Westerners are all too familiar with the phenomenon
of “urban sprawl,” as development creeps farther from city limits
and eats up more land. A study released by the nonprofit Numbers
USA offers new insight into the causes of sprawl, emphasizing the
contribution of population growth to changes in land
use.
Weighing Sprawl Factors in Large
U.S. Cities analyzes the relative contributions of
land-use decisions and population growth to sprawl in the nation’s
100 largest urbanized areas. Using data from the Census Bureau and
U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1970 to 1990 – during which 9
million acres of natural habitat and farmland were converted to
suburbs – Roy Beck and Leon Kolankiewicz found that while about
half of urban sprawl in these cities can be attributed to increases
in land consumed per person, increases in population are
responsible for the other half. In the Mountain West and Desert
Southwest, population growth is the “overwhelming” contributor to
sprawl, accounting for 81 to 100 percent of newly developed
land.
“Most studies and reporting about sprawl
don’t touch on population growth,” says Beck, because most
environmental groups have shied away from the controversial issue
of immigration, the largest contribution to population growth in
the United States.
You can get the study online
at www.SprawlCity.org.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Sprawl is in the numbers.
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