How Urban Sprawl Ruins Roads

It is easy to see how urban sprawl affects the environment. Disappearing forests and fields are visible reminders. What is more difficult to understand is what effect sprawl has on what is underground.

What's Down There?

In order to understand what is hurt by urban sprawl, you need consider what underground resources are involved. The first concern is ground water. There is a limited amount of water in aquifers that can be tapped to serve a growing population.

The second concern is local services. A large part of underground infrastructure consists of things like sewer, storm, and drinking water pipes that carry water to and from homes and businesses. Urban sprawl forces local governments to extend these pipes under new roads farther and farther from existing treatment facilities.

The third issue is those facilities themselves. They are expensive to build and to maintain yet are essential to the spread of sprawl. Without clean water, new homes and businesses cannot function.

How Does Sprawl Affect These Things?

As populations grow and spread, their need for all of these things increases. In order to serve far-flung suburbs, governments must build longer and larger infrastructure. The run-off from rains that used to be absorbed into the environment, replenishing groundwater, is now channeled into storm sewers.

In order to provide water for development, rivers are dammed and even more undeveloped land is lost. Man-made lakes flood hundreds of acres so that urban sprawl can continue to spread. While the dams may be used to generate electricity and the lake itself provides recreation for people, there is not way to replace the land lost.

In addition, focusing on new pipes and treatment facilities in development areas forces local governments to spend their limited resources. Aging pipes beneath city centers are neglected because the money does not exist to maintain or upgrade them. Leaks go undetected and wash away the dirt and roadbeds under which they lay.

Unnoticed damage leads to the collapse of these pipes. That, in turn, leads to expensive unplanned repairs, further straining municipal budgets. Taxes in the center of the city rise, making urban sprawl areas more attractive. It's a vicious cycle.

Sinkholes from the neglect of central infrastructure have become increasingly common. A simple web search will bring you results from New York, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and dozens of other cities.

This does not address the issues with extending the roads and roadbeds themselves. The problems created follow the same cycle, with new roads absorbing the money needed to maintain established routes. City centers deteriorate while new developments have miles of circular, dead-end streets built.

What If We Go Further Out?

The farthest-flung development does not rely on city sewer and water. They often have their own wells and septic tanks. What's wrong with that? The problem is two-fold. First, individual homeowners are far more prone to ignoring a system that seems to work fine. They are less likely to properly maintain and monitor their septic system.

Second, even the best-maintained system can have trouble. An break or back-up sends waste water directly into the ground. Local groundwater and other fresh water sources can be contaminated quickly. Even if the system is fixed the contamination may remain in the ground.

If unchecked, at some point urban sprawl will catch up to even the remotest developments. What happens when these homes are integrated into thinly-stretched municipal systems? Will they be properly drained and capped? There is no way to be sure.

Local governments do not have enough staff to inspect all of the area cities absorb due to urban sprawl. The increasing travel time required to reach remote developments reduces the amount of time available for checking individual projects.

Again, taxes must be increased to pay for satellite city offices and for more staff. Schools, hospitals, fire stations, and police stations must be built to educate and protect new developments. This eats up large parcels of land and pushes sprawl even further out. And again, this leads to people wishing to live on the outskirts of the city to avoid paying the heavy taxes associated with expanding infrastructure.

Far-flung development is unreachable by public transit because the the government cannot afford the equipment or staff to get people there and back. Residents of sprawl developments are forced to drive their vehicles and roads must be widened to accommodate the traffic. Local government loses the tax revenue and cannot pay for the necessary infrastructure repairs, another turn of the cycle.

What Now?

The only way to halt the damage and dangers of urban sprawl is to change the way people look at development. Have half an acre on the edge of a lovely city where you drive to run errands and wonder why small local stores keep closing? Perhaps you should reconsider your choices.

Encourage local government to write their zoning laws to require mixed-use development and encourage re-development in established neighborhoods. Use public transit whenever possible; park in a central spot and walk or ride buses in town. Support local stores to which you can walk or ride a bicycle.

Above all, try to get the word out that sprawl hurts. The more people are aware of the problems caused, the easier it will be to change minds and behavior.

For more information, see these other articles:
Is Urban Sprawl Making You Fat?
Fighting Urban Sprawl: Mixed-Use Development
How Parking Lots Contribute to Urban Sprawl
The Problems with Urban Sprawl