Sprawling-
“Spreading out" cities
What is it? Why does sprawling occur? What are the consequences of sprawling?
Causes of sprawling
A sprawling city is one that is “spreading out” into suburbs. A sprawling city has its population moving to live at the suburbs, reducing the population density at the city center.
There were a series of factors that lead to nowadays sprawling. After the creation and mass production of automobiles, transportation was made much more convenient. The government was willing to subsidize infrastructure that benefitted automobile travel—this new and favored mode of travel. This meant increasing numbers of roads built and increasingly wide roads built to increase the carrying capacity of the transportation system for automobiles. The automobile companies bought and removed the streetcars cities had at that time, so there was no rail on the roads blocking the way for automobiles. After all these changes made, the automobile was made the predominant mode of transportation in cities. Simultaneously, the increasing demand of land in the cities made the price of land high, and made selling land highly profitable. This encouraged people to develop and sell land at the suburbs. The two conditions—automobiles dominating transportation and suburban areas getting developed—together lead to the sprawling of cities
Historically, there seemed to always be people who lived at the suburban area and travelled between the city center and their homes on a daily basis. Why weren’t we concerned about sprawling then? In the past, railroad was the dominant way of transportation for people living at the suburban areas to travel to the city center. Today, things are different—automobile has become the dominant way of transportation. This change has lead to several problems, as we will explain in the latter part of this article.
You may wonder whether it is the consumer’s choice that sprawling occurred. Despite how consumers are the ones who bought the cheaper lands at the suburbs, consumers are not the ones responsible for sprawling. Consumers only bought suburban houses because they were cheaper and because of how they were advertised with a promised suburban lifestyle—the quiet and slow lifestyle. Yet the low price of the suburban houses is caused by the government, and the promotion of these suburban houses is decided by the developers. Thus, it is not the consumer’s choice that sprawling occurred. Looking back at the actions of the government and the automobile businesses in the past, it appears that they are the ones who have contributed to making automobiles the predominant way of transportation, without knowing that it may have lead to nowadays sprawling. One more evidence that can help certify that the consumers did not prefer sprawling was seen in a survey done to people living in a sprawling city now. In the paragraph above, we mentioned how the government tried to increase the capacity of roads. This meant that roads were widened, taking up the space of original sidewalks, discouraging people from walking, and thus eliminating the shops on the sidewalks as they lose their sales. The sidewalks before were studded with tables and chairs outside a restaurant that people can sit and chat on. They also had trees that provided shades and people talking along the streets. After sprawling has occurred, the sidewalks became more of a plain street that gave no incentive for people to walk on. The people in sprawling cities were given a survey asking which of the types of streets they liked more, and most people chose the street with many shops, chairs, plants, and people walking on them. This meant that people didn’t like the way cities are planned and constructed after sprawling has occurred.
Consequences of sprawling
Sprawling has a lot of negative consequences. For this course, Earth Academy will explore three consequences related to the natural environment in detail.
First of all, sprawling contributes to climate change. When people buy their house at the suburban area and live there, they might still need to go back to the city center for work, for entertainment, or for buying daily necessities at shops. In fact, the developed suburban areas are themselves built at very low densities, meaning that the people living there has to travel a lot even if they have no need of visiting the city center. This means that people who live in sprawling cities will have a high automobile usage, leading to a high fuel consumption rate. Burning fuels emits greenhouse gases, which intensified climate change. In this time when the transportation sector already counts for 15.9% of all global greenhouse gas emissions, increasing the emissions from transportation will only intensify climate change.
Secondly, the outwards spreading of cities also require many roads and pipelines to be built to connect the suburban neighborhoods to the city center. The construction of such infrastructure consumes a lot of energy. Along with the high energy consumption caused by the high use of automobiles, a sprawling city will consume a lot of energy. If these energy are acquired by burning fossil fuels, the sprawling of cities will be contributing to climate change again. What’s worse is that studies have predicted that the energy acquired from burning oil will peak soon, and the further exploiting of this energy source may lead to depletion.
Thirdly, sprawling harms wildlife. By building roads and pipelines that stretches across vast lands of vegetation, humans are fragmenting large forests into smaller areas. These fragmented biomes may not be able to sustain a viable breeding population, especially when some species must live at the center of forests and can’t tolerate living at the edge of forests. The fragmenting of biomes also disrupt the migration of species and destroy animal habitats. An even worse scenario is when a natural landscape is cleared for construction. In this case all wildlife will be cleared from the area and their habitats will be replaced with concrete buildings. The addition of natural floors by concrete floors also reduces infiltration and adds to surface runoff, leading to less groundwater recharge and thus water shortages. (For more information on how cities alter the ground’s absorption of rain and how this might cause urban flooding and water shortages for humans, please visit Earth Academy’s course: Sponge cities-One way to solve urban floods.) In both scenarios, the actions by humans will reduce the population of wildlife.
A more sustainable way to plan cities
Indeed, sprawling has occurred in many major cities around the world and has thus lead to an increase in carbon emissions in those cities. However, there are also other cities which have been planned in a style that ensures low carbon emissions.
Some cities are designed so that there is no large area designed exclusively for containing residential houses. Similarly, there are no large area in the city designed exclusively for only work places or shopping malls to be located in. Instead, such cities ensure that every small neighborhood should be composed of residences, work places, and shopping areas. Then, each resident in the neighborhood could reach all places they would need to reach in their daily life—their work place, grocery stores, and their home—within 15 minutes of walking distance. This would reduce the need of driving cars for the residents as every place they need to go to is too close for car drives. Thus, such cities would promote walking instead of driving and have a reduced carbon footprint.
On top of designing neighborhoods with a variety of functions rather than one, cities also try to make sidewalks very appealing for walking in order to reduce the carbon emissions of its residents. Cities would made the sidewalks wide, and plant trees on the side to give the pedestrians shade when they walk by. Also, some cities would encourage shops to be built on the side of the streets so the entire street would look more lively and appealing to walk pass by. By making walking an enjoyable experience, these cities also prevent their residents driving cars and reduce the carbon emissions of their residents.
Other neighborhoods are focused on developing their public transport in order to reduce the use of cars. By expanding the network of metros and buses, cities can encourage more people to take public transport instead of their own automobiles when they are traveling in the city. In this way, carbon emissions are reduced. Carbon emissions will be made with public transport, but many people will be sent to their destinations simultaneously. In comparison, driving an automobile will create carbon emissions too, but it only sends one or a few people to their destination.
This course has explained the questions of what is sprawling, what causes sprawling, and what are the consequences of sprawling. Sprawling may seem like a heavy topic to discuss and a difficult problem to solve. Yet, we have no need of being worried, as governments and scholars around the world has been researching the sustainable growth of cities and applying this sustainable design to cities all over the world. As long as such sustainable practices of city planning are promoted more and more across the world, there is a chance for sprawling cities—which increase carbon emissions—to turn in to sustainable cities that have reduced carbon emissions.
Citations:
Understanding Sprawl Understanding Sprawl a CITIZEN’S GUIDE a CITIZEN’S GUIDE. www.urbancentre.utoronto.ca/pdfs/elibrary/Suzuki.pdf. Accessed 29 Jan. 2023.