It doesn't take an expert to identify sprawl. You know it when you see it. But it doesn't take an expert to identify sprawl. You know it when you see it. You watch construction equipment pave over farmland and fields with look-alike subdivisions called Oak Meadows or Rabbit Run, whose very names mock what was destroyed, and you know you're watching sprawl in action.
Sprawl is one of the most wasteful uses of land ever devised.
For example, between 1970 and 1990, the population of greater Chicago grew by only 4 percent, but the metropolitan area grew by 50 percent. And sprawl is getting worse. If central Maryland's sprawling development continues its recent pace, it will consume as much land in the next 25 years as it has in the previous 300 years. In the United States, sprawl is everywhere, from large metropolitan areas like Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, to midsize urban areas like Austin, Texas, and Albuquerque, New Mexico. Even small towns like Peotone, Illinois, are besieged.