Cities in the South and West Keep Sprawling

"Between 2001 and 2019, the built-up landscape of America — buildings, roads and other structures — has expanded into previously undeveloped areas, adding more than 14,000 square miles of new development across the contiguous United States," report Zach Levitt and Jess Eng. 

"Suburbs are sprawling out in Arizona and Nevada as industries move to the Sun Belt, retirement communities are popping up in Florida as the baby boomer generation ages, and oil and natural gas wells have emerged across North Dakota and West Texas." Meanwhile, "[a]s cities on the coasts have become more and more expensive, there has been an influx of people and industries into other parts of the country, creating the perfect conditions for rapid sprawl into available land in the South and West." But recent growth has led to sharp increases in housing costs, too. "Across the country, housing prices have risen by almost 25 percent since March 2020, creating bidding wars for any house that goes on the market in cities like Boise." Reno's "median price for an existing single-family home has recently reached half a million dollars."

But this comes at a cost, write Levitt and Eng. "Researchers and experts have said explosive urban development was a contributing factor for the intense flooding after Hurricane Harvey devastated Houston in 2017," partly due to an increase in impervious surfaces that prevent floodwater from draining away. At the same time, cities in the Southwest struggle to maintain adequate water supplies for their fast-growing populations as reservoirs dwindle to historic lows.