Multiple Dimensions of Sprawl: How Does LA Stand Up

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Multiple Dimensions of Sprawl How Does LA Stand
Up?

• George Galster, Wayne State University
• Royce Hanson, U. Maryland-Baltimore Co.
• Hal Wolman, George Washington U.
• Presented at the Conference Planning in the
  Post-Sprawl Era
• University of Southern California, Nov. 30, 2001

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Overview of Presentation

• Sprawl has multiple dimensions
• Possible to develop meaningful, objective
  measures of multiple dimensions of sprawl
• Despite its lack of predominant core, LA is NOT
  very residentially sprawled relatively on most
  dimensions its well above-average in housing
  density and proximity

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Dimensions of Sprawl

• Density
• Continuity
• Concentration
• Compactness

• Centrality
• (Mono-)Nuclearity
• Mixed Uses
• Proximity

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A Definition of Sprawl

• A pattern of urbanized land use exhibiting low
  levels of some combination of the aforementioned
  dimensions

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Density

• The average amount of the given urban land use
  per areal unit of developable land

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Concentration

• The degree to which a given urban land use is
  located disproportionately in relatively few
  square miles of the developed area

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Centrality

• The degree to which a given urban land use is, on
  average, located close to the core of the
  developed urban area

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(Mono-) Nuclearity

• The degree to which development is characterized
  by a single-node pattern of the given urban land
  use

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Proximity

• The degree to which observations of a single (or
  different) urban land uses(es) are close to each
  other across the developed area

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Measuring Sprawl A Prototype

• 13 Urbanized Areas
• 5 Dimensions of sprawl operationalized
• Housing Units (HUs) is land use considered
• GIS used to construct database of HUs in one
  square mile grids, extracting from 1990 Census
  block files
• Z-scores calculated for individual sprawl
  dimensions, plus unweighted average index

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Prototype Measures of Sprawl

• Density Housing Units / Square Mile
• Concentration Dissimilarity of Housing Units vs.
  Land Area Across Grids (Delta Index)
• Centrality Inverse of Ave. Distance of HUs from
  City Hall, Weighted by Square root of HUs
• Nuclearity of HUs in all Nodes (grids in top
  1 of HU density) located in Contiguous Core
• Proximity Inverse Ave. Distance between HUs,
  Standardized by Ave. Grid Centroid Separation

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Sprawl Rankings Least to Most
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Are There Sprawl Archetypes?

• Lesson
• Density alone does not sprawl make
• (nor does any other single dimension)

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Urbanized Areas Profiles of Residential Sprawl
Measured on Five Dimensions
Standardized Indicators Expressed as Proportional
Differences from the Sample Mean
Source Constructed from data reported in George
Galster et al (2000), Table 1
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Future Directions I

• Expand Study Area Beyond Urbanized Area
• Add grids within PMSA/UA counties having
• 30 commuters to UA and 60 housing units

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Future Directions II

• Use U.S. Geological Surveys NLCDB
• Residential non-residential uses
• Vacant but developable land
• undevelopable land

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Conclusions

• Possible to develop meaningful, objective
  measures of multiple dimensions of sprawl
• Despite its lack of predominant core, LA NOT very
  residentially sprawled relatively on most
  dimensions well above-average in housing density
  and proximity