Patterns of Urban Sprawl from a Global Perspective
Publication: Journal of Urban Planning and Development
Volume 146, Issue 2
Abstract
Urban sprawl has become a common phenomenon due to rapid global population growth. An understanding of the inherent characteristics and a quantification of the extent of urban sprawl are sorely lacking but urgently required. We measured urban sprawl globally at the metropolitan scale using remote sensed data and census information from the years 2000 and 2010. The results indicate that, globally, from the static perspective, metropolitan areas (MAs) had become more sprawl-like in 2010 than the year 2000. As income grew, urban sprawl usually became more severe. Moreover, from a dynamic perspective, all MAs had grown in a sprawling manner compared with the patterns in the base year of 2000 and within the same income group. The results provide evidence to explain the process of urban development, while at the same time assisting urban planners in considering the potential risks of urban sprawl and inefficient development at different stages of urban evolution.
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Acknowledgments
We thank the two anonymous referees for their constructive comments. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (No. 41501586), the Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province of China (No. 2016J05106), and the Key Laboratory of Urban Land Resource Monitoring and Simulation, Ministry of Natural Resources, China (No. KF-2018-03-022).
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Urban Planning and Development
Volume 146 • Issue 2 • June 2020
Copyright
© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 29, 2018
Accepted: Aug 28, 2019
Published online: Mar 25, 2020
Discussion open until: Mar 25, 2020
Published in print: Jun 1, 2020
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