JOURNAL OF ARCHITCTURE, PLANNING & CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT

Volume 6 Issue 1, 2016

A REVIEW OF LITERATURE ON
URBAN SPRAWL: ASSESSMENT
OF FACTORS AND CAUSES
Nur Aulia Rosni, and Norzailawati Mohd Noor

Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Kulliyah

of Architecture and Environmental Design,
International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM),
Jalan Gombak, 53100, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

ABSTRACT
Urban sprawl is a broad research topic in urban studies. Thus far, the debate on
the causes and consequences of urban sprawl has not led to a widely accepted
interpretative framework. This paper attempt to review publications on urban
sprawl factors and causes extracted from two largest scientific databases
namely Scopus and ScienceDirect. The time of publication was set from 1996
to 2015 with 20 years’ gap. The citation-based approach analysis was use to
provide better vision regarding this topic where the journal articles are selected
by using identified keywords from wide-ranging fields that cover built
environment, geography, planning, architecture, engineering, economics,
transportation, health, social and spatial technologies. Subsequently, the factor
and causes of urban sprawl were extracted from each publication and reviewed.
The findings are presented in different categories including (i) socio-
demographic, (ii) economic, (iii) political, (iv) physical, (v) environment, and
(vi) transportation, pertinent to the formation of urban sprawl. The findings
from this paper contribute in defining urban sprawl based on its factor and
causes which cover broader context of built environment. The future
improvement includes developing land use geospatial indices based on the
outcome of this paper.

Keywords: Urban Sprawl; Urban Development; Urban Growth; Urban

Planning; Land Use; Urbanisation; and Bibliometric Analysis.

INTRODUCTION
Cities have evolved since the beginning of human civilization,
and specific boundaries have defined each city. However, cities in
many parts of the world are facing issues of excessive growth
which leads to one of its notorious problem, namely urban sprawl.
Generally, urban sprawl is known by many as unplanned, and
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 A Review Of Literature On Urban Sprawl: Assessment Of Factor And Causes
Nur Aulia Rosni, and Norzailawati Mohd Noor

uncontrolled growth of the inner city towards its periphery

causing pressure on the development near the boundary and also
mainly contribute to negative impacts (Chorianopoulos et al.
2010; Ewing, Pendall, & Chen, 2002; Noor & Rosni, 2013;
Sorensen, 2000; Sudhira & Ramachandra, 2007; Verbeek,
Boussauw, & Pisman, 2014). Urban sprawl is also highly related
to urban development. According to Bhatta et al. (2010) urban
growth is one of the processes of urban development besides
urbanisation, where the characteristics of its occurrence are so
general causing its implications to be so wide. Urban growth
involves spatial and demographic process within a specific
economy and society while urbanisation is a spatial and social
process that occurred in communal dimensions of a city.
Correspondingly, urban development can be regarded a complex
physical and spatial change that influence another aspect such as
social, economy, demography, politics, and the environment. As
highlighted by Barnes et al. (2001) regardless of how urban
development, urban growth, and urbanisation being defined and
evaluated, sprawl is a response to often bewildering sets of
economic, social, political, and physical forces. These forces
include municipal fragmentation, the patterns of infrastructure
investments, subsidization of infrastructure from cities. Many
professionals associated with urban sprawl found that it is
necessary to examine its different aspects in the various contexts
in order to control or prevent its adverse effects (Arribas-Bel,
Nijkamp, & Scholten, 2011; Ewing, 2008; Habibi & Asadi, 2011;
Hasse, 2004; Terzi & Kaya, 2008; Torrents & Alberti, 2000).
OBJECTIVES
This paper attempt to examine the theoretical literature related to
factors and causes of urban sprawl. The theoretical literature was
analysed through the comparative and deductive method by using
bibliometric analysis techniques and content analysis techniques.
Even though urban sprawl is one of the highly-discussed topics in
the built environment fields, the debate on its factor and causes
has not led to a widely accepted interpretative framework. Multi-
perspective urban sprawl researchers recorded the complex
interaction and process of urban development driving force like
social, economic, political and cultural as the primary cause of
sprawl. These driving forces include the population, traffic
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Volume 6 Issue 1, 2016

