Honolulu's sprawl slower
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Columnist
Honolulu does not make the top 10 list of cities with the greatest urban sprawl, but only because O'ahu is not that big.
Sprawl is a hot topic among planners, government officials, environmental groups and others concerned about efficient urban areas and the effects on rural and natural environments.
The cities with the most sprawl in the nation from 1970 to 1990, listed according to the square miles of rural land they sucked up, are Atlanta, Houston, New York City, Washington, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth, Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Phoenix and Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Atlanta invaded 701.7 square miles of rural land during those two decades, more than twice what Minneapolis-St. Paul did.
Just as spreading urbanization in the O'ahu central valley is intruding on the island's farm country, Mainland areas are losing their agricultural land to growth.
A new booklet by environmental and natural resource planner Leon Kolankiewicz and public policy analyst Roy Beck, "Weighing Sprawl Factors in Large U.S. Cities," reviews some of the issues. It and related information on sprawl are available on the Web at www.SprawlCity.org.
Two factors are critical in promoting sprawl. One is population growth — more people needing more places to live and work. The other is land-use patterns and personal decisions about space — using more space per person.
There are cities like Detroit, which actually lost population and still sprawled. In 11 cities without population growth, sprawl averaged 26 percent.
And there are cities with dramatic growth. The U.S. Census showed that cities with population growth of more than 50 percent from 1970 to 1990 sprawled 112 percent.
To stop sprawl, people need to attack both population and per-capita land consumption, the authors say.
In most areas, both population growth and increased per-capita land consumption are at play. Honolulu is different. It is one of the few cities where, on average, there was less land used per person in 1990 than in 1970.
However, the population grew so much that the city still sprawled 20.6 percent. That's a lot, but it is still far less than the average of the biggest 100 cities in the country, which was 69.6 percent sprawl.
Honolulu ranked 97th out of the top 100 cities in square miles of sprawl from 1970 to 1990, adding 23.7 square miles of urban area.
The raw data on which those numbers are based say the island's population went from 442,397 to 632,603, and per-capita land use from .166 acres per person to .14 acres per person. The size of the city grew from 115 to 138 of O'ahu's roughly 600 square miles, according to the data.
Jan TenBruggencate is The Advertiser's Kaua'i bureau chief and its science and environment writer. Call him at (808) 245-3074 or e-mail at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com.
