BS: Urban Sprawl?

Subject: BS: Urban Sprawl?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 06 Mar 12 - 03:37 PM

The term "Urban Sprawl" is fairly commonly understood in the US, but may not be as well known in other places where less unsettled land is available for population growth. In some places, growth is "upward" much more than "outward," or in some places the only way to grow is mostly by replacement of existing housing and business by "higher density" constructs.

While not an intellectually challenging blast of informative matter, a rather cute display of urban sprawl is shown in a brief time-lapse sequence of Landsat images, covering a time span from 1972 to 2010 at Urban Sprawl in Vegas.

The link takes you to a brief text outline of what's shown, but you have to click on the video to see the "growth of the city." Sound with the 30 second video is limited to a "drumbeat" background, and wasn't loud and obnoxious, but you might want to mute before clicking if it might disturb the boss. (On my first click, for some reason it didn't show the "year" for each increment, but it did show on replay.)

Existence of similar views of other places is implied, but I haven't looked for the "system" as yet, to see what other places might be on show.

The obvious question, should discussion be appropriate, is "How does your town grow?".

John

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Sprawl?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 06 Mar 12 - 03:51 PM

We use the expression in Canada, John. (Last time I used it was after a two-day party when I tripped and fell down.)

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Sprawl?
From: gnu
Date: 06 Mar 12 - 04:04 PM

Follwed by "Urban Crawl", 9?

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Sprawl?
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 07 Mar 12 - 12:22 PM

Cool link, JiK!

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Sprawl?
From: Crowhugger
Date: 07 Mar 12 - 01:54 PM

Out, not up. Big time. It's mortifying.

It doesn't worry so much when cities sprawl onto deserts (sorry coyotes & cactus), it worries me more for example around here, east of Toronto, where cities routinely gobble up farmland. There are so-called agricultural zones but nowhere near enough ag land, IMO, is being retained for food production.

Society already knows that chemical and genetic intensification of yields--a common stated remedy to having less farmland--is hard on the environment (poison run-off, unknown cross-breeding issues, decreased soil tilth and increased erosion), so what the heck are the planners thinking? Exactly what do they think their grandchildren are going to eat? Now you've got me started...

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Sprawl?
From: gnu
Date: 07 Mar 12 - 02:52 PM

It's not the planners. It's the money. People want to live on the first floor and BBQ on a lawn and they will work like dogs all their lives to have it. The farmers can't make any money because the big stores buy from mass-production farms located around the world so the landowners sell their land for a one-time "cash-in". The government can't stop a private sale. They can create zoning laws but the politicians who agreed to zone land as agricultural can also vote to rezone it. That depends how much coin is offered by the developers. When they are offered enough, the bait and switch is played... we need the tax base because we need money and, if we don't allow developement, we will have to raise taxes.

It's the money.

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Sprawl?
From: gnu
Date: 07 Mar 12 - 03:55 PM

I FINALLY FOUND IT!

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Sprawl?
From: olddude
Date: 08 Mar 12 - 02:43 PM

i miss read the thread, I thought it was urban spaw ... figured he was moving to a big city so he has more people to call pisswad :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Sprawl?
From: Beer
Date: 08 Mar 12 - 11:36 PM

I am concerned with the growth in our little town. There is movement with the present powers to expand and it look's as if that is what is going to happen. We are in Canada but still subject to all the rapid food and big market growth. My wife and I have discussed this encroachment and we are seriously thinking of selling and moving deeper in the wood to push the Deer further back.
Adrien

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Sprawl?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 09 Mar 12 - 01:24 AM

It doesn't worry so much when cities sprawl onto deserts ...

While it would seem like using land that's apparently worthless for anything else as a place to build, in reality much of the desert/arid spaces are what they are because of lack of water, which is an obvious problem, but also because the soil doesn't percolate in a way that permits any sort of effective septic system for disposing of wastes and runoff.

In the mid 60s, as an example, Phoenix Arizona imposed a "total ban" on any new septic fields, thereby effectively banning any and all development within about a 70 mile radius around the city already in existence. When originally announced, that ban was to be for 30 years - renewable. I haven't heard what they did when the original blockade expired, and of course developers with enough money to dump into it (or slide under the right tables) managed to continue some new building in the area.

Around the same time, Denver Colorado was talking about "population limits" and "population growth avoidance." At that time they considered water resources "inadequate to sustain the existing city within n years" (3 < n < 5?). They had already far exceeded the "septic limit" of nearby soils, but didn't seem to care much what kind of sh*t flowed downhill 'cause that was "just Kansas down there anyway."

There are very few places west of the Mississippi in the US with arable soil and enough water legally "owned" by anyone who farms it, and the only way crops get grown now is by stealing water from somebody (everybody?) else. A developement, even if it doesn't grow anything but hoodlems and delinquents still has to have water, and in nearly all cases has to steal to get any, so it really makes less difference than one might assume whether they use the poor soil or something more fertile. If they're there the good ground can't grow anything, whether they sit on it or beside it.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Sprawl?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 09 Mar 12 - 02:32 AM

amazing video - where did they find the water (irony alert)

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Sprawl?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 31 Mar 12 - 10:35 AM

An update -

At a recent conference in London, an "expert speaker" posited that the growth of cities in the next ~18 years will eat up an additional area more than twice the size of Texas. Those who've been to Texas will agree that this is a "humongous" bunch of land, although some tend to overestimate how much land is there since there's almost nothing else (worth much note at all) there.


World's cities to expand by more than twice the size of Texas by 2030

By Ian Johnston, msnbc.com
27 March 2012

Cities worldwide are on track to expand by nearly 580,000 square miles – more than twice the size of Texas – in less than 20 years, according to experts at a major international science conference.

Yale University professor Karen Seto said the North American suburb had "gone global, and car-dependent urban developments are more and more the norm."

The world's population is expected to grow from the current 7 billion to about 9 billion by 2050, according to the United Nations.

Experts meeting at the Planet Under Pressure 2012 conference in London said in a statement released by the organizers Tuesday that unless changes were made, "humanity's urban footprint" would increase in size by 1.5 million square kilometers (nearly 580,000 square miles) by 2030.

This is significantly more than twice the size of Texas or, according to a "back-of-the-envelope calculation" by Seto, more than 43,000 football fields every day for the next 18 years.

...

One of the suggestions offered was that we need "denser citizens" which bodes well for the Republican Party may have meant "people living in more densely compact cities."

Comments welcome on what anyone's doing about this.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Sprawl?
From: Ebbie
Date: 31 Mar 12 - 02:24 PM

"Cities worldwide are on track to expand by nearly 580,000 square miles – more than twice the size of Texas –"

580,000 square miles? That is almost as large as Alaska (of course unless and until they come up with domed environments most of Alaska is not suitable for habitation).

Cities growing like that reminds one forcibly of the continued expansion in numbers of humankind.

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Sprawl?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 31 Mar 12 - 07:38 PM

Time to stop breeding.

Subject: RE: BS: Urban Sprawl?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 31 Mar 12 - 09:31 PM

Back around 1970 we were experimenting in my urban geography classes with main frame computer programs that permitted us to generate three-dimensional views of urban sprawl over time. So a city's growth looked like some kind of volcanic eruption. Then we got the idea of inverting the statistics and the city center would become a black hole with valleys radiating out. It was amazing to see how much urban space was consumed by automobiles, the roads and the parking lots.

Charley Noble