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Urban Sprawl
Like 51 Tweet Urban sprawl refers to the expansion of poorly planned, low-
density, auto-dependent development, which spreads out over
291 large amounts of land, putting long distances between homes,
stores, and work and creating a high segregation between
residential and commercial uses with harmful impacts on the
Navigation people living in these areas and the ecosystems and wildlife
that have been displaced. Although some would argue that
Habitat Loss
urban sprawl has its benefits, such as creating local economic
Main Types growth, urban sprawl has many negative consequences for
residents and the environment, such as higher water and air
Habitats
pollution, increased traffic fatalities and jams, loss of
agricultural capacity, increased car dependency, higher taxes, increased runoff into rivers and lakes, harmful effects on
human health, including higher rates of obesity, high blood pressure, hypertension and chronic diseases, increased
flooding, decrease in social capital and loss of natural habitats, wildlife and open space. In its path, urban sprawl
consumes immeasurable acres of forests, farmland, woodlands and wetlands and in its wake, leaves vacant storefronts
boarded up houses, closed businesses, abandoned and usually contaminated industrial sites, and traffic congestion,
which can stretch miles from urban centers and is creating a hidden debt of unfunded infrastructure and services, urban
decay, social dysfunction, and environmental degradation. Learn more.

Explore Smart Growth America: Measuring Sprawl and Its Impact: "In this first-of-its-kind study, the product of three
years of research, the authors define, measure and evaluate metropolitan sprawl and its impacts and create an impact
based on four factors: residential density, neighborhood mix of uses, strength of activity centers and downtowns, and
accessibility of the street network."
According to the report, “Federal involvement in real estate: A call for examination,” by the nonprofit Smart Growth America, each year the federal government
spends about $450 billion in subsidies to create an incentive for suburban sprawl and redistribute income from the poor to the rich. Learn more.

Effects of Urban Sprawl

Increased Air Pollution - Urban sprawl increases car and truck Smart Growth America: Measuring the Health Effects of Sprawl - A National
traffic by creating longer and more frequent commutes, which leads to
Analysis of Physical Activity, Obesity and Chronic Disease (Full Report)
a major increase in air pollution and ground-level smog. Vehicles are
the number one cause of air pollution in many urban areas with serious
implications for public, wildlife and ecosystem health. According to the
Union of Concerned Scientists, "Poor air quality increases respiratory
ailments like asthma and bronchitis, heightens the risk of life-
threatening conditions like cancer, and burdens our health care system
with substantial medical costs." As Americans spend the equivalent of
55 eight-hour workdays behind the wheel every year and urban areas
continue to sprawl, more time is spent in cars and more traffic
congestion occurs over a larger area, which contributes to the growing
emissions of greenhouse gases and the continued degradation of air
quality in urban areas. Cars, trucks and buses are the biggest source
of cancer-causing air pollution, spewing more than 12 billion pounds of
toxic chemicals each year, or almost 50 pounds per person. Discover the
Effects of Cars, Trucks and Air Pollution

Increased Water Pollution - Urban sprawl increases water

pollution as rain water picks up gasoline, lawn chemicals, heavy
metals, paints spills, motor oil, pet wastes, construction site erosion
and other pollutants in runoff from lawns, driveways, roads and parking
lots, which can eventually travel in large, concentrated amounts,
polluting nearby water sources, such as a stream, river or lake.
Furthermore, air pollution eventually falls out to become water
pollution, such as nitrogen and other chemical contaminants, which
harm both the air and the water. For example, in the Chesapeake Bay,
up to one-third of the nitrogen that pollutes the Bay and its rivers
comes from the air. Runoff pollution affects about 40% of the surveyed
rivers, lakes, and estuaries in the U.S. and is now the nation's leading
threat to water quality. Each year more than 100,000 acres of
wetlands, which are nature's water filters, capable of removing up to
90% of the pollutants in water, are destroyed, in large part to urban
sprawl. Consequently, wetland destruction by sprawling new
developments leads directly to polluted water. Learn More About Water
Pollution

