The Fundamental Challenge in Measuring Sprawl: Which Land Should Be Considered?

Harold L. Wolman · George Galster · Royce Hanson · Michael R. Ratcliffe · Kimberly Furdell · Andrea Sarzynski

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Regional Economics and Spatial Analysis Land Use and Ecosystem Services Urbanization and City Planning

Abstract

Lack of agreement on how to define and measure sprawl has hampered development of policy related to its causes and consequences. We question previous work for two reasons: the use of study areas that overbound or underbound sprawl landscapes, and the failure to account for land unavailable for development. We formulate “extended urban areas,” based on housing density and commuting patterns and argue that they represent a preferable geographic basis for measuring sprawl. We operationalize with satellite imagery a way for measuring land unavailable for development in these areas. We then compute five measures of urban development using the National Land Cover Data Base and decennial census data to assess the extent of sprawl in the extended urban areas of Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Los Angeles, and Washington. Our sensitivity analyses reveal that the measurement of sprawl critically depends on which land area forms the basis of the analysis, and, to a lesser degree, how one accounts for land unavailable for development. *This research was funded in part by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) under Cooperative Agreement No. 01CRAG0009, whose support is gratefully acknowledged. The opinions expressed in this report are the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the USGS or the organizations for whom they work. The authors gratefully acknowledge the efforts of Doug Towns and Jackie Cutsinger of Wayne State's Center for Urban Studies for their GIS and programming assistance. Anonymous referees provided helpful suggestions on an earlier draft.

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References

2001Wrestling Sprawl to the Ground: Defining and measuring an elusive concept 2001Environmental Impacts of Urban Sprawl: A Survey of the Literature and Proposed Research Agenda 2002MEASURING SPRAWL AND ITS IMPACT 1999METROPOLITAN, URBAN, AND RURAL COMMUTING AREAS: TOWARD A BETTER DEPICTION OF THE UNITED STATES SETTLEMENT SYSTEM 2002Urban Sprawl: Causes, Consequences, & Policy Responses 2003Sprawl In The 1990s 2002Book Review: Who Sprawls Most? How Growth Patterns Differ Across the U.S. William Fulton, Rolf Pendall, Mai Nguyen, and Alicia Harrison. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, July 2001 (www.brook.edu/urban/fulton%2d pendall.htm)2015Suburban Sprawl: Private Decisions and Public Policy

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2013Geography, policy or market? New evidence on the measurement and causes of sprawl (and infill) in US metropolitan regions 2005Verifying the Multi-Dimensional Nature of Metropolitan Land Use: Advancing the Understanding and Measurement of Sprawl 2006There is No Sprawl Syndrome: A New Typology of Metropolitan Land Use Patterns 2008Causes of Urban Sprawl in the United States: Auto reliance as compared to natural evolution, flight from blight, and local revenue reliance

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