Editing Urban sprawl (section)

==Definition==
[[File:Urban sprawl per country.png|thumb|upright=1.3|Measures for urban sprawl in Europe: upper left the Dispersion of the built-up area (DIS), upper right the [[weighted urban proliferation]] (WUP)]]

The term ''urban sprawl'' was often used in the letters between Lewis Mumford and Frederic J. Osborn,<ref>The letters of Lewis Mumford and Frederic J. Osborn: a transatlantic dialogue, 1938-70, 1972</ref> firstly by Osborn in his 1941 letter to Mumford and later by Mumford, generally condemning the waste of agricultural land and landscape due to suburban expansions. The term was used in an article in ''[[The Times]]'' in 1955 as a negative comment on the state of [[London]]'s outskirts. Definitions of sprawl vary; researchers in the field acknowledge that the term lacks precision.<ref name=Audirac90>{{cite journal|last1=Audirac |first1=Ivonne|last2=Shermyen|first2=Anne H.|last3=Smith|first3=Marc T.|title=Ideal Urban Form and Visions of the Good Life Florida's Growth Management Dilemma|journal=Journal of the American Planning Association|date=December 31, 1990|volume=56 |issue=4|pages=470–482|doi=10.1080/01944369008975450}} p.&nbsp;475.</ref> Batty et al. defined sprawl as "uncoordinated growth: the expansion of community without concern for its consequences, in short, unplanned, incremental urban growth which is often regarded unsustainable".<ref name=Batty>{{cite journal|last1=Batty |first1=Michael|last2=Besussi|first2=Elena|last3=Chin |first3=Nancy|title=Traffic, Urban Growth and Suburban Sprawl|journal=UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis Working Papers Series|date=November 2003|volume=70 |url=https://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/casa/pdf/paper70.pdf |access-date=May 17, 2015|issn=1467-1298|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150926003140/https://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/casa/pdf/paper70.pdf|archive-date=September 26, 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref> Bhatta et al. wrote in 2010 that despite a dispute over the precise definition of sprawl, there is a "general consensus that urban sprawl is characterized by [an] unplanned and uneven pattern of growth, driven by a multitude of processes and leading to inefficient resource utilization".<ref name=Bhatta>{{cite journal |last1=Bhatta |first1=B. |last2=Saraswati|first2=S.|last3=Bandyopadhyay|first3=D. |title=Urban sprawl measurement from remote sensing data |journal=Applied Geography|date=December 2010|volume=30 |issue=4|pages=731–740|doi=10.1016/j.apgeog.2010.02.002 |bibcode=2010AppGe..30..731B }}</ref>

Reid Ewing has shown that sprawl has typically been characterized as [[urban development]]s exhibiting at least one of the following characteristics: low-density or single-use development, strip development, scattered development, and/or [[Leapfrogging|leapfrog]] development (areas of development interspersed with vacant land).<ref name=UCL/> He argued that a better way to identify sprawl was to use indicators rather than characteristics because this was a more flexible and less arbitrary method.<ref name=Ewing97>{{cite journal|last1=Ewing|first1=Reid |date=1997|title=Is Los Angeles-Style Sprawl Desirable?|journal=Journal of the American Planning Association |volume=63|issue=1|pages=107–126 |doi=10.1080/01944369708975728}}</ref> He proposed using "[[Accessibility (transport)|accessibility]]" and "lack of functional open space" as indicators.<ref name=Ewing97/> Ewing's approach has been criticized for assuming that sprawl is defined by negative characteristics.<ref name=UCL>{{cite journal |last1=Chin|first1=Nancy |title=Unearthing the Roots of Urban Sprawl: A Critical Analysis of Form, Function and Methodology |date=March 2002 |journal=University College London Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis Working Papers Series|volume=47 |url=https://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/casa/pdf/paper47.pdf |access-date=April 19, 2015|issn=1467-1298|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304044026/https://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/casa/pdf/paper47.pdf|archive-date=March 4, 2016 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

What constitutes sprawl may be considered a matter of degree and will always be somewhat subjective under many definitions of the term.<ref name=Ewing97/> Ewing has also argued that suburban development does not, [[per se (terminology)|per se]], constitute sprawl depending on the form it takes,<ref name=Ewing97/> although Gordon & Richardson have argued that the term is sometimes used synonymously with [[suburbanization]] in a pejorative way.<ref name=G&R>{{cite journal|last1=Gordon|first1=Peter |last2=Richardson|first2=Harry|title=Are Compact Cities a Desirable Planning Goal?|journal=Journal of the American Planning Association|date=1997|volume=63|issue=1|pages=95–106|doi=10.1080/01944369708975727}}</ref>

