Urban Sprawl

Urban sprawl is a general phenomenon in developing countries in nowadays, while it started in developed countries in nineteenth century to increase economy. Urban sprawl means the expansion of the city, characterized by density housing and rising reliance on automobiles (Gonzalez 2005). However, urban development does not only bring the increasing economy, but also results in social and ecological problems such as climate change, social polarization and health problem. Thus, the solution to deal with negative effects has been a heated discussion. The argument that whether technological solution can effective address these problems is open to question. This essay will analyze how urban sprawl contributes to global warming, motorization and obesity, and argue that technology has little immediate impact on social and environmental issues.

Global warming, which is one of the worst ecological problems, is mainly contributed by urban sprawl. Urban sprawl driven by the growth of population leads to increasing consumption of automobiles and homeland. Such consumption depends on the higher energy use, especially fossil fuel which is an inexpensive and general resource. Then, burning fossil fuel creates greenhouse gas emissions like carbon dioxide. If accumulated emissions are trapped in the atmosphere, the temperature will rise and cause global warming. Moreover, urban sprawl is also driven by the desire of landowners and developers, because it brings increasing value of their land and viable economic benefits. These people champion and promote urban development. The most farmland on the peripheries is replaced by spacious homes and automobile industries. Building development depends on fossil fuel which can cause global warming as well. As a consequence, global warming results in environmental degradation including floods, drought, hurricanes and forestation (Gonzalez, 2005).

According to Martion (2007), motorization which is due to urban sprawl through the increase...