Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Pittsburgh has more urban sprawl than Los Angeles, new maps show

Pittsburgh has more urban sprawl than Los Angeles, new maps show

This is an interesting link about a new study from the U of Toronto using GIS and satellite images to compare urban sprawl. The conclusion was "Miami, San Francisco and Los Angeles were the most compact major cities, while Pittsburgh and Atlanta were the most scattered. " Citing from the press release, they report "their findings in the May issue of The Quarterly Journal of Economics, in a paper entitled Causes of Sprawl: A Portrait from Space. Heavily illustrated with Geographic Information System images, the paper challenges conventional wisdom about urban sprawl and presents a vivid and detailed picture of land consumption in America's cities."

I find it especially interesting since I have lived in Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and an now living in the Los Angeles metro area.