URBAN SPRAWL

- outward spread of built-up areas caused by their expansion

- uncontrolled growth

Brief:

Patrick Geddes uses the term conurbation to describe the process whereby first
unorganized settlements spot themselves along a main highway at some distance from a
city; then, between the radiating highways, real estate interests develop a fine grid of
“endless rows of little boxes or larger boxes with picture windows (glass-box buildings)” and
finally there is the backflow of development which close the gap between the suburbs
and the city. Meanwhile, the central city weakened by the flow of its vitality to the suburbs,
rots and turns to slums.

All the evidence points to continuation of this exponential growth of urban areas with the
possibility that it will not slow down and stabilize. But population is only on of the causes of
urban growth.

Here is a list of few of the socioeconomic pressures that work to accelerate urban sprawl:

1. Overall increase in population.

2. Movement from the farms to the city.
3. Density of the inner city.
4. Decay of residences around the city core.
5. Rising economic means permitting residents in the inner city to move to suburbs and
residents in suburbs to move to lager homes on larger lots.
6. Development of extensive highway systems.
7. The relocation of industry.
8. The development of the multicar family.
9. Rising urban transportation problems.

These trends are, of course, interdependent, but once established, they seem to have a life
of their own. Thus, possessing more than one car has become a family need beyond the
family’s need for basic transportation.

Let us examine some of the CONSEQUENCES OF URBAN SPRAWL:

Granted that vast urban sprawls exist and will undoubtedly continue to spread unabated,
so what? For many, a suburban home or apartment is a very comfortable place to be. To
those who have recently escaped from the inner city the suburbs are wonderful places
indeed! According to Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock, “The working masses in the
high-technology societies are totally indifferent to the call of the political revolution aimed
at exchanging one form of property ownership for another. For most people the rise in
affluence has meant a better, not a worse, existence, and they look upon their much
despised ‘suburban middle-class lives’ as fulfillment rather than deprivation”.

But this “fulfillment” Toffler refers to is not free of inconveniences. Some of these
inconveniences have come about so gradually that many people have grown to accept
them.

1
• Take the daily commute. The total time a worker spends away from home for
employment varies;
• Mothers spend a good part of each day chauffeuring their children because
streets are unsafe, distances have become too far to walk;
• Suburbanites often drive two miles for a pack of cigarettes or a loaf of bread. The
bread. The decision as to where to shop is often based on the convenience of
driving and parking. No one wants to shop or go to a theater downtown in big
cities any more if it involves the use of automobile. Its not worth the time and
effort to fight the traffic and the parking is too inconvenient.
• Highway accidents have become just another abstract statistic.
• On quiet streets in the suburbs, much time and effort is spent organizing
activities to keep small children from getting run over by cars. Often gardens and
homes are fenced in for this reason. It is well to reflect on the psychological effect
that shepherding and isolation must have on the growing child.
• The relation of smog to urban sprawl is well known. The more sprawl there is and
the more the residential, commercial, recreational, and shopping functions are
zoned apart from each other, the greater will be the energy expended in getting
people and materials back and forth between them, and so, the greater will be
their contribution to air pollution.
• “Everything is interrelated”. The question is: what effect do population trends,
patterns of urban growth, zoning, and improved exhaust devices or fuel have on
air quality? One thing is certain: if there is to be an improvement in air quality
under the present governmental approach, it will have to come about by
equipping factories with expensive antipollution devices, by modifying the design
of cars, by using smaller vehicles and different types of fuels, by curtailing the
use of cars and by developing mass transit, and so on. All have a price tag and it
means the direct and indirect costs of transportation will be even higher. The
direct cost of transportation now runs about 10 percent of the budget of a
moderate income family.