Urban Sprawl Patterns

The conquering and development of natural land has in the past, been seen as a mark of human civilization. In the United States, our progress is often measured by growth and development, but should this be re-examined? There are many opinions on the subject of urban sprawl and its effects on wildlife, but one thing is for certain, we are expanding. From 1955 to 2005, urban and suburban areas grew by 300%, however, the population only increased by 75% over the same period (Ewing, Kostyack and Chen). According to NatureServe, a non-profit conservation organization, urban sprawl threatens one of every three endangered species in the United States. NatureServe’s analysis states, “rare and endangered species data shows that three-fifths (60

Since the 1950s, Florida 's population has risen at an annual rate of approximately four percent. In the [past] 50 years, more than eight million acres of forest and wetland habitats (about 24 percent of the state) have been cleared to accommodate the expanding human population. In 1990, about 19 acres per hour of forest, wetland, and agricultural land [were] being converted for urban uses. Because of this growth, Florida’s ecosystems are now

Those living in a wildland urban interface area should consider the impacting risks associated with being there. "The wildland urban interface (WUI) has gained increasing importance as more Americans build homes in rural settings adjacent to public lands" (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, n.d., para. 1). With the amount of American population having interest in building their homes around these areas, leaving governing authorities a need to carefully review the impacting effect and risk

The development that is happening, however, is not the issue, the way we develop land is the difficult situation. When low-density residential areas are built, such as schools and roads, it is called a sprawl type of development. This ruins forests, farms, and shorelines, and degrades water and land habitats. Neighborhoods keep expanding and in 2015, the average home

This paper is a review of past and current research based on the cause and effect of urban sprawl in the United States with a case analysis of Fairfax County, Virginia. The motivation for this review is to shed light on issues that surround urban sprawl in large metropolitan areas and to discuss recommendations for research and ways to improve various effects of sprawl. The second motivation for this research is to show that there needs to be uniformity among researchers and urban planners, better data and analysis should be done to combat sprawl. My goal with this literature review is to define urban sprawl, define classic patterns in the United States, how we measure sprawl, the cause and effect of sprawl in the United States, give detailed background information on Fairfax County, future trends and implications of sprawl in Fairfax County, how to combat sprawl in the United States as well as in Fairfax County and key priorities in future research.

Step one: I will refine and update the Ewing et al. (2002) metropolitan sprawl indices to 2010This study will differ from the Ewing et al.’s 2002study in three respects. First, it will include additional metrics from various data sources such as Walk Score, NAVTEQ road data, Smart Location Databases and National Land Cover Database in order to increase validity and captures more aspects of each four dimensions (development density, land use mix, activity centering and street accessibility).

Due to the popular advantages of living in suburban areas, the appropriate acknowledgement of the environmental issues correlated to urban sprawl are often neglected. Although urban sprawl accommodates many economic and financial benefits, the decrease in air quality caused by the increasing development of urban sprawl in Georgia said to be some of the most widespread in the nation. Located just 15 minutes outside the thriving city of Atlanta, Kennesaw Georgia is the fastest growing city in Cobb County. Home to Kennesaw State University, there are obvious concerns regarding the medical effects air pollution has on the student athletes of Kennesaw State who regularly practice outdoors. The colleges main sports stadium, the Fifth Third Bank Stadium,

Biodiversity loss threatens to disrupt the function of ecosystems, with the potential of consequences for humans as well. Often this loss is measured by species extinction rates, but considerations should be made to include population diversity with measures including changes in size, number, distribution and genetic composition of population and potential implications those changes may have (Luck et al., 2003). Avise (2004) goes as far as to say biodiversity is genetic

Suburbanization is one environmental issue that has been significant to US society since the end of the Cold War. Rapid population growth during the baby boom immediately following WWI sparked an ever expanding of suburbs around major cities across America. The consequences environmentally were lack of planning regarding large areas of America’s rural areas began to ruin the landscape. Misuse of natural resources, over-farming of land, increase building of suburbs, highways across some of America’s most beautiful rural areas has changed the American landscape since Reconstruction. Suburbanization has emphasized to me the need to preserve natural resources, parks, wildlife, etc., to ensure that future generations will have access to them for years to come.

