Charlotte sprawl among worst in country

Charlotte is facing one of the worst cases of urban sprawl in the country, but city officials say they are working hard to fix the problem.

A recent study by Northwest Environment Watch, a nonprofit research and communication center based in Seattle, shows Charlotte as having the worst urban sprawl out of 15 cities across the nation.

Charlotte ranked last in every category, including land converted from rural area to suburban and urban areas, average metropolitan density and growth in compact neighborhoods.

The environmental group's Cascadia Scorecard is designed to measure trends in Northwestern cities but includes information from cities throughout the country.

In choosing areas, NEW used regions the U.S. Census designated as statistical metropolitan areas. The data analyzed was taken from the 1990 and 2000 censuses.

"Once we got done doing seven major cities in the Northwest, we thought we should branch out and see how we're doing compared to the rest of the country," said Clark Williams-Derry, research director of the center.

"We chose Charlotte because it has a similar population, a similar population growth rate and geographic diversity."

In the last decade, every 100 new Charlotte residents required 49 new acres of surrounding land, the study showed.

These decisions usually are made due to financial concerns, said Marge Anders Limbert, director of development and communications at N.C. Smart Growth Alliance, an organization that looks for solutions and causes for sprawl.

"Often development happens where land is cheapest - outside the city limits," she said.

Williams-Derry said another cause of sprawl is water availability.

"One thing that struck us, in addition to growth management policy, is the amount of sprawl usually corresponded with water availability," he said.

"Places that are very dry, like Phoenix and Las Vegas, didn't sprawl very much."

In fact, in cities where water is scarce, more than twice as much growth took place in compact neighborhoods. Charlotte, with 41.3 inches of rain annually, had sprawl patterns similar to cities in the same weather region.

Regardless of its cause, urban sprawl can lead to societal and environmental damage.

"It creates an energy-needy society where people need to drive long distances," said Greg Gangi, director of student affairs in the Carolina Environmental Program. "When you spread out like that, you don't get any community or culture centers, and you have this society that's centered around driving and mini-malls."

Gangi said Charlotte's climate also affects the impact of the sprawl on the environment.

"Especially in the Sun Belt, you get really bad smog problems," he said. "The emissions from automobiles are a precursor, and the heat turns it into ground-level ozone."

Experts also are concerned with the increase in driving and its relation to health.

"Part of what's at the heart of the obesity problem is not only that we eat too much, but we don't walk," Gangi said. "These low-density places like Charlotte, the Triangle area, Greensboro - they're just not doing enough to solve the problem."

Tom Cox, chairman of the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners, said one objective of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission is to increase high-density development within city limits.

"Inside Charlotte city limits we are implementing a light rail line," he said. "We're also creating a regional planning alliance to deal with general development policies. Its purpose is to bring about a regional view of our future."

Gangi said one solution is looking at the grid neighborhoods of the 1920s and 1930s and making little communities such as Chapel Hill's Southern Village.

But some cities are reluctant to build compact communities because they want to maintain affordable housing.

"In the future Charlotte will be much better managed," Anders Limbert said.

"We do not want to be a Portland, Oregon. We want to be a Charlotte, North Carolina."

Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.