Rinal Hardian# 1204240Research MethodsLiterature Review: Urban Sprawl and Compact City

IntroductionOne of the main challenges for urban development is urban sprawl phenomenon. Many policy makers and urban planners recognised the issue and proposed a solution to renovate this urban growth problem by creating mix-used areas that bring together housing, jobs, transport services, recreation and leisure. In urban planning literature, this approach is known as compact city or smart growth and is regarded as the main proposed alternative to urban sprawl (williams, Burton, & Jenks 2000).

Shifting from urban sprawl to a compact city is considered a way to achieve urban sustainability. Compact city offers several advantages including conservation of countryside; less need to travel by car that eventually will decrease fossil fuel emissions; support for more environmentally friendly transportation mode such as public transport, walking and cycling; easy access to services and facilities; more efficient in providing utility and infrastructure; and renewal of inner urban areas (Burton 2000).

However, while this type of development seems to be quite promising, it has also been criticised mainly on the basis of such a drastic change to the citys fabric that it is hard to be implemented. This paper, therefore, will review whether or not compact city concept is an appropriate approach for urban development that it is practical and feasible enough to make a progress to cope with urban sprawl issue and achieve sustainable city. The focus will be on reviewing several literatures of the compact city/urban sprawl debate, outlining what constitutes urban sprawl, discussing compact city concept as an alternative to urban sprawl as well as a critique of the model. Finally, this review concludes by looking for solutions to the issues posed by urban sprawl while accommodating the critiques of the compact city.

Aspects of Sprawl City planning practice has a long history that probably began in earliest cities many centuries ago. However, modern urban planning discipline started to develop fairly recently, primarily in response to poor living quality in industrial cities of the 19th century (Hall 2002). Urban planning then progressed throughout the twentieth century, producing a range of urban forms which typically had little concern on environment impacts. In this period, urban sprawl begun to emerge and developed into a trait of many cities which then became a subject of amplified critiques since this type of development has considerable social, environmental and economic drawbacks (Ewing 1997; Frumkin, Frank, & Jackson 2004; Johnson 2001). Nevertheless, even though this phenomenon is a popular topic for research and debates, there is little agreement on many aspects of it. Defining characteristics and impacts of urban sprawl still remain as a field that worth to explore.

Holcombe (1999) suggests four main features of sprawl which echo Breheny, 1997s earlier definition of sprawl. These include leapfrog development, commercial strip development, low density, and single-use development. Leapfrog can be described as the development of new residential areas that are far away from an urban precinct. Most of the time, the developers chose the areas to have a benefit of cheaper price, leaving more expensive empty areas near the city. As a consequence, walking and bicycling become impractical since people live far away from the places to go to work, shop, or school.

The second characteristic, known as strip development, is the development of very low density areas and is typified by retails that are arranged in long blocks and surrounded by large parking lots. Because of the stretched nature of the retail outlets and lack of concern for pedestrian needs, a travel from one outlet to another are often made by car. The third, and probably most recognizable characteristic of urban sprawl, is its low density. (Holcombe 1999) expresses the density of urban sprawl as in between that of the crowded urban centre and rural neighbourhood.

Beside population density, the compactness of an area can also be measured by floor area ratio (FAR), a ratio of the floor part of a building divided by the total land size (parcel). Suburban neighbourhoods which are often associated with sprawling area generally have an FAR between 0.05 and 0.18. This is quite low in comparison with urban interior densities that can be 0.88 up to 5.05 (Holcombe 1999). Finally, other characteristic of urban sprawl is single-use development. Sprawling zones may be portrayed as environments in which people settle in low density neighbourhoods where the land is dedicated for one purpose only (i.e. housing). Therefore, sprawling areas usually are not equipped with adequate public space and services.

In various planning literatures, urban sprawl is regarded as the cause for a range of problems. Sprawl, for example, triggers traffic congestion by increasing car use, reduces rainwater absorption by consuming large areas of natural green covers, encourages excessive land use (due to under-valued open space in suburban areas), and promotes socioeconomic isolation by supporting the practice of segregated housing markets (Frumkin 2002). Furthermore, sprawl is also suspected to be responsible for several public health problems, taking in growing obesity cases, air and water pollution, and mental health as the emerging issues (Ewing, et al. S 2003; Frumkin 2002).

However, it is important to bear in mind that there are also positive sides of urban sprawl, which perhaps have contributed to its dominance as an urban form. (Frumkin 2002) describe that urban sprawl has allowed people to have less expensive homes on large land sited away from noisy and overcrowded city centres. Furthermore, this type of neighbourhood also enabled its residents to enjoy the ease of movement since the infrastructure planning such as roads and high ways design gave emphasis to automobile travelling. Therefore, it is essential to acknowledge that at the individual level, living in a sprawling community is quite appealing as having a house in a large lot and exclusive neighbourhood with automobile convenience is still considered as a sign of success.

