Why does the Dallas/Ft. Worth area sprawl so much compared to other metro areas? (Houston: how much, buy)

[natterer]

If you go to MapFrappe, you can cut out a chunk of area on Google Maps, and superimpose that area on another part of the map. It's an interesting way to compare the relative sizes of cities, metro areas, states, counties, countries, etc.

Well, when you do it with the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex, you can see just how much the area sprawls.

Now, in the first image, this is an outline of New York City's Manhattan island superimposed against the metroplex:





http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/5373/80243992cr6.jpg (broken link)

Now - perhaps more surprising - here is an outline of the metroplex superimposed against the Los Angeles metro area:

http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/4074/51276513nt4.jpg

MOST of the LA metro area is consumed by a rough outline of the metroplex. Keep in mind that the metroplex only has about 6.3 million people, while the Los Angeles basin/San Bernardino has about 18 million. Note that the outline is not based on Census MSAs or CSAs, but rather, is my approximation of the built-up area of streets and structures based on satellite imagery and street maps.

Now, as long as we have an outline of the metroplex, let's go wild and compare it to, say, Mexico City, a region of 20+ million people:

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/3276/85024760ne7.jpg

It is DEVOURED by the Metroplex.

The same can be done with most other world cities. London and Paris both fit easily inside the Metroplex. The Metroplex is much deeper than metro Chicago. It takes up the bulk of Yellowstone National Park. Toronto looks like a mere wedge. It's really quite amazing.

My question is, how did things end up sprawling quite this much? Sprawl is something all American cities have to some extent, but Dallas takes it to quite another level. And what are the implications in an age of rapidly-rising gas prices, considering the general poorness of mass transit across the region?

[rb4browns]

It sprawls because it can. There are no natural barriers to outward growth, land is cheap and people in America and Texas in particular I suppose like space in between them. I'm not sure what you find confusing, or if you are trying to make a point on energy consumption, etc. L.A. is more crowded in roughly the same space because more people want to be there (weather, beach,etc.). Manhattan is an island, so no real choice there. Many if not most of Mexico City's residents are slum dwellers or very poor people who live in small dwellings close in to the city in hopes of finding work.

[ctrres]

So the age of a city at a given point in history combines with its location on the globe to intercept influxes of people dependent on others for their welfare and livelihoods.

Older city's shapes are predetermined by the technology of their day to preconfigure a comfortable 3-dimensional shape to its living standards. Paris and London denizens became accustomed early on to living one above another, as a result of their shear population numbers challenged by the simple requirement to gain a measure of productivity out of the land while still close enough to trade with one another for basics.

In New York, the layout of these numbers were constrained in ways Paris and London were not, by oceans and swamplands. This while its popularity never abated as a destination famous the world over as a gateway for anyone (of any stature or class) to grow and even subsequently thrive from beginnings nothing materially more than the shirt already on one's back. Simultaneously the location was the only way to get ashore. Subsequently they stayed constrained by many of those same lacking technologies of the prior hundred years (as well as by family/social ties), and packed the new cities of the northeast. They lay some rail to get around to neighboring towns.

In 1900, hemmed in and constrained--again by geography--San Francisco's population was around 350,000 (not the BA, just SF). Dallas was at 40,000. Fort Worth, a fraction of that size.

So the relationship between Dallas (the intersection of 2 railroads) and Ft. Worth (on a cattle trail) has no reason to coalesce until the car combined with dirt cheap land made growing settlements away from the two city centers attractive. By end of WWII, Bell Helicopter is making stuff off in one direction, General Dynamics in another, and LTV is building near the Naval Air Station in Dallas Co. TI is established up in another direction. People are farming on ample land. Love Field is over there, Greater Southwest (nee Amon Carter) is somewhere north of a new General Motors plant, and Meacham Field serves Ft. Worth. Still no real need to intermingle, but traffic is getting more complicated. So in 1961 the FAA revisits an old CAA idea to create a regional airport after refusing to sink any more money into separate airports.

D/FW opens in 1974. Awed by its scale (and equal proximity to two oceans and the Great Lakes), maybe business climate too, AMR/American Airlines decamps NYC for Fort Worth.

Which starts other companies thinking--and they do likewise. And more jobs are created and buildings are built. And existing banks grow to finance all of the activity and Eisenhower's turnpike has made travel even easier between the two cities.

And the whole thing grows into one LA-sized metropolis because the Levitts from New York made some idea acceptable that everyone deserved not only their own home, but their own estate. With more cheap land than any other US city with a similar-sized economy could dream of.

[MaryS80]

Constant growth over the last 25-30 years. Not to mention you have several actual cities, not just one city and its suburbs.

[Spree]

Have you ever been to Houston?

I think if you make Ft Worth and Dallas separate cities (which they are) and not include them in the sprawl you're looking at, it's not as bad as it looks. When you put both cities together with their suburbs, there's a lot of land that's covered.

[nunusguy]

Trust me, places like Houston or the combined Dallas & Ft.Worth cities or
ATL are all just wide places in the road compared to the mighty metro of LA.

[tablemtn]

I guess another point is this - I have seen people on this forum, at various points, warn that the sprawl might eventually make Dallas "into another LA."

These diagrams show that, perhaps, the metroplex is already most of the way there.

[debtex]

I just can't buy that Dallas is already "most of the way" to LA. The scale is way off....compare LA/San Diego and to DFW and you get a better comparison.

The density in LA is much higher, over a pretty huge area. And LA is getting denser - major initiatives are underway to increase density along major corridors like Wilshire Blvd, and downtown is undergoing a major transformation to high-rise housing from...well, skid row, really. It's the density that makes the geographic size completely unnavigable, basically. LA is finally investing in subways (20 years plus too late). In the end, the only thing that will save the lifestyle in LA is if people telecommute more and just stay off the roads entirely.

Who's to say that lifestyles won't change so much in the next 20 years that sprawl will be less relevant anyway? Not to justify sprawl...I don't like it either. I'm just saying, the times, they are a-changin.

[grindin]

While the Metroplex takes a good chunk of the LA basin on that map, the LA area is waaaaay more spread out than that. I notice the super imposing doesn't even include a good chunk of the San Fernando Valley or even much of the Inland Empire (San Bernardino/Riverside/Moreno Valley) or the High Desert suburbs of Victorville/Apple Valley/Hesperia. Don't forget, a lot of people commute from the Antelope Valley (Palmdale/Lancaster), Ventura County, etc. It also doesn't cover South Orange County, which is a part of the metro area as well.

And put San Diego/Tijuana in there, and you'll have a better idea of the megapolis of SoCal/Baja Mexico.

Yes, D/FW is VERY spread out, but it's a cakewalk compared to LA. And I'll even dare say that Houston is more sprawling than D/FW as well. While the distance from Katy to Baytown is roughly the same distance from say, White Settlement to Terrell, Greater Houston spreads north-to-south a lot more if you include Galveston to Conroe.

The other "bad boy" of sprawl, Atlanta sprawls out more than D/FW too.

[cdelena]

A number of states have anti-sprawl policies and laws but Texas has had no movement or even discussion of the topic.