Urban sprawl creates many problems for the future of this country, and here are many of the reasons why. As reasoned by Dr. Jeffrey Roth.
1. Sprawl development contributes to the loss of support for public facilities and public amenities.
Residents of sprawl communities have access to public facilities that they do not support with their tax dollars. Suburban citizens can enjoy city facilities while benefiting from lower suburban tax rates.
2. Sprawl undermines effective maintenance of existing infrastructure.
Existing developed areas - cities, and older suburbs - have sewers, water systems, city streets, bridges, schools, transit systems and other hard infrastructure to maintain. What happens if population sprawls from the urban core?
3. Sprawl increases societal costs for transportation.
Typical scenarios include the conversion, after sprawl has occured, of exurban two lane roads to four lanes or six lanes, adding signals, construction of grade separations for intersections, and building county or inner-county connector highways and metropolitan belt roads. This causes great expense and disruption.
4. Sprawl consumes more resources than other development patterns.
Homes, offices, utilities and other features are farther apart, requiring more asphalt, more lengths of pipe, more conduits, and more wires. Each commercial and institutional structure requires its own acres of parking. Much of the utility infrastructure is duplicative. Society's overall consumption of metal, concrete, asphalt, and energy is higher.
5. Sprawl separates urban poor from jobs.
An automobile and the resources to maintain are essential for work in suburbs. Where are most new jobs in the modern economy? Sprawl reduces the availability of jobs in urban areas unless you own a car.
6. Sprawl imposes a tax on time.
Sprawl development requires that we spend more time on the road. We have separate residential housing, food stores, other retail establishments, warehouse and transfer facilities, industry, schools, and office buildings. This leads to more automobile travel.
7. Sprawl degrades water and air quality.
Sprawl development is hard on streams, wetlands, and runoff quality. Sprawl increases the area of impervious surface, rapid erosion and structural degradation of streams and rivers. It increases the frequency and intensity of flooding, and air pollution can be worse over a larger area.
8. Sprawl results in the permanent alteration or destrution of habitats.
Sprawl development converts large areas of land to asphalt, concrete, and structures. There is loss of productive farmland near metropolitan areas. Habitat Fragmentation.
9. Sprawl creates difficulty in maintaining community.
Sprawl communites require more driving, and more complicated arrangements to maintain social connections. Children are at the mercy of scheduled activities and "play dates."
Planner William Fulton: "a constant caravan between the residential cocoon, where citizenship is exercised only in narrow, self-interested ways, and the spending and working cocoons, where citizenship is totally surrendered to the commercial forces that run the place."
10. Sprawl offers the promise of choice while delivering more of the same.
If you want a new house, you can have one on a half-acre in the suburbs with no retail around. If you want to locate a store or an office, the arterial strip or highway interchange is for you. If you want transportation, you can use your car. If you are poor, you can live in substandard housing in the inner city, or manufactured housing on the farthest fringes of the metropolitan area. This lack of choice is why every part of exurban America resembles every other part.
1. Sprawl development contributes to the loss of support for public facilities and public amenities.
Residents of sprawl communities have access to public facilities that they do not support with their tax dollars. Suburban citizens can enjoy city facilities while benefiting from lower suburban tax rates.
2. Sprawl undermines effective maintenance of existing infrastructure.
Existing developed areas - cities, and older suburbs - have sewers, water systems, city streets, bridges, schools, transit systems and other hard infrastructure to maintain. What happens if population sprawls from the urban core?
3. Sprawl increases societal costs for transportation.
Typical scenarios include the conversion, after sprawl has occured, of exurban two lane roads to four lanes or six lanes, adding signals, construction of grade separations for intersections, and building county or inner-county connector highways and metropolitan belt roads. This causes great expense and disruption.
4. Sprawl consumes more resources than other development patterns.
Homes, offices, utilities and other features are farther apart, requiring more asphalt, more lengths of pipe, more conduits, and more wires. Each commercial and institutional structure requires its own acres of parking. Much of the utility infrastructure is duplicative. Society's overall consumption of metal, concrete, asphalt, and energy is higher.
5. Sprawl separates urban poor from jobs.
An automobile and the resources to maintain are essential for work in suburbs. Where are most new jobs in the modern economy? Sprawl reduces the availability of jobs in urban areas unless you own a car.
6. Sprawl imposes a tax on time.
Sprawl development requires that we spend more time on the road. We have separate residential housing, food stores, other retail establishments, warehouse and transfer facilities, industry, schools, and office buildings. This leads to more automobile travel.
7. Sprawl degrades water and air quality.
Sprawl development is hard on streams, wetlands, and runoff quality. Sprawl increases the area of impervious surface, rapid erosion and structural degradation of streams and rivers. It increases the frequency and intensity of flooding, and air pollution can be worse over a larger area.
8. Sprawl results in the permanent alteration or destrution of habitats.
Sprawl development converts large areas of land to asphalt, concrete, and structures. There is loss of productive farmland near metropolitan areas. Habitat Fragmentation.
9. Sprawl creates difficulty in maintaining community.
Sprawl communites require more driving, and more complicated arrangements to maintain social connections. Children are at the mercy of scheduled activities and "play dates."
Planner William Fulton: "a constant caravan between the residential cocoon, where citizenship is exercised only in narrow, self-interested ways, and the spending and working cocoons, where citizenship is totally surrendered to the commercial forces that run the place."
10. Sprawl offers the promise of choice while delivering more of the same.
If you want a new house, you can have one on a half-acre in the suburbs with no retail around. If you want to locate a store or an office, the arterial strip or highway interchange is for you. If you want transportation, you can use your car. If you are poor, you can live in substandard housing in the inner city, or manufactured housing on the farthest fringes of the metropolitan area. This lack of choice is why every part of exurban America resembles every other part.
