Urban Sprawl = City Cancer

S-P-R-A-W-L , largely a creation of our automobile dependency, is typified by an unappealing urban ugliness – barren treeless stretches of multi-lane highway lined with “strip malls”, tyre and exhaust repair shops, used car yards, filling stations, and “McShacks” take-away food outlets. And ubiquitous “retail parks” of “Big Box” shops – supermarkets, discount furniture, home appliance and computer stores, etc., all surrounded by vast bleak acreages of tarmac parking.  Derelict building sites strewn with rubbish and rusting cars and untidy “green spaces” – often leftovers from “road improvements” – become gathering places and latrines for “rough sleepers”, alcoholics, drug-dealers, etc.     

 

 

S-P-R-A-W-L GENERATES DYSTOPIAN URBAN LANDSCAPES

S-P-R-A-W-L increases the COST of transport, sewerage, refuse collection, police & fire services, etc.   

S-P-R-A-W-L means libraries and other public services are spread more thinly, thus reducing their quality

S-P-R-A-W-L creates delays in emergency response times of police, ambulance, and fire services

S-P-R-A-W-L increases the value of car parking, leading to the ugliness of concreted-over former “front gardens”

S-P-R-A-W-L creates barriers of distance and journey time between friends and family

S-P-R-A-W-L consumes farmland, woodland, meadows, and destroys wildlife habitats

S-P-R-A-W-L’s landscape of roof tiles, bricks, concrete, asphalt, and bitumen creates “Heat Islands”

S-P-R-A-W-L pollutes rainwater runoff with petrol, motor oil and tyre dust from roads and parking lots

S-P-R-A-W-L causes time-wasting commuting – long tiring journeys reduce work efficiency and satisfaction  

S-P-R-A-W-L disrupts the frequency and efficiency of bus services, causing anger and frustration 

S-P-R-A-W-L segregates social classes and limits social mobility 

S-P-R-A-W-L isolation reduces pride in one’s appearance, thus nurturing slobbishness and obesity

S-P-R-A-W-L makes cars indispensable, and cars consume money, thus making people poor 

S-P-R-A-W-L means more driving, making us angry and aggressive towards other road-users 

S-P-R-A-W-L erodes the quality of life in a multitude of other, often indiscernible, ways

S-P-R-A-W-L is to cities what obesity is to humans –

UNSIGHTLY and UNHEALTHY

Sprawling Cities are Obese Cities (ObeCities)