Quantifying open space loss from urban sprawl – Front Page
A new housing development in San Jose, CA. Image credit, Sean O'Flaherty.A new study in the journal PLoS ONE finds that 1.4 million hectares of open space was lost to urban sprawl in the United States from 1990 – 2000.
Robert McDonald from the Nature Conservancy and fellow researchers conducted an analysis of land cover data to measure the amount of agricultural and natural areas converted to development across the 274 metropolitan areas of the country.
The researchers also looked at a number of interesting metrics related to land use and identified some trends that may help explain the sharp loss of open space.
Not surprisingly, they found that low-density neighborhoods, housing a small proportion of residents, make up the majority of developed areas in cities. This seems to get at the heart of the problem – extremely inefficient suburban and exurban land use. The authors write,
“This suggests that the preferences and economic choices of a relatively small number of urban residents are associated with much of the natural landcover lost to development. Efforts to increase the density of existing neighborhoods (i.e., densification) may reduce urban expansion somewhat, but our results suggest that the strength of this effect will be diminished because a relatively small proportion of urban residents still desire to live in a more suburban setting and choose housing accordingly.”
via Quantifying open space loss from urban sprawl – Front Page – Conservation Maven.
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