The ten most Sprawling U.S. cities (quality of life, live)

[SteelCityRising]

New York City for certain. The sprawl is now abuting the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre MSA of NEPA, approximately a two-hour drive west of Manhattan, as I now see building lots being snatched up left and right around here by folks from the city.

Washington, DC. NOVA, especially Loudoun and Fairfax Counties, are some of the UGLIEST places I've ever seen. Country club communities, traffic congestion, big-box stores, etc. for as far as the eye can see.

Raleigh/Durham, NC is also sprawling out pretty badly, as is the Lake Norman area to the north of Charlotte.

Chicagoland, as it is affectionately called, keeps on expanding its outermost periphery. Soon, Milwaukee's MSA may be included within the Chicago CMSA, and I'm sure Rockford is almost at that point as well.

[astroline95]

this poll is really odd. tampa & jacksonville are the 2 cities from FL on this list, and they're NOT the sprawling ones... orlando & miami are. the sprawl there is unbelievable. tampa barely has ANY to the east, and jacksonville just barely has any, period.

from this list, i picked phoenix, los angeles & tucson.

[Guerilla]

Miami isn't sprawly. That is a dense metro. Two-thirds of Dade County are the Everglades.

[astroline95]

right. i'm talking about miami, up to ft. lauderdale, up to west palm beach, up the entire east coast of florida. it's all extremely sprawly.

[Georgia]

Come to Atlanta if you want sprawl.
#1 in the nation for influx.
129,000 per year in the Atlanta area alone.
Development run a muk
No roads
Constant gridlock
English is one of the many languages and sometimes wonder if it exists at all
Atlanta ranks #7 in the Most Dangerous City award.
Beat Los Angeles last year with the most smog alert days
Parts of Fulton County right now are out of water.

You might think its Utopia but it's not. It's Atlanta!

[pandabear]

Nothing can ever or will ever beat LOS ANGELES for sprawl. I dont even see how this is a question. Suburbs in sprawl over 60 miles from the la city limits to san bernadino out in the cuts. in fact the LA area sprawls so much that the posch suburbs of or orange county have sprawled against the suburbs in north san diego county. Southern California gets my vote for worst sprawl.

[Ben Around]

Originally Posted by astroline95

tampa barely has ANY to the east,

And none to the west, either!

[Phil75230]

Charlotte and Knoxville come immediately to mind.

In the end, it depends on what you mean by sprawl. IMO, first, you have to look at the population of an area. From there, you have to decide whether you're going to divide the population by (a) the square mileage of the counties in the metropolitan area, or (b) go to the trouble of going to google earth and determining only which parts of which suburban areas seem covered with subdivisions, strip malls, etc.

(a) is pretty straigh forward and simple. Look at the census bureau's list of counties in a metro area, and divide the metro population by the land area. The one with the lower population density is considered more sprawling.

Option (b) may be more complicated, but I think is more fair. As I was told (don't hold me to this, though), the Census Bureau determines "metropolitanility" of a county by the % of the county's workforce whose job is in the core county. These days, people commute to work in the central county more than ever before - even in predomintely rural/small metro areas. In fact, the Census Bureau routinely adds counties with no obvious suburban development (as we think of it) to metro areas.

[Pathwalker]

Lexington is listed in your poll, but not Cincinnati?? [img]http://******************/confused-smiley-17428.gif[/img]

[Waterlily]

It's got to be the Los Angeles suburbs for sure don't ya know.