Los Angeles in the early 20th century was due largely to the provision and affordability of train and/or tram/streetcar transport. The transport infrastructure in many cities was developed as a way of selling land for residential use. The later arrival of the automobile accelerated this process because it enabled infilling between rail lines and the outward growth of the city beyond the rail lines.

Los Angeles, which was once promoted as the vision of a healthy, wealthy, and uncrowded lifestyle, became associated with terms such as automobile dependence. Los Angeles has become a metaphor for sprawl-the specter of freeway cloverleaf interchanges is raised in many cities as a warning of what could occur if a city was permitted to “sprawl.” Los Angeles is certainly spread out. It extends 131 miles (212 kilometers) along its east-west axis and covers 2,814 square miles (7,287 square kilometers) of land. Whether this spreading of an urban area is seen as positive or, as is implied through the use of the term sprawl, negative, depends on how an individual assesses the economic, sociocultural, and environmental costs and benefits of this form of urban development.

The spread of suburbia brings economic costs and benefits. In some cases, landholders on the fringe of the city sell their land after years of farming because this is their only means of supporting themselves in retirement. Various U.S. states now have programs to retain agricultural land and prevent its conversion to urban uses. The economic benefits also accrue to automobile manufacturers and associated industries and to construction and white goods industries. The economic costs of urban expansion include the loss of agricultural productivity, the costs to provide infrastructure and services for residents in outer suburban locations, the potential for transport congestion as commuting is predominantly automobile-based, and the potential loss of productivity if commuting times are longer.

The sociocultural benefits of urban expansion include the possibility of larger houses and more entertaining space, safe space for children to play, and the provision of space for other activities such as gardening. It is also less likely that residents from different socioeconomic classes would mix, which is seen as desirable by many people when selecting accommodation. On the negative side are aspects including the loss of community, the experience of social isolation (particularly for women), and the loss of identity as previously separate towns are “gobbled up” by urban sprawl. The process of urban expansion is also seen as self-perpetuating, in that low-density development means many modes of public transport are not viable and therefore people without access to private transport become further trapped and isolated in these dispersed locations where there are often insufficient or inappropriate amenities.

Environmental Impacts

The environmental aspects of urban expansion are now perceived as mostly negative. This is because environmental regulation and technology, in the form of pollution abatement devices, noise insulation, and so on, have reduced the negative impacts of many urban and industrial activities. Previously, the spatial separation of perceived incompatible activities was considered crucial. Now, spatial separation is often perceived as “sprawl,” which is a significant factor to consider in relation to sustainable cities because it has an impact on issues such as water, transport, and biodiversity and because it is one of the most visible aspects of the relationship between cities and other physical environments.

There has been significant debate in recent years about the desirability of various urban forms. At its simplest, the debate has been characterized as a compact-versus-dispersed-city debate. The dispersed city has higher environmental costs in biodiversity loss, its contribution to climate change, the provision of more infrastructure, and so on but is generally better for local air quality because pollution can often be dispersed by winds. The claim many advocates of centralized or compact urban forms make about the more efficient use of infrastructure is often disputed, because the infrastructure in many existing urban areas is dated or in poor condition. The outward expansion of cities readily enables the provision of new infrastructure.

Recent attempts to reduce urban sprawl include Smart Growth and some new urbanist developments. These initiatives do not entirely reduce sprawl and have been criticized as adding to the problem or creating other problems. It is important to ask: What is the problem to be solved? It is apparent that over the past 50 years there has been a significant move from perceiving crowding and high urban densities as a problem to the understanding that the outward growth of cities is a problem. The use of the term sprawl is often very loose, but it draws attention to important issues that will occupy urban planners and policy makers for many years as the world’s population grows and the need for sustainability is increasingly recognized.

Bibliography:

Lionel Frost, The New Urban Frontier: Urbanisation and City Building in Australasia and the American West (UNSW Press, 1991);
George Gonzalez, “Urban Sprawl, Global Warming and the Limits of Ecological Modernisation,” Environmental Politics (v.14/3, 2005);
Phil McManus, Vortex Cities to Sustainable Cities: Australia’s Urban Challenge (UNSW Press, 2005);
Peter Newman and Jeffrey Kenworthy, Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence (Island Press, 1999);
Richard Peiser, “Decomposing Urban Sprawl,” Town Planning Review (v.72/3, 2005);
Bernard Salt, “LA Likeness Lingers in La-La Land,” Australian (July 28, 2005);
Michael Southworth, “New Urbanism and the American Metropolis,” Built Environment (v.29/3, 2003);
Karen Till, “New Urbanism and Nature: Green Marketing and the Neotraditional Community,” Urban Geography (v.22/3, 2001);
Harriet Tregoning, Julian Agyeman, and Christine Shenot, “Sprawl, Smart Growth and Sustainability,” Local Environment (v.7/4, 2002).