Urban Sprawl

URBAN SPRAWL WITH A FOCUS ON CALIFORNIA

Introduction:

In the last century and this decade, more and more people moved from the cities into urban areas. Most of the time, there was no real planning, and the result was that growth was out of control and badly managed. The resulting problems have been of debate and concern for the last 5 decades. However, urban sprawl remains a growing and more urgent problem. California is perhaps the best example in the United States of this issue. It has a fast-growing population in areas that are already crowded and threaten California’s critically important agricultural industry.

Urban Planning, A Brief History:

Judd and Swanstrom (1987) explain that throughout American history, cities had not really undergone urban planning as such, but were conceived more in economic than in cultural, social and political terms. Cities were originally created as centers of trade and commerce, even from the oldest cities in the east and on the frontier. Along with westward expansion, towns would become the leading edge of the territory. The exploitation of land and other resources was made possible by the continuing expansion of cities and their networks. Over time, by the early 1900s, where America had originally defined itself based on rural life and a western frontier, life had become more industrial and urban. However, “Urbanization occurred at such an incredible pace and scale that it created nearly irresolvable political and social tensions. The cities' economic and cultural dominance spawned a distrust and sometimes a hatred for anything "urban" that influences American culture up to the present day” (p. 5). In the early 1900s, people began to move to the suburbs, but there was still more migration to cities from rural areas than people moving out. Until the Great Depression in the 1930s, cities were overcrowded and chaotic in many ways. Judd and Swanstrom (1987) described that between 1890 and 1920, more than 18...