Urban Sprawl is basically the uncontrolled spread of urban development into neighboring regions. So this means that is an unplanned result of urban development moving into areas close to the edge of a city. This is very common in those developing nations such as places in Africa, India, Asia, etc. This not only damages more of the environment but it can also cause other problems. I would say it is a continued chain of land destruction.
Urban sprawl is a form of metropolitan growth, which is a response to often hard sets of economic, social, and political forces and to the physical geography of an area. Some of these causes include population growth, strong economy, increasing household incomes, fragmented municipal governments, etc. Concerns over urban sprawl and its consequences are not new, and this phenomenon has been considered by academics, social critics, and public policy makers since the shift of people and economic activities. Opinion appears to be divided over the social and economic impacts of sprawl, because the evidence indicates that both social /economic benefits and costs occur from this phenomenon.
However there are negative and positive effects of this phenomenon. The positive effects include reducing the housing gap between blacks and whites, providing housing opportunities for minorities and recent immigrants, and increasing the affordability of housing in both suburbs and cities. The negative effects are loss of community spirit and values, less leisure time, traffic congestion and longer commuting times, over-crowded schools, higher taxes, etc.
There are also some great environmental effects due to urban sprawl. Urban sprawl's impacts upon ecosystems and other environmental resources are considerable. Urban sprawl and associated activities decrease environmental resources, such as surface water and groundwater, air quality, and landscape aesthetics, and destroys wildlife habitats. It also restricts or eliminates access to natural resources or raw materials such as timber, fuel minerals, and non-fuel minerals including sand, gravel, and limestone. These materials are those from which cities are constructed, and results in the lost of prime agricultural lands from nearby metropolitan areas.
Possible solutions are mainly those within smart growth solutions. These include establishing urban growth boundaries, preserving farmland and green space, investing in alternate forms of transportation, and building compact pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods; this can help manage growth and control sprawl. So if the way that our land is used and the things we do are controlled properly then we might be able to control this sprawl. A good example is that of people migrating here into Florida itself. We do have many Black, Spanish, Latin, and others who are migrating here. The problem is space and how to spread things out as even as possible. So more land will be needed eventually and there will be more development. What we have to do is stop this migration or control it properly so that people spread through the states.
