| |
 Daniel
McGrath, Coastal Business and Environmental Specialist for Illinois-Indiana
Sea Grant and a Fellow at the University of Illinois at Chicago's
Great Cities Institute, has been studying the urban sprawl patterns
of the top 20 coastal metropolitan regions ranked by population.
Using population statistics from the 1990 US Census and urban
land area data from the past five decades, McGrath has arrived
at a forecast for the year 2025. Assuming the current trends
in average population density and land use continue, the forecast
doesn't look good.
McGrath predicts,
"Given that the nation's top 20 oceanic and Great Lakes
coastal metropolitan regions are likely to increase their population
by an additional 32 million people, by the year 2025 the 'urban
footprints' of these 20 regions are likely to expand by 46%,
or from about 20,000 square miles to about 29,000 square miles."
That's an additional 9,000 square miles, or about 5.8 million
acres, that today is either agricultural land or open space.
For comparison, this increase in land area is roughly equivalent
to the current total combined urban land areas of the New York,
Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco metropolitan
regions.
And, the reality
of urban sprawl over the next 25 years is even worse since Portland
and Los Angeles were excluded from McGrath's final forecast.
These two cities have factors which make their future difficult
to predict. "Portland has a tight urban growth boundary
in order to limit development," says McGrath, "and
Los Angeles has the physical barrier of the mountains as well
as restrictions on land development which put endangered species
at risk."
It's also
important to note that McGrath's forecast does not include the
nearly 100 smaller coastal metropolitan regions currently experiencing
a boom in growth as well, nor does it include the many large,
non-coastal cities in the United States, like Atlanta, Denver
and Nashville.
|
| |
Increases
in real income (that is, income which has been adjusted for inflation)
and advances in the technology of transportation over this past
century are major factors contributing to urban sprawl, according
to McGrath. On average, since 1950, US coastal cities are 100%
larger than they would have been if there had been no changes
in real wealth and transportation technology that determine urban
land area. Put another way, since 1950, nearly half of urban
land area growth has been determined by technology factors rather
than by population.
"We've
spread out further, continuing to make the trade-offs between
urban amenities and the cheaper land that suburban locations
provide because we have had the means to do so - both in terms
of wealth and technology," says McGrath. Stated simply:
people want to live and work in or near cities; and, because
of better, faster transportation options today, people can continue
to demand semi-rural residential locations while still maintaining
a reasonable commute-time to work.
McGrath fears
that even a comprehensive strategy is unlikely to make a dent
in the wave of urbanization facing US metropolitan regions. "The
private development industry will likely continue to take advantage
of cheaper land opportunities at the urban fringe, as it has
since World War II," continues McGrath, "subsequently
putting more farmland and open space at risk."
|
 |
Although
the future may look somewhat cloudy for these coastal communities,
McGrath adds that there are efforts being made to change the
forecast: "In order to help coastal communities deal with
these pressing problems, National Sea Grant has recently initiated
the Coastal Community Development Program. This new initiative
will focus Sea Grant research and outreach on the issues of sustainable
coastal development and land use change guidance throughout the
Sea Grant network."
But McGrath
doesn't sugar coat the future either. He says that if an effort
to change this trend in urban sprawl does not happen soon, our
metropolitan regions will continue to fight to fix the problems
imposed by unbalanced, market-driven urbanization after the fact
and we'll wind up losing our natural capital and species diversity
forever. McGrath concludes, "If cities continue to sell
land to the highest bidder and undervalue our natural capital,
they'll always be trying to solve problems postmortem."
Maybe at that
point, we won't even have a "couch" to sprawl on. 
|
|
For
more information contact: Daniel McGrath, Coastal Business and
Environment Specialist for Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant at 312-355-1276,
or visit the Illinois-Indiana Web site at www.iisgcp.org/research/cbe/2025forecast.htm.
The
Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant College Program is one of 30 National
Sea Grant College Programs. Created by Congress in 1966, Sea
Grant combines university, government, business and industry
expertise to address coastal and Great Lakes needs. Funding is
provided by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
US Department of Commerce, Purdue University at West Lafayette,
Indiana, and the University of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign.
|
hen someone is described as being "sprawled out"
it usually means that he/she is taking up more than his/her fair
share of the couch. Today, the word sprawl is used to describe
another kind of inequity. "Urban sprawl," the conversion
of acres of farmland into acres of outlet malls, parking lots
and other urban uses, although economically exciting, is environmentally
frightening.