Definition Of Urban Sprawl
Opinions are far from various on the concept of urban sprawl. However, in the present study urban sprawl has been considered as the areal extension of urban area over the adjacent rural area. It can be measured in term of acres of land or in terms of percentage, which are known as actual sprawl or percentage sprawl respectively. The percent sprawl refers to the percentage increase in the areal strength of the urban center over a period of time. Urbanized area stands for central city and its contiguously developed suburbs, as meticulously calculated by the Census Bureau.
The growth of towns with time has been immemorial. Socrate and Plato in their study have pointed out “then we must make the city larger again, for the health of the city is not enough now, it must be swollen and filled with people and things which are not in cities from necessity”. This indicates that the city should take on to sprawling that too in planned manner.
There are few definition which are non-technical in nature but do convey the meaning of the word sprawl. According to the Oxford Dictionary, the word sprawl refers ‘to spread out or stretch out (something) in a wide or straggling manner’ while the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English defines sprawl as: ‘ To stretch out awkwardly or to spread ungracefully, e.g. the city sprawls for miles in each direction’. Awkard and irregular spatial growth of a town or city mainly due to increase in population can be termed as urban sprawl. Hence, any area, which is under the jurisdiction of a municipality corporation, cantonment, or any notified town, which exceeds its administrative boundary and grows outward without any check, is considered to be a sprawl. The process and pattern, in which the increasing population occupies, will indicate the nature and type of sprawl. The infilling of vacant land within any area is an example of under-bound sprawl. Although there are many definitions of sprawl, a central component of most definitions and of most people's understanding of sprawl is given below:
“Sprawl is the spreading out of a city and its suburbs over more and more rural land at the periphery of an urban area. This involves the conversion of open space (rural land) into built-up, developed land over time”.
From the standpoint of urban planning institutions, the style of conversion can sometimes be more important than the amount of the conversion. Organizations whose chief concerns involve urban planning goals may tend to emphasize qualitative attributes of sprawl -- such as attractiveness, pedestrian-friendliness and compactness. But for those who are most concerned about the effect of sprawl on the natural environment and agricultural resources, the more important overall measure of sprawl is the actual amount of land that has been urbanized. Knowing the actual square miles of urban expansion (sprawl) provides a key indicator of the threat to the natural environment, to the nation's agricultural productivity and to the quality of life of people who live in cities, small towns and also the farms that are near cities. They are also more concerned about the planned sprawl rather than haphazard sprawl for example. If 25 square miles of open spaces around a city are urbanized, most Americans would consider it to be 25 square miles of sprawl, regardless of whether it was developed tastefully or not. They might be more offended by the sprawl if it included ugly development than if it was 25 square miles of well-planned sprawl, but the amount of sprawl - and the number of rural acres lost - would be the same. Thus, using this measure, it is possible to have well-planned sprawl or chaotic sprawl, to have high-density or low-density sprawl, and auto-dependent or mass-transit-oriented sprawl. But regardless of the quality of the sprawl, the amount of sprawl is measured by the square miles of rural land eliminated by urban development.
Thus it may be inferred that the quality of sprawl doesn't affect the amount of sprawl. Generally, well-planned sprawl will result in fewer square kilometres of rural land being covered by urban development. The environmentalists are interested in the urban planning aspects of anti-sprawl work because they can reduce the amount of energy used and pollution produced by residents. And better-planned sprawl is likely to keep its residents happier and less likely to decide later to move even farther beyond the urban centre.
Thus the amount of rural land lost to sprawl is the key issue from an environmentalist and agricultural perspective but the amount of rural land loss and urban expansion is also significant to the quality of life of urban dwellers. The larger an urban area, the more difficult it will be for the average resident to reach the open spaces beyond the urban perimeter; the increase in urban distances can also affect commuting time, mobility and a resident's feeling of being "trapped”. Both the urban planning and environmentalist approaches to sprawl are valid ones for achieving something differing although not necessarily competing goals.