Two University of Toronto profs and some others have studied the spread of urban sprawl in the late 20th century by creating composite satellite maps of American cities comparing 1976 and 1992, and looking at the amount of open space around houses in every U.S. city.
Some of the findings are suprising, such as that L.A. is relatively compact. Here’s another of their many findings:
One of the common complaints about urban sprawl is that as development spreads, municipal services such as roads, sewers, police and fire protection are more expensive. The authors suggest that this concern is well founded. Development in municipalities that receive larger subsidies from higher levels of government is, on average, more scattered. Says Puga, “This suggests that as local taxpayers are held accountable for infrastructure costs, they respond by insisting on patterns of development that require less infrastructure spending.â€