Increased Water Consumption - Urban sprawl can create water

distribution issues and lead to water over-consumption as more water
is consumed for lawn watering and other landscape activities, which
can strain and deplete local water supply systems. According to the
EPA, "An American family of four can use 400 gallons of water per day,
and about 30 percent of that is devoted to outdoor uses. More than half
of that outdoor water is used for watering lawns and gardens.
Nationwide, landscape irrigation is estimated to account for almost
one-third of all residential water use, totaling more than 7 billion gallons
per day. Other residential outdoor uses include washing automobiles,
maintaining swimming pools, and cleaning sidewalks and driveways."
Discover 'Urban Sprawl: Impacts on Urban Water Use' "The consequences of watershed degradation from development have
Degraded Human Health - Poor community design, such as been felt across the country. In the Puget Sound region of Washington state, for
example, major floods that were 25-year events now occur annually; "the spong
poorly planned, low-density, auto-dependent development, makes it
is full," according to King County analyst Tom Kiney. Similarly, in Akron, Ohio,
more difficult for people to get physical activity and maintain a healthy
runoff from residential areas has been estimated at up to 10 times that of pre-
weight. There is a clear correlation between urban sprawl and the
development conditions, and runoff from commercial development has been
epidemic levels of obesity and increase of chronic diseases associated
estimated at 18 times that before development. In several Maryland,
with physical inactivity. A Smart Growth America study compared the Pennsylvania, and Virginia watersheds that drain into the Chesapeake Bay,
county sprawl index to the health characteristics of more than 200,000 pollution from development has been found to exceed -- in some cases
individuals living in the 448 counties and found that people living in dramatically -- pollution from industry and agriculture. Even in counties that have
counties marked by sprawling development are likely to walk and bike enacted stormwater-management regulations, the pace of development is
less, weigh more, drive more, have a higher body mass index (BMI) causing pollutant loads to increase." ~NRDC: Paving Paradise - Sprawl and the

and suffer more from hypertension (i.e. high blood pressure) than Environment

people who live in less sprawling counties. The odds of having

hypertension, or high blood pressure, are six percent higher for every Sprawl 101 - How Sprawl Hurts Us All
50- point increase in the degree of sprawl and physical inactivity and
being overweight are factors in over 200,000 premature deaths each
year. The increase of air pollutants from urban sprawl, such as nitrogen
oxide, hydrocarbons, ozone and particulate matter, increases
respiratory ailments like asthma and bronchitis and heightens the risk
of life-threatening conditions like cancer. Furthermore, sprawling dark
roadways and rooftops expands the heat island effect by effectively
absorbing more heat from the sun and reradiating it as thermal infrared
radiation, which increases day and night time temperatures and
compromises human health and comfort. Higher air pollution levels and
warmer days and nights contribute to general discomfort, respiratory
difficulties, non-fatal heat strokes, heat cramps and exhaustion and
heat related mortality. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration reports that heat is usually more deadly in the U.S. and
typically kills more people each year than hurricanes, tornadoes, floods
and lightning put together. Learn more.

Wasted Tax Money and Crowded Schools - Instead of

improving existing communities, U.S. tax money subsidizes new
sprawling developments and communities, costing counties and cities
millions of dollars for new schools, water and sewer lines and
increased fire and police protection, which forces higher taxes on
existing residents. As homes and businesses spread out farther apart,
the costs of providing community services increase, forcing local
 governments to provide for widely spaced services and residents of
these communities to subsidize them with higher taxes at the local,
state and federal level. Moreover, according to the Sierra Club, "Sprawl
creates crowded schools in the suburbs and empty, crumbling schools
in center cities. New development puts more children in suburban
schools, but does not pay for the new schools that inevitably must be
built. According to Florida's Department of Education, 17,738
temporary or trailer classrooms are currently in use in that state, and a
report by the Conference Board claims that 20 percent of school kids in
California learn in temporary classrooms." Learn more.

