Verifying the Multi-Dimensional Nature of Metropolitan Land Use: Advancing the Understanding and Measurement of Sprawl

Twelve conceptually distinct dimensions of land use patterns are operationalized for 50 large US metropolitan areas using a battery of indices. Common patterns of variation in these indices across metropolitan areas are discerned using correlation and factor analyses. We find that: (1) seven princip...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of urban affairs 2005-08, Vol.27 (3), p.235-259
Main Authors: Cutsinger, Jackie, Galster, George, Wolman, Harold, Hanson, Royce, Towns, Douglas
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Employment
Housing
Land Use
Metropolitan Areas
Public policy
Residential Patterns
Rural and urban sociology
Sociology
United States of America
Urban Development
Urban sociology
Urbanization
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Summary:Twelve conceptually distinct dimensions of land use patterns are operationalized for 50 large US metropolitan areas using a battery of indices. Common patterns of variation in these indices across metropolitan areas are discerned using correlation and factor analyses. We find that: (1) seven principal components best summarize the dimensions of housing and employment land uses, (2) metro areas often exhibit both high and low levels of sprawl-like patterns across the seven components, and (3) housing and employment aspects of sprawl-like patterns differ in nature. Thus, land use patterns prove multi-dimensional in both theory and practice. Exploratory analyses indicate: (1) little regional variation in land use patterns, (2) metro areas with larger populations are more dense/continuous with greater housing centrality and concentration of employment in the core, (3) older areas have higher degrees of housing concentration and employment in the core, (4) constrained areas evince greater density/continuity, and (5) inter-metropolitan variations in several dimensions of land use patterns are not well explained by population, age, growth patterns, or topographical constraints on development. Results imply that policymakers must carefully unravel which land use dimension is causing undesirable outcomes, and then devise precise policy instruments to change only this dimension.
ISSN:0735-2166
1467-9906
DOI:10.1111/j.0735-2166.2005.00235.x