The Southern California region, east of the city Los Angeles, is characterized by densely populated urban sprawl. This region, which is renowned for its daily traffic jams and sunny clime, offers little to no unoccupied, open and accessible land spaces for persons to freely shoot their legally owned fire arms. And, despite the now common mass shootings and emerging self-actuating Jihadists bent on creating fear and terror in western society. Many wholesome and conscientious local America citizens own guns; and desire to routinely shoot their guns for recreation and pleasure. This situation creates a lucrative business opportunity; for a firm willing to provide a meaningful and safe shooting range environment. There currently exist a select

According to Statistics Canada (2011), there are five cities that are considered to be the largest metropolitan areas in Canada. However, of the five Toronto is one of them that has a population of over 1,000,000 people. In total, Ontario is home to 7 of the largest cities in Canada. With this note, we realize that Ontario is familiar with rapid urbanization which is also called urban sprawl. Also, although urban sprawl can seem extremely positive in terms of population growth and a rapidly growing economy. It can also have quite a negative effect on the environment and the biodiversity of an area. Moreover, pollution is another negative aspect of urban sprawl since countless commuters live in the rural areas around our urban centers

Figure 1: Structure Map divides the Study Area into six landscape units based on the Patch-Corridor-Matrix Model; Low Density Urban, Commercial-Industrial, Vegetation, Cleared Open Space, Natural Corridors and Traffic Corridors. Viewed together, these discrete units form a relatively coarse-grained and high-contrast landscape. The largest unit, Low Density Urban development, constitutes approximately 50% of the Study Area and forms the background matrix of the landscape. This development is relatively homogenous with an even distribution, and is typical of residential suburbs in the Brisbane region. The three patch types: Commercial-Industrial, Vegetation and Cleared Open Space each make up approximately 15% of the Study Area. Again, these

This study investigated the biodiversity at Lido Beach in Long Island. The objective was to investigate how biodiversity changed for areas away from human habitat. Salt marshes and wetland are under severe threat due to irresponsible actions on the part of humans. There needs to be an awareness and understanding in the general public as to the importance of these natural habitats and their significance to the general ecosystem. There is enough evidence to suggest the degradation has already happened, and how critical it is to protect salt marshes and wetlands. The results were encouraging as they pointed in the general direction that diversity was not impacted close to the pathway that was subjected to human traffic. However, the data collected did not point to any specific conclusions. Nonetheless, it provided valuable information on the subject of the study. The results for the entire class data indicated that for richness, there was a positive correlation between the family richness of the samples and the distance from the path. Specific results for one group for each sample point indicated that for richness, there was more richness observed near the path than away from it. For evenness, the results indicated that as the distance from the path increased, the evenness did not have a clear pattern, even though there was a general increase in evenness away from the path, especially, as shown by the 30m and 50m sampling points. For proportional

Aforementioned the main research objective is to demonstrate that urban sprawl policies are more prominent in metropolitan cities with a lesser emphasis on secondary cities, as well as to determine comprehendible definitions of urban and rural areas within policies. Although substantial research is available, again the problems emerge as secondary cities apparently do not receive any focus. In the literature section of this research study, the scoping review methods were used, these types of reviews provide a preliminary assessment of the potential size and scope of available research literature. It aims to identify the nature and extent of research evidence (usually including on-going research).

Short Gianotti, A., Getson, J., Hutyra, L., & Kittredge, D. (2016, June). Defining urban, suburban, and rural: A method to link perceptual definitions with geospatial measures of urbanization in central and eastern Massachusetts. Urban Ecosystems, 19(2), 823-833. doi:10.1007/s11252-016-0535-3