What Is Urban Sprawl ? THE EXPANDING CITY

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28701, 26 September 1958, Page 14 (Supplement)

What Is Urban Sprawl ? THE EXPANDING CITY

By

D. J. EDMONDSON,

Assistant Regional Planning Officer, Christchurch Regional Planning Authority. * T TRBAN SPRAWL is, broadly speaking, the uncontrolled use of land for urban expansion, causing good land to be taken out of production and other land to be poorly managed because of the probability, that it may eventually be required for town building. Because its growth is uncontrolled, urban sprawl causes extra and more expensive demands to be made on the public services shell as water supply, drainage, sewerage, transport and telephones, which could be better provided at less cost under controlled or planned

From the national point of view it is wasteful of land and a costly form of town expansion. From the individual’s point of view if he is analytical of how and where his money is. used he will realise that it affects him too. ,

Urban sprawl is not peculiar to New Zealand. It is a worldwide problem and in some countries, particularly those where the density of population is high, the distribution of land for different uses is of major importance. It is of major importance in this country, too, not only because almost the whole of our export earnings are derived from the land, but because urban development is beginning to outstrip our financial resources to provide it with all the amenities associated with town life. The population of New Zealand is how increasing at the rate of 47,000 persons a year, and inevitably more land will be required for housing, industry, schools, public buildings, roads, open z space and other uses. In the Christchurch metropolitan area between the years 1946-1956 nearly 4000 acres of extra land were needed to cater for the increase in population and 75 per cent, of it was used for housing. Most of the land used was good farm land. Farmlands Lost A similar pattern is occurring* throughout New Zealand and it has been estimated that in the next 20 years 80.000 acres will go out of production altogether and 80.00 Q acres will suffer quite a substantial loss in production and generally there will be a disturbance in the farming pattern.

Most of our larger towns are located in areas of first-class land and it will be land of this quality which will go out of production —land which cannot be replaced. Large areas of land, such as the pumice lands of the North Island, are of course being brought under cultivation annually, but this will come to an end, and anyhow it seems to be a poor exchange for existing first-quality farmland. While our towns grow at the periphery, what is happening inside them, at the core, where the town started? In the larger towns, the centres and older housing areas are becoming decadent and the population is falling. In Christchurch the population in the older areas has.fallen by nearly 7500 in the last 10 years. But the outer areas, using farm land, have increased by 47,000. And these outer areas require

new urban services while the existing services in the centre of the town are used less and less. It is probable, therefore, that, in the larger and older towns especially, the process of urban expansion, which if it is uncontrolled and unplanned will be urban sprawl, is a product of two forces at works. First, the

natural expansion of a town through increase in population, and second through a probable migration of people in the older

parts of the towns to the periphery.

If good agricultural land is to be saieguarded and urban services are to be provided more quickly and cheaply to all who require them, then it would seem obvious that the old attitude of “there’s plenty of land” and “I want to build what I want where I like” will have to be discarded in favour of a desire to fit in with what is best for the community and country as a whole. Saving The Land ‘ Action to stop urban sprawl spreading can be taken immediately by all councils in the country by powers vested in them under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1953, and other legislation. It is possible to define rural zones where urban expansion can be strictly controlled. and it is also possible to implement schemes for the redevelopment of decadent areas, thus reducing the demand for extra land at the edge of towns. What is required is not more legislation but a greater awareness of our responsibility to conserve our national resources and to pursue a policy of town building which will be a credit to us in the future.