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Landscape Characterization / Urban Sprawl
Urban Sprawl
Sprawl Processes/ Urbanization
General Description
Sprawl is a pattern and pace of land development in which the rate of land consumed
for urban purposes exceeds the rate of population growth and which results in
an inefficient and consumptive use of land and its associated resources. Bear
in mind that how sprawl is defined depends upon the perspective of who presents
the definition.For example, disease analogies such as cancerous growth and virus
have been used to describe sprawl. The Sierra Club describes suburban sprawl as
irresponsible, often poorly-planned development that destroys green space, increases
traffic and air pollution, crowds schools and drives up taxes. Tamer descriptions
of sprawl include low-density urbanization and discontinuous development.Sprawl
must be considered in a space-time context. It
is not simply the increase of urban lands in a given area, but the rate of its
increase relative to population growth.Sprawl occurs when the rate of land conversion
and consumption for urban uses exceeds the rate of population growth for a given
area over a specified period of time.The Chesapeake Bay and Mid-Atlantic From
Space project uses impervious surfaces as an indicator of urbanization within
this region. The growth of impervious lands between 1990 and 2000 is used to assess
urban development and the spread of sprawl.
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