conditions, industrialization, rapid urbanization, agriculture,

migration, economic development, income growth, and
government policy as the primary influences (Fang et al. 2005;
Osman, Nawawi, & Abdullah, 2008; Xiao et al., 2006).
Moreover, urban sprawl does not have a specific definition to
determine what it is. Therefore, in this paper, urban sprawl is
defined as “ineffective and dysfunctional urban growth that
significantly interrupt the utilization of land use in the landscape
context which affected the sustainability of built environment
such as the degradation of environment, economic and social
well-being of a community.” Based on this definition, the factor
and causes of urban sprawl will be represented into categories
pertinent to the elements of built environment.

METHODOLOGY
Recent studies proved that the Bibliometric Analysis Techniques
provides sophisticated and multidimensional citations-based
techniques to obtain sensitive measures of research quality and to
trace the development of fields of science and networks (Borgman
& Furner, 2002; Bornmann, 2014; Campbell et al., 2010; Mann,
Mimno, & McCallum, 2006). While the content analysis
techniques allow for valid inferences by interpreting and coding
textual materials into quantitative data. These analysis techniques
contribute to the improvement of literature review for scientific
research through the combination of analytical qualitative and
quantitative methods. In this paper, bibliometric analysis
technique is used to attain most reliable data to be analysed using
content analysis techniques to extract the factors and causes of
urban sprawl. A detailed study of literature was carried out based
on the publications in the established journals. Two scientific
databases that are used include Scopus and Science Direct. The
time of the publications was set as the principle search parameters
from the year 1996 to 2015 (20 years) for all scientific databases.
“Urban Sprawl” has been used as the main indicators to extract
published journal articles from 1996 till 2015. In total, there are
9170 publications on urban sprawl topic found in all databases, of
which Scopus has 3207 publications and Science Direct has 5963
publications. After the results of publications had been narrowed
down to focus only on urban sprawl factors and causes, the final
number of journal articles were 4329 publications (refer Table 1).
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 A Review Of Literature On Urban Sprawl: Assessment Of Factor And Causes
Nur Aulia Rosni, and Norzailawati Mohd Noor

Table 1: Publications on Urban Sprawl Topic for 20 Years from 1996 to 2015

Search Urban Sprawl Urban Sprawl Factor and Causes

Indicators
Scopus Elsevier Scopus Elsevier
Year ScienceDirec ScienceDirect
t
1. 2015 314 821 22 591
2. 2014 331 663 24 471
3. 2013 310 661 19 478
4. 2012 296 562 27 401
5. 2011 265 404 25 284
6. 2010 238 316 13 210
7. 2009 202 373 11 245
8. 2008 217 339 16 221
9. 2007 170 261 7 189
10 2006 143 259 16 182
.
11 2005 147 186 13 125
.
12 2004 118 212 9 138
.
13 2003 108 158 6 107
.
14 2002 81 135 2 88
.
15 2001 86 173 9 104
.
16 2000 57 107 0 60
.
17 1999 37 63 2 48
.
18 1998 37 72 1 32
.
19 1997 25 106 1 68
.
20 1996 25 92 2 61
.
TOTAL 3207 5963 225 4103
9170 4329
(Sources: Various Literature)

The total of 4329 publications related to factor and causes

of urban sprawl found in 20 years’ time consists of 225
publications recorded in Scopus and 4103 publication recorded in
the Science Direct. The entire published journal articles were

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Volume 6 Issue 1, 2016

reduced to 50 most cited paper for each database making the final
selected journal articles to be 100 publications. The collected
journal articles publications were then reviewed by using content
analysis techniques with Mendeley Desktop Software
applications.

