Although most of the world seems to be coming to their senses that urban sprawl is an unsustainable remnant of the late 20th century, it appears as though that battle is far from won in New Zealand. The Auckland Regional Council had put in place a Metropolitan Urban Limit since 1999 that has curbed the previously crazy greenfield expansion of the city (or at least made it happen in just a few places), yet it seems that day after day the ARC takes flak for doing this. In recent consultation with councils over what the future shape of the Auckland Regional Policy Statement (which enshrines the MUL) should be their policies of limiting urban expansion came under some pretty surprising attack by a number of Auckland’s smaller councils. Of note, on page 19 we have this little gem:

“…other submitters including Rodney District Council, Papakura District Council and Manukau City Council supported a moveable Metropolitan Urban Limit that is able to respond to changing capacity needs, particularly to provide the opportunity for additional business land.”

Now I do understand that in some cases the MUL should be extended: for example up near Hobsonville when the new SH18 motorway is completed, or perhaps around the Westgate shopping area so that the shopping centre can actually have a residential catchment (rather than the current situation which makes it the most horrific shopping centre in Auckland as you have to drive to get there, drive from one side of it to the other every time you want to go to a different shop and so on). However, a moveable urban limit has been trialled in the past, and effectively operated as a non-limit. Land outside the limit would be zoned future urban, eventually there would be a master-plan for that land, it would become urban and the city would spread. Repeat 100 times and you have Auckland.

Pages 29-43 of my thesis looks at sustainability and sprawl, with the conclusion that while urban environments are, almost by definition, unsustainable there are certainly different types of urban environments that are more or less sustainable. Urban sprawl is clearly the least sustainable form of urban development environmentally, economically, socially and culturally.

Environmental Issues

There are two main ways in which urban sprawl is environmentally unsustainable: the land that is consumed by the city and the air pollution (including CO2) emissions that are caused by sprawled cities being so automobile dependent. Around 400,000 acres (160,000 hectares) of prime farmland is lost to sprawl each and every year in the USA according to the American Farmland Trust (reference on page 32 of my thesis). This is largely due to sprawl, not population growth, as many cities in the USA continue to grow even though their population is declining. Those cities which are growing consume farmland at an even more insatiable rate. About three times as many people live in America’s urban areas today than did in 1950, however the amount of land taken up by those people is 50 times greater.

Sure, it’s not like New Zealand or even the USA is going to run out of land to build cities upon. However, the land that surrounds our urban areas is often of particularly high productive potential (given that cities are generally located in advantageous positions for historical reasons), which means that the land lost is precious. Much of the greenfield land surrounding Auckland that isn’t used for “countryside living” (which is effectively just a really low density version of sprawl) plays a really important role in providing the city with food products. Food that needs to be shipped in from further afield obviously generates further traffic and emissions from its transportation.

Air pollution is another significant environment effect that is generated by sprawl. Sure, the densely populated cities of Asia may appear to have more air pollution that somewhere like Auckland, but on a per capita basis what we generate in our car dependent city is immensely polluting. I remember reading a year or so back that more people died prematurely from the effects of air pollution in Auckland each year than died due to the country’s road toll. Pretty amazing considering all the effort that goes into reducing car crashes. Urban sprawl, by definition, enforces automobile dependency by creating large areas of low-density, single-use development where public transport is not viable (due to low residential and commercial densities and circutous routes), walking or cycling is particularly unviable, and car trips for even the most basic of tasks (like getting milk from the diary) get longer and longer. Much has already been made of the effects of CO2 emissions on global warming, so I won’t dwell on those, but obviously they are a significant issue that may fundamentally alter the way we create cities in the future.

Economic Issues

I really like spouting how unsustainable urban sprawl is economically, as generally those who support it are the types who disregard social, cultural and environmental concerns to focus on their beloved economic efficiency and bottom line. The economic inefficiency of sprawl therefore becomes, in many cases, the strongest argument against it – not because they are necessarily the most damning, but rather because of the reason I just mentioned: proponents of sprawl are generally obsessed with economic effects and to hell with everything else.

So, what makes sprawl economically inefficient? For a start, the provision of services and infrastructure by local governments can be much more efficient in a higher-density city. The roads are used more often and by more than just cars, the waterpipes, wastewater pipes, electricity lines and so forth don’t need to be as long. A Burchel & Mukherji study in 2003 found that 150 million gallons of water and sewer demand PER DAY in the USA could be saved simply through more compact development. The same study indicated that over $100 billion of roading investment could be avoided between 2000 and 2025 if a more ‘managed growth’ form of urban development was undertaken. These are significant numbers. Furthermore, generally the cost of providing the inefficient services that sprawl demands are generally met by existing ratepayers within the bounds of the city. As (particularly in the USA) residents of the inner city tend to be poorer than those occupying recent sprawl developments, you get a situation where the poor are subsidising the rich. Maybe that’s why right-wingers are generally so fond of sprawl?

Social Issues

While the societal effects of urban sprawl are very difficult to measure accurately,they are also perhaps the most damning evidence of its unsustainability. Reduced social equity, negative health impact, a loss of community, segregation, polarisation and an inability to adapt to changing lifestyles and family structures are just some of the ways in which urban sprawl is said to adversely affect social sustainability.

Added to that we just have the way in which sprawl suburbs just appear to be so “dead” in terms of their vibrancy. Without a mix of uses areas are either abandoned during the day (when everyone’s at work) or abandoned in the evening (when everyone’s gone home). As people drive everywhere they do not have the opportunity to mingle with other people, further creating a feeling of social isolation. I noticed this a lot when returning from my holiday to Europe last year, and it took a couple of months to realise that I needed to make a real effort to escape the socially depressing clutches of urban sprawl by catching buses to work and regularly visiting the Auckland CBD to experience at least a tiny amount of the vibrancy so obvious in European cities.

So I think it’s pretty obvious that sprawl sucks – economically, environmentally and socially. While it may appear to have its private benefits in a large house, a lot of roads upon which to drive one’s car and so forth, in the end there is a big price to pay for these “luxuries” in the form of the highly unsustainable cities that we live in. And this doesn’t even consider the concept of peak oil (which I, admittedly, hadn’t heard of in 2005 when I wrote my thesis). I believe that the onset of peak oil will very quickly make it obvious how unsustainable sprawl is. And perhaps that won’t be a bad thing at all.

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