Essay On Urban Sprawl

Urban sprawl, the uncontrolled expansion of urban areas, has slowed down by 9% since the 1990s (Borenstein). Urban sprawl was steadily increasing starting in 1920 due to new street construction and it peaked in 1994. Despite the belief that urban sprawl is the result of a healthy economic and social process, urban sprawl needs to be restricted and eventually stopped. Urban sprawl is rapidly expanding, destroying wildlife, and causing a rise in pollution and disease.
Urban sprawl has come to be fairly recently. Some possible causes for urban sprawl are immigration and population growth. Specifically America, a nation of immigrants, has problems with immigration. As a country’s population grows, it is reasonable for the cities to grow as well. Unfortunately, when this trend started, city planners did not keep things proportional. Land use got out of hand, and fast. Urban sprawl is still expanding. Although sprawl has had a large decrease, almost 9% after it peaked in the early 90’s, urban sprawl is still expanding in many places throughout the United States, and especially close to home. Sprawl is evident in Farmington, the city’s population of 12,000 is expected to almost triple by 2020 (Gottfried) due to urban sprawl. Minnesota is not the worst state about urban sprawl, but it also
Urban sprawl is destroying wildlife, rapidly expanding, and causing a rise in pollution and disease. If people keep in mind all these detrimental effects of urban sprawl more people will want to start taking a stand against it and get laws and such passed to help slow, and stop sprawl. We all have to work together and acknowledge this huge problem our country, and the world, is facing and we might be able to stop these effects before it is too