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Tuesday, June 26, 2012

The cost of sprawl: an Italian case study Laura Fregolent, Stefania Tonin

by Laura Fregolent and Stefania Tonin

understanding the development of a “metropolitan sprawled system”. The portion of Veneto Region that is part of our case study covers about 3700 square km, for a total of 145 municipalities. The main aim of our paper is to find out if low-density development patterns are more expensive and if local public spending is influenced by different urban forms expansions. We measure sprawl with some indicators suggested by the literature such as urban density, population density and the territorial fragmentation.
Data for the economic analysis come from local balance sheets of 145 municipalities for the year 2007. In particular, we collect the costs of the main public services sustained by the municipalities such as public transport, road and street maintenance, waste management, and water and sewer services. Adopting regression analysis, we estimate the impact of urban sprawl on different current expenditures, controlling for other variables such as local taxes paid by citizens, central government aids, territory characteristics, and more others.
We find that low density development patterns are in general more expensive, in particular when municipalities have to provide education services, solid waste collection and other environmental and urban management services.
Our analysis wants to highlight the threats posed by sprawl in terms of urban sustainable development patterns and to put in evidence the costs of an unbalanced growth in order to let public government to re-orient their policies versus the containment of the urban growth process.


more about urban sprawl:

PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? A CASE STUDY OF EU TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT POLICY IN THE CONTEXT OF EASTERN ENLARGEMENT

Is sprawl undermining food security?

Urban shrinkage in Leipzig and Halle, the Leipzig-Halle urban region, Germany

Employment Decentralization as Urban Sprawl Character in 1950-80

The impacts of major transportation infrastructure on the form and function of the urban space: the case of the "Athens urban freeway"

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