Urban sprawl: Part one

We're not sure we like the burbs. They're bad for the environment. So why do we keep making more and more of them?

I have written before about urban sprawl and its implications for climate change, but I have not addressed the phenomenon of our ever-spreading burbs and what they mean for human health and the environment. In this, the first in a two-part series, I look at the history and forces that brought us the sprawl we find ourselves in today.

While offering the dream of home ownership to a wide swath of middle-class and working-class families, the burbs put pressure on the environment by encroaching on farmland and open spaces. The spread-out houses also increase energy demand for heating and cooling. Life without a car is impractical for suburbanites. The resulting daily driving they have to engage in increases our energy demand and results in more pollution and more greenhouse gas emissions. Suburbs also increase forest fragmentation and urban runoff.

Despite the costs of sprawl, we tend to like our burbs. Suburbanites tend to be happier and healthier than city dwellers, although some aspects of life in the burbs can diminish that happiness, as we shall see in part two next week.

Sprawl: a brief history

In the 1920s, Londoners and others witnessed that city’s expansiveness. Critics noted that business was being directed away from the urban core, and more time was needed to traverse the different parts of the growing city.¹

Across the pond and especially after World War II, sprawl defined the way of life in the Unite States. Federal housing loans encouraged suburban home ownership, and federal highway dollars financed interstate freeways that further encouraged sprawl.

Some would have you believe that government policy was the single driver of the creation of suburbia, but advances in machines and technology also led us to the expanses of housing developments. Larger earth-moving equipment enabled developers to clear land quickly. In competition with Craftsman and Black and Decker, Skil launched the first electric handheld drill in 1936. That same year, the time-consuming task of finishing walls with plaster became obsolete when US Gypsum patented ROCKLATH drywall. Impact wrenches and power tool accessories found their way into the market in the 1940s. By the late mid-20th century in the United States, weeks of labor to construct a single home were reduced to a few days.

Real estate developers Levitt & Sons constructed Levittown in Long Island in 1946, inaugurating the American post-war suburban boom. It took little time for critics and urban planners to warn of the costs of these new burbs. In 1948, urban planners alerted civic leaders of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut that planning was urgently needed to avoid disorganized sprawl from choking the environs around New York City.² In 1950, The New York Times noted a crisis that would plague New York and other cities for decades: suburbanites relied on the services of the city, such as public transportation, without paying city taxes to support these amenities³

Then there was Los Angeles. By the late fifties, what had been an almost idyllic city blessed with lots sunshine, connected by one of the best public transportation systems in the world, had metastasized into a land of freeways and off ramps. More than 38 percent of the city of Los Angeles was now given over to parking garages, loading facilities, and other car-related structures. Worse still, all those freeways didn’t do what they promised: help drivers easily and quickly get from one part of town to another. Rush hour traffic moved at about 25 mph.⁴

New York Times reporter Harold E. Salisbury pulled no punches as he described Los Angeles: “Here, nestled under its blanket of smog, girdled by bands of freeways, its core eviscerated by concrete strip and asphalt fields, its circulatory arteries pumping away without focus, lies the prototype of Gasopolis, the rubber-wheeled living region of the future.”

By the early sixties, what had been an almost uniquely American experience began to plague Western Europe. Housing developments were encroaching on the countryside of Northern England.⁵ In 1965, as more and more people moved from the countryside to urban areas, France formed a government agency to cope with the resulting sprawl.⁶

Next week we will continue to look at sprawl, what it means for human happiness and health. I will also go into more detail on the environmental costs of sprawl and describe more recent trends in sprawl. Is there anything you’re curious about when it comes to sprawl. What are your thoughts and questions about sprawl? Please let me know by clicking the “Leave a comment” button below, and I’ll try to include the topic in part two.

1. London’s Growth Watched Here: Like New York, the Older City Faces Many Problems Caused By Expansion. (1927, Feb 27). New York Times (1923-) Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/londons-growth-watched-here/docview/104008050/se-2

2. Special to The New York Times. (1948, May 19). Long-Range Plan Urged For Region: Windels Calls For Coordination in Metropolitan Area to Curb "‘Disorganized Sprawl’ Advocates New Centers Head of Plan Group Declares Action Is Needed Before the Problem is ‘Impossible’. New York Times (1923-) Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/long-range-plan-urged-region/docview/108201478/se-2

3. By, WILLIAM LAAS. 1950. 'The suburbs are strangling the city': New York Supplies Facilities For Twice Its Populace But Can Tax Only the Five Boroughs. 'Strangling the City'. New York Times (1923-), Jun 18, 1950. https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/suburbs-are-strangling-city/docview/111698909/se-2 (accessed December 29, 2024).

4. By HARRISON E. SALISBURY. 1959. Study Finds Cars Choking Cities As 'Urban Sprawl' Takes Over: ' Urban Sprawl' Aggravates the Commuting Crisis Here and In Other U. S. Cities LOS ANGELES FINDS FREEWAYS NO HELP Experts Say Mobility For Cars Is No Substitute For Fast Public Transit System. New York Times (1923-), Mar 03, 1959. https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/study-finds-cars-choking-cities-as-urban-sprawl/docview/114637180/se-2 (accessed December 29, 2024).

5. Special to The New York Times. 1964. Britons Battle ‘Urban Sprawl’: Resist Birmingham’s Effort to Expand Into Green Belt. New York Times (1923-), May 31, 1964. https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/britons-battle-urban-sprawl/docview/115811086/se-2 (accessed January 2, 2025).

6. By DREW MIDDLETON Special to The New,York Times. 1965. France Forms Agency to Cope With Urban Sprawl. New York Times (1923-), Mar 14, 1965. https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/france-forms-agency-cope-with-urban-sprawl/docview/116806936/se-2 (accessed January 2, 2025).