Compact City ConceptUrban sprawl is just about unanimously criticised because it led to unsustainable cities (Ewing, 1997; 1996; Holcombe, 1999; Joshuaisd, 2000). Many urban planning literatures emphasise that action must be taken to achieve sustainable urban areas (Ewing, 1997; Williams, 1999; Burton, 2000). In answering this challenge, literature in the early 1990s proposed the compact city concept: a model of urban intensification that hypothetically would reduce car use, stop urban expansion to rural area, promote social equity, and contribute to long-term sustainability of urban areas (Jenks et. al., 1996).

Many of the literatures understand compact city as a mixed-use city, relatively high-density, based on a well-organized public transport system and dimensions that support walking and cycling (Burton, 2000). Having these characteristics, the model has a potential to overcome urban sprawl issue. Compact city guiding principles were often designed to reduce the use of private cars, promote public transport and stop the urban expansion to rural area. However, supporters of the concept claim that there are more than just environmental benefits that can be achieved from compacting urban zone. For example, higher density community is believed to be more socially sustainable because local facilities and services can be maintained (Williams, 1999).Furthermore, the transformation of local economy, particularly in city centre areas can potentially also be achieved through intensification. Therefore, hypothetically, it seemed that compact city concept is a way to achieve a sustainable city as well as a solution to deal with urban sprawl problem.

Critique of Compact CityHowever, since the mid 1990s the compact city model has been questioned on three main areas: whether it can provide its supposed benefits towards sustainability, whether it is viable enough to be implemented in the urban environment, and whether it is acceptable to the local communities regarding such changes they have to deal with (Breheny, 1997). Some of these challenges occur because of the complexity of the compact city concept and the vagueness of its definition. Actually, urban compaction has been implemented around the globe in many different ways, from re-activation of an abandoned sites and implementation of the ideal number of person per space in UK, the establishment of urban growth limits in the USA, to the endorsement of medium density housing in Australia and New Zealand. In addition to confirming the ambiguity the compact city model, this range of ways also illustrates how each country has modified the concept to go well with local conditions and promote urban sustainability in a way that is feasible and acceptable regarding their local environments.

In the urban perspective, despite the fact that the compact city model might not give all the solutions to a more sustainable future as the critiques of it are in many way quite legitimate, it has recognised the need to conduct urban planning on a much detailed scale to facilitate the integration various aspects of city planning so that is more sustainable. As the compact city hypothesis suggest, there is at least the capability for urban areas to function in a more environmentally friendly, socially equitable and economically feasible way; the only problem left is how to achieve it

Achieving SustainabilityPorta and Renne (2005) underline eight urban fabric indicators which are considered to be important elements that shape the sustainability of urban environment, including: accessibility, diversity, public/private space, natural supervision, permeability/connectivity, employment density, number of buildings, and number of lots. Besides these general indicators, more detailed street indicators were also used by Porta and Renne to assess the sustainability of urban designs. the indicators such as sky coverage, width, continuity, softness, , visual complexity, , the apparent number of buildings, and seating opportunities can inspire the broader urban fabric indicators that affect sustainability (Porta and Renne, 2005). What is more, by establishing higher-density urban environments through improving the elements of a variety of urban design indicators, the negative image of urban intensification can be diminished.

In response to the critiques of compact city concept, recent literature has also payed more attention to giving rise to a variety of urban forms and sustainability that are presumably appropriate to the area they are to be put into practice (Guy and Marvin, 2000). Furthermore, there are also greater interest upon the design, functions and processes the city development and how they can make a different toward sustainability, rather than just concerning the density which became the focus of most literature throughout the 1990s (Vallance S, Perkins C, & Dixon, J 2009). Nonetheless, the form of a city still plays an important role in shaping sustainability of its future. Since the negative impact of urban sprawl on environmental, economic and social become progressively more noticeable through traffic congestion, social isolation and the constant loss of significant land because of urban expansion, it is obvious that maintaining this type of development in the future will be greatly unsustainable. Therefore, fundamental changes need to be made, not only to the density of urban environment but also to the cultural attitudes that have resulted in the dominance of urban sprawl, in order to achieve a more sustainable future.

ConclusionThis paper has discussed the negative impacts of urban sprawl that leads to unsustainable environment and become dominant throughout developed world cities. Understanding the attractiveness of urban sprawl at the individual level is essential to formulate a new urban form that is attractive enough so that it is feasible to be implemented and gain no resistant from local community. Finding solutions to the urban sprawl has dominated urban planning literature for decade. Many literatures suggested a compact city as a cure for urban sprawl problem. By focusing on quality urban design, ensuring new, higher-density developments is one way compact development can be made as attractive as the urban sprawl. Therefore, shifting from urban sprawl to compact city is not an easy task to accomplish. It is cannot be implemented unless there are acceptance from of higher-density living in the wider community.

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