The Impacts of Urban Sprawl

In case you don't know, urban sprawl is simply another way of saying urbanization. Urban sprawl is the movement of a group of people from urban to the rural part of the city. This finally results in the spreading of the urban area into the rural area. Urban sprawl leads to the continuous commercial and residential growth of an undeveloped land. This usually happens when people are moving to a better area to live due to the increased population in their current place. This is how the world has been moving since the beginning.

Impacts of Urban Sprawl

After understanding the meaning of urban sprawl, let's learn about the impacts of urban sprawl. Below are some of the impacts of urban sprawl:

Surge in Public Expenditure – Urban sprawl is known to play a vital part in the growth of public costs. This is because there will be changes in the rate of building houses and infrastructures. All these infrastructures will be paid for by someone, and taxpayers are usually those responsible for the payment.

Increased Traffic – Increase in population will lead to an increasing number of cars on the road. This will lead to increase traffic. On this other hand, this will lead to increased road accidents and air pollution. People in the community must worry about this as times goes on.

Health Issues – Increased population will prefer driving their cars around than walking around small distances to boost their health. This will make people become overweight and make them deal with ailments that are related to overweight. Some of these ailments include high blood pressure and heart failure. There will also be lung failure due to smoke inhale from vehicles and industries.

Environmental Issues – Different environmental issues are associated with sprawls that you won’t be aware of. One of these issues is the displacement of wildlife in these areas. Chasing these animals away from their natural environment will cause a ripple in the long run.

Impact on Social Lives – Movement of people away from their current location will have more significant effects on their social lives. Such people will not have neighbours to chat with, and this means that they won't stay as social as they want. Although this may seem easy to handle, it should be taken care of.

From above, urban sprawl is what we will continue to witness on earth as long as we are existing. It’s not going to improve and several rural areas will become populated with time. This will happen because there will be development and change. Although this is good in some aspects, it is also bad in some other aspects. Tearing up the environment is a bad thing and it may lead to reduced overcrowding with time.