Urban Sprawl

The term urban sprawl is associated with the growth, form, and composition of urban areas and has several commonly used meanings. First, existing development within the generally accepted bounds of an urban or metropolitan area is referred to as urban sprawl if characterized by low-density/intensity uses that are mostly segregated from one another and spread out over the landscape. Second, new development that occurs at the urban fringe or in surrounding rural areas is referred to as urban sprawl particularly if it is scattered (i.e., interspersed with undeveloped lands), leaps over undeveloped lands, or radiates out from the existing urban area (typically along roadways). Third, the process of urban growth generally characterized by the outward expansion and deconcentration of urban activities and land uses into the surrounding countryside is referred to as urban sprawl.

Although chiefly described as a land use pattern, urban sprawl is necessarily linked to the transportation system, other public infrastructure and services, and economic activities (both local and global). For example, systems of high-capacity roadways designed to collect commuters from distant locales and transport them efficiently to workplaces have developed concurrently with a sprawling development pattern.

Most urban planners view urban sprawl as an undesirable development pattern with multiple externalities. It is commonly described as inefficient, costly, unattractive, indirectly linked with the decline of the existing urban core, and excessively consumptive of resources such as agricultural lands, natural areas, and rural landscapes. This contrasts with an idealized urban form characterized by high-density residential and high-intensity office, commercial, and industrial uses intermixed in a compact pattern that is economically and fiscally efficient as well as socially equitable and vibrant.

Yet urban sprawl continues mostly unabated as the primary residential choice of the middle class as suburbs and exurbs continue to proliferate. This paradoxical result is significant to the discourse on urban sprawl that reflects the contested nature of growth and development. Urban sprawl is the pejorative term used for a particular pattern of development that may otherwise be viewed positively. Arguably, the continued proliferation of sprawl is the unintended result of actions of state, capital, and civil society that create a dispersed, low-density settlement pattern while seeking to accomplish other desirable objectives.

Households frequently view suburban and exurban developments as safer, cleaner, and less congested, and as having superior facilities and services (particularly schools), compared with older urban areas. Developers take advantage of lower land prices at the urban fringe to increase profits. Numerous government policies and programs serve to facilitate sprawl, including federal home mortgage programs, interstate highways, and tax breaks.

[Page 528]Thus, urban sprawl can be viewed as describing a complex web of land uses and infrastructure. It is the product of capital, state, and civil society, and as a socially defined spatial structure it interacts back on those systems. Numerous theories attempt to explain the production of urban sprawl and the more generalized expansion and deconcentration of urban areas. These theories vary in their emphases on the primary causes of sprawl, including economics, technology, social factors, and state policies that subsidize or otherwise facilitate sprawl.

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