===Examples and counterexamples===
According to the National Resources Inventory (NRI), about {{Convert|44|e6acre|sqmi km2|abbr=unit}} of land in the United States was developed between 1982 and 2017.<ref>{{Cite book|last=U.S. Department of Agriculture |url=https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/PA_NRCSConsumption/download/?cid=nrcseprd1657225&ext=pdf|title=Summary Report: 2017 National Resources Inventory|publisher=Natural Resources Conservation Service|year=2020 |location=Washington, D.C.|at=2-6|format=PDF}}</ref> Presently, the NRI classifies approximately 100,000 more square kilometres (40,000 square miles) (an area approximately the size of [[Kentucky]]) as developed than [[United States Census Bureau|the Census Bureau]] classifies as urban. The difference in the NRI classification is that it includes rural development, which by definition cannot be considered to be "urban" sprawl. Currently, according to the [[United States Census, 2000|2000 Census]], approximately 2.6 percent of the U.S. land area is urban.<ref>{{cite report |last1=Lubowski |first1=Ruben N. |first2=Marlow |last2=Vesterby |first3=Shawn |last3=Bucholtz |first4=Alba |last4=Baez |first5=Michael J. |last5=Roberts |date=May 31, 2006 |url=http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/EIB14/ |title=Major Uses of Land in the United States, 2002 |publisher=[[Economic Research Service]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070409092844/http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/EIB14/ |archive-date=April 9, 2007 |access-date=February 7, 2008}}</ref>{{Update inline|date=April 2021}} Approximately 0.8 percent of the nation's land is in the 37 urbanized areas with more than 1,000,000 population. In 2002, these 37 urbanized areas supported around 40% of the total American population.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.demographia.com/db-ua2000pop.htm |title=USA Urbanized Areas: 2000 Ranked by Population (All Areas) |website=Demographia |access-date=February 8, 2008}}</ref>{{Update inline|date=April 2021}}

Nonetheless, some [[urban area]]s like [[Detroit]] have expanded geographically even while losing population. But it was not just urbanized areas in the U.S. that lost population and sprawled substantially. According to data in "Cities and Automobile Dependence" by Kenworthy and Laube (1999), urbanized area population losses occurred while there was an expansion of sprawl between 1970 and 1990 in [[Amsterdam]], Netherlands; [[Brussels]], Belgium; [[Copenhagen]], Denmark; [[Frankfurt]], [[Hamburg]] and [[Munich]], Germany; and [[Zürich]], Switzerland, albeit without the dismantling of infrastructure that occurred in the United States.{{Citation needed|date=January 2021}}

[[File:Satellite Image of Los Angeles from Sentinel-2 2021-08-03.jpg|thumb|Despite its urban sprawl and [[car culture]], Los Angeles is the densest major built-up urban area in the United States.]]
Despite its sprawl, [[Los Angeles metropolitan area|Metropolitan Los Angeles]] is the densest major urban area (over 1,000,000 population) in the US, being denser than the New York urban area and the San Francisco urban area.<ref name=Eidlin/><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/2010_census/cb12-50.html|title=Growth in Urban Population Outpaces Rest of Nation, Census Bureau Reports |access-date=October 20, 2013|publisher=US Census}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://la.curbed.com/2015/2/17/9991042/los-angeles-is-the-least-sprawling-big-city-in-the-us |title=Los Angeles is the Least Sprawling Big City in the US|last1=Barragan |first1=Bianca|website=Curbed |publisher=Vox Media|access-date=25 January 2017 |date=2015-02-17}}</ref> Most of metropolitan Los Angeles is built at more uniform low to moderate density, leading to a much higher overall density for the entire region. This is in contrast to New York, San Francisco or Chicago which have compact, high-density cores surrounded by areas of very low-density suburban periphery, such as eastern [[Suffolk County, New York|Suffolk County]] in the New York metro area and [[Marin County, California|Marin County]] in the San Francisco [[Bay Area]].

Some cases of sprawl challenge the definition of the term and what conditions are necessary for urban growth to be considered sprawl. Metropolitan regions such as [[Greater Mexico City]],<ref>{{cite journal|last=Monkkonen |first=Paavo|year=2011|title=Do Mexican Cities Sprawl? Housing Finance Reform and Changing Patterns of Urban Growth|journal=Urban Geography|volume=32|issue=3 |pages=406–423|doi=10.2747/0272-3638.32.3.406 |s2cid=144340604}}</ref> [[National Capital Region (India)|Delhi National Capital Region]]<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.citylab.com/solutions/2016/12/sprawl-will-cost-india-18-trillion-per-year-by-2050/509573/ |title=India Can't Afford to Get Urbanization Wrong|work=CityLab|access-date=2018-06-27|language=en-US}}</ref> [[Beijing]], and the [[Greater Tokyo Area]] are often regarded as sprawling despite being relatively dense and mixed use.{{Citation needed|date=January 2021}}