How is Sprawl Related to Landscape Change in Cities? Essay -- Urbaniza

How is Sprawl Related to Landscape Change in Cities? Over the past 20 years the 100 largest US urbanized areas have sprawled an additional 14,545 square miles according to the US Bureau of Census on Urbanized Areas. That was more than 9 million acres of natural habitats, farmland and other rural space that were covered over by asphalt, buildings and housing of suburbia. A major controversy in the efforts to halt the rural land loss is whether land-use and consumption decisions are the primary engines of urban sprawl, or whether it is the nation’s growing population boom that is providing the driving expansion. A good example of this rapid sprawl is the city of Chicago. It has had astonishing growth in the past years bringing about many new issues such as traffic congestion, surging housing markets, air pollution, loss of rural land and overcrowded schools. Through the redevelopment of existing cities like Chicago using methods like smart planning we can create livable areas, meet the needs of citizens and thus reduce the need fo r sprawl at the outer edge of existing cities. The main issues that will be covered are housing and human and social implications. The first issue is to define what sprawl is. There are many definitions of sprawl but the central component of most definitions seems to be this: Sprawl is the spreading out of a city and its suburbs over more and more rural land at the periphery of an urban area. This involves the conversion of open space (rural land) into built up, developed land over time. Organizations whose chief concerns involve urban planning goals may tend to emphasize qualitative attributes of sprawl, such as attractiveness, pedestrian-friendliness and compactness. But those who are ... ...y on the Sierra club sitehttp://www.crp.cornell.edu/faculty/pendall.htm taken from the Sierra Club site in the 1998 Chicago report. National Trust for Historic Preservation http://www.nationaltrust.org/ Weighing Sprawl Factors in large US Cities, http://www.sprawlcity.org/studyUSA/USAexecutivesummary.pdf Chicago Metro Case Study, http://www.sprawlcity.org/studyUSA/USAexecutivesummary.pdf Brownfield article, www.pollutionengineering.com/arcives/ Environmental Law and Policy Center, http://www.elpc.org/trans/visions/visions.htm William Cronon, Natures Metropolis, Copyright 1991, W.W. Norton and Company Inc., NY, NY. Planned Manufacturing article www.ncbg.org/tifhandbook/pmd.pdf Tax Increment Financing articles www.ci.chi.il.us/PlanAndDevelop/Programs/TaxIncrementFinancing.html www.ci.chi.il.us/PlanAndDevelop/Programs/TIF/Report.pdf