Loss in Open Space, Parks, Farmland and Wildlife

Habitats - Urban sprawl threatens productive farmland, transforms
parks and open spaces into highways and strip malls and destroys
more than one million acres of parks, farms and open space each year.
As sprawling neighborhoods and highways engulf open space, the
natural habitats of wildlife are disappearing beneath the concrete,
which is threatening important ecosystems in the U.S. and around the
world, such as the Chesapeake Bay, the Everglades and the San
Fransisco Bay, and is among the biggest threats to endangered plants
as well. In its path, sprawl consumes thousands of acres of forests and
farmland, woodlands and wetlands. Each year an area about one
kilometer wide and stretching from San Francisco to New York is lost to
development in the United States. threatening the continuity of high
national crop output with such high rates of development. For example,
between 1950 and 2002, the number of acres of farmland in Wisconsin
dropped by 32.6%, from 23.6 million acres down to 15.9 million, due to
land use and urban sprawl, which has reduced the number of
Wisconsin farms from 178,000 down to 77,000, from 1910 to 2002.
According to National Geographic, "Sprawl is claiming farmland at the
rate of 1.2 million acres (10.5 million hectares) a year. Throw in forest
and other undeveloped land and, for net annual loss of open space,
you're waving good-bye to more than two million acres (10.8 million
hectares)." The American Farmland Trust reports that an astounding
70% of prime or unique farmland is now in the path of rapid
development and a study in the journal PLoS ONE finds that 1.4 million
hectares of open space was lost to urban sprawl in the United States
from 1990 - 2000. According to the Clean Water Action Council,
"We're chewing up farms at an alarming rate across the U.S., to create
new highways, fringe industrial parks and sprawled housing
developments. This loss reduces our ability to grow food, fiber and
timber. In many areas, urban development pressure and increased
property taxes are forcing farmers out of business. They often sell their
farms for housing developments, to provide financial security for their
retirement. Wild forests, meadows, and wetlands are also
disappearing, replaced by pavement, buildings and sterile urban
landscaping. The remaining habitat is smaller, degraded and more
Increased Traffic Congestion and Traffic-Related
Fatalities - As urban areas spread out, trip times are lengthened,
residents are forced to virtually drive everywhere, spending more time
in their cars and trucks, and traffic congestion occurs over a larger
area. According to the Sierra Club, "The average American driver
spends 443 hours per year - the equivalent of 55 eight-hour workdays
behind the wheel. Residents of sprawling communities drive three to
four times as much as those living in compact, well-planned areas.
Adding new lanes and building new roads just makes the problem
worse - studies show that increasing road capacity only leads to more
traffic and more sprawl." The heavy reliance on automobiles not only
increases traffic congestion and air pollution, but also automobile
crashes and pedestrian injuries. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading
cause of death for Americans between the ages of five and twenty-fou
and is the leading accident-related cause for all age groups. Residents
of sprawling communities are at greater risk of dying in a car crash.
According to National Geographic, "Sprawl keeps a person in the
driver's seat. The suburban family, on average, makes ten car trips a
day (keeping in mind that most families have two vehicles). A
commuter living an hour's drive from work annually spends the
equivalent of 12 workweeks, or 500 hours, in a car. Traffic delays rack
up more than 72 billion dollars in wasted fuel and productivity." Discover
Transportation Choices that Avoid Traffic Congestion

fragmented, making survival of certain wildlife species very difficult as
they try to reach breeding ponds, hibernation sites, feeding locations,
or to establish viable nesting areas." Discover the Advantages of Open Space
American Journal of Health Promotion: Relationship Between Urban Sprawl
and Physical Activity, Obesity, and Morbidity
Increases Risk and Damage from Floods - Sprawling
developments drain and destroy wetlands, which absorb flood waters,
and can be built in floodplains, which leads to a higher susceptibility to
flood waters. According to the Sierra Club, " In the last eight years,
floods in the United States killed more than 850 people and caused
more than $89 billion in property damage. Much of this flooding
occurred in places where weak zoning laws allowed developers to
drain wetlands and build in floodplains."

More Effects of Urban Sprawl

Increased infrastructure costs

Social fragmentation
Decreased neighborhood quality
 Increased energy consumption
Increased personal transportation costs
Increased private costs and risks
Reduced diversity and increased 'white flight'
Decrease in social capital
Loss of time
Degraded, noisy surroundings
Tourism industry damage
Delays in emergency medical services response times
Increased racial and economic disparity

Bullfrog Films: Subdivide and Conquer - Suburban Sprawl

Suburban Sprawl - Sprawling From Grace; Driven To Madness

Last Revised: 11/20/13

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