Top Ten Sprawling Metro Areas

17 October 2002 - 1:00pm

Three-year study ranks 83 metropolitan areas and associates urban sprawl with highway deaths, air pollution, and traffic. Find out your city's ranking.

"Metropolitan areas that sprawl more have higher traffic fatality rates, more traffic, and poorer air quality than less sprawling areas, according to a landmark study released today. The report, Measuring Sprawl and Its Impact, is based on a three-year research project conducted by professors at Rutgers and Cornell universities... This comprehensive and academically rigorous study truly breaks new ground by going a step beyond the index to demonstrate how sprawl development patterns affect the way people live...The report ranks 83 metropolitan areas, accounting for nearly half the country’s population, and finds that Riverside-San Bernardino California is the most sprawling overall. It is followed by Greensboro and Raleigh, both in North Carolina; Atlanta; Greenville, South Carolina; and West Palm Beach." [Entire report available in PDF format.]

Source: Smart Growth America, October 17, 2002
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The areas where we have severe blight and indications of more blight to come are basically the same as they ever were. How in the world are we ever going to move our community development selves into an alternative future that thinks differently about the challenges we face in our cities and low-income suburban and rural communities?