WHAT IS SPRAWL? BY OLIVER GILLHAM

Organised summary for the subject of UrbanDesign with Mr. Szabo Arpad

Alina Garkoucha

IntroductionThe studied text, written by Oliver Gillham in the book The limitless city: a Primer on urban sprawl debate, isspeaking about the meaning of the word « sprawl » in the United States of America.

This word, which have a lot of significations, traduce a contreverse : « it is a world that Americans have brought upon themselves willingly » Oliver Gillham said.

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Characteristics and definitionA lot of definitions exist to define the « sprawl ». Even if not all of the people agrees on the meaning, a common principle shows up: sprawl is a suburban phenomenon.

According to the Professor Reid Ewing of the Florida International University, the term of sprawl can be recognized with these characteristics:

• Leapfrog or scattered development, which is developing suburban and exurban area and consume more land than it has to

• Commercial strip development, which is characterized by huge arterial roads which containsshopping malls, fast foods, parking lots etc.

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Characteristics and definition• Low density, very different, quite the opposite of the old town. The buildings are widely spaced

and are often composed of one floor.• Single use function, whether for the houses or for the shops, a single building has just a single

function. And because of the widely spread, the functions can be separated by long distances.

• Poor accessibility and automobile dominance. One of the other consequences of a widespread is the obligation to use a car to go from one point to another.

• Lack of public open spaces, which often belongs to homeowners and are privatized. The other public open spaces are taken over by parking areas. So, the only public space whichbelongs to the whole community of inhabitants are the public roads.

For a definition, we can admit that sprawl is a form of urbanization distinguished by these characteristics. These spaces are a typical form of most types of nowadayssuburban development.

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What makes sprawl?• Land ownership. This concept, brought from

Europe, is very important for the Americans: buying a home is the biggest investment of theirlives. Real estate industry has to respond to thisdemand and, at the same time, has to makeprofit. This profit can also explain the repetitivnessof the suburban model.

• The cost of land, is an argument to create suchareas. The higher cost of land comes from a bigdensity. This cost come from clustering and access. More clustering do we have, more businesses can be developed and more money can circulate. Nowadays, people can easilyaccess to any place thanks to the transportation and the network, so a land far from the city becomes accessible to anyone of us.

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What makes sprawl?• Transportation patterns. Basically, in this kind of suburbanization, the car is the most choosen way

to move out. Whether for working, for shopping or for travelling, American people prefer to use the automobile, certainly because of the low density and the horizontal separation of uses.

• Telecommunications technology. Electricity permit to everyone to be located (to live or to work) wherever they want and to be assured of a power source. The computers allowed the decentralisation wherever the land or the labor cost less. Also with the internet, employees cannow work at their homes without the need to be located in the city center.

• Regulation and standards provide to the suburban area a building code concerning the type of the building, the size and the location. These standards are no more permitting to do some crazythings in these places. Furthermore, all the houses of a suburban area belongs to the banks and the insurances who dictate the whole project.

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The Limitless CityThe metropolitan region consists in two parts: CITY + SUBURB

The suburbs, with the sprawl effect, grows faster and faster insomuch they leapfrog the borders. New limits mean new rules. Many people from there think themselves as residentsof a small and autonomous town, but it doen’t work like that, and that’s why may tensionsappears between local and regional government.

Some metropolitan area can be a patchwork of urbanized area and undeveloped lands. Like Lewis Mumford said: « the coastal strip (…) might coalesce into an almostundifferentiated conurbation ».

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Sprawl in summary

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LEAPFROGPATTERNS

COMMERCIALSTRIPS

Principal characteristicsof the sprawl

LOWDENSITY

SEPARATED LAND USES

CARDOMINANCE

MINIMUM PUBLIC SPACES

SPRAWL

Sprawl in summary

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PRECONDITIONS

CAUSE

FACTS

WISH FOR A PRIVATE

OWNERSHIP OF LAND

MARKET FORCES +

LARGE INDUSTRY IN

CONSTRUCTION

INEXPENSIVE LAND

PEOPLE ARE SCATTER WIDELY+ SINGLE USE DEVELOPMENT PATTERNS

=LOW DENSITY

With proliferation of cars and roads

+ Pervasive telecom. network

Investment

CITY WITHOUT LIMIT

Indefinetely extension encompassing the different

political juridictions

CONSEQUENCES

REGULATORY ENVIRONMENTOF CODES AND STANDARDS

TENSIONS BETWEEN HOME RULESAND REGIONAL INTERESTS