RESULTS AND FINDINGS

The results and conclusions were presented in two main sections.
The first section represents the results of Bibliometric Analysis
Techniques focusing on the publications on factor and causes of
urban sprawl topic from selected scientific databases. The results
are explained according to several significant indicators such as
subject areas, publication sources, and country. These indicators
assist the author in looking further on the trend and pattern of
urban sprawl studies from different aspects. The research gap was
identified based on the result. Meanwhile, the second section
represents the findings of literature review through content
analysis technique on the subject matter. The extracted findings
are categorised into six different categories namely socio-
demographic, economic, political, physical, environment and
transportation.

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 A Review Of Literature On Urban Sprawl: Assessment Of Factor And Causes
Nur Aulia Rosni, and Norzailawati Mohd Noor

RESULTS AND FINDINGS OF BIBLIOMETRIC

ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES

Figure 1: Research Publications on Factors and Causes of Urban Sprawl

according to Subject Areas (1996-2015)

The results and findings from bibliometric analysis techniques

show that, over the years, the research trends on this topic have
increased consistently from 1996 to 2015. By using the statistical
tools in Scopus, the extracted publications were tabulated into top
15 of subject areas, sources, and countries. As shown in Figure 1
above, studies of the factor and causes of urban sprawl mainly
focused in the fields that closely related to Built Environment
such as Social Science (25.2%) followed by Environmental
Science (21.4%), Decision Science (9.9%), Earth and Planetary
Science (8.8%) as well as Agriculture and Biological Science
(8.3%). Conversely, other fields which have less correlation with
Built Environment have low percentages of publication on this
topic. Those fields of studies include Materials Science (0.5%),
Physics and Astronomy (0.9%), Energy and Mathematics (1.2%)
as well as Arts and Humanity (1.7%). Other fields such as
Business, Accounting, Engineering, Medicine and Computer
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Volume 6 Issue 1, 2016

Science have an average percentage of publications on urban

sprawl factor and causes topic (3.5% - 5.8%). By looking at the
pattern of the publications, it can be understood that urban sprawl
involves spatial factors of a land use that affect the elements of
Built Environment, thus the subject areas that are very much
involved in the spatial management and arrangement have more
publications as compared to other sectors which have less
interaction with spatial factors. This statement is supported by the
findings shown in Figure 2 below, where the top publication's
sources are related to the subject areas with a high percentage in
Figure 1.

Figure 2: Research Publications on Factors and Causes of Urban Sprawl

according to Sources
(1996 to 2015)

Publication sources like Landscape and Urban Planning

have the highest percentage which is 18.6%, followed by Land
Use Policy (14%), and Ecological Indicators (11.6%).
Environment and Planning, as well as Journal of Urban Health,
have 8% of publications each. The trends from the publication
sources indicate that the factor and causes of urban sprawl are
closely related to urban planning and land use management.

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 A Review Of Literature On Urban Sprawl: Assessment Of Factor And Causes
Nur Aulia Rosni, and Norzailawati Mohd Noor

However, low publication on this topic under potential journal

such as Cities, European Journal of Transport and Infrastructure
Research, International Geoscience and Remote Sensing
Symposium as well as Journal of Asian and African Studies
illustrated that using the technological application in measuring
urban sprawl is still lacking especially in the developing countries
like Asia and Africa. This statement is supported by the findings
in Figure 3, showing the United States of America has produced
the highest research publication on urban sprawl factor and causes
(41.8%), followed by China (9.8%) as the second highest country
after U.S.A. However, the extreme gap of publication percentage
between U.S.A and China indicate that urban sprawl issues have
only become the concerns of the American society until recently.
Based on these results, the author saw the need to properly
determine what sprawl is through examining the factor and causes
in a broader context, not only in urban and land use planning but
the different geographical context as well. Also, the factors and
causes of sprawl cannot only be based on the American
experience but other countries as well since each country has their
unique background. Most of the countries in Asia have the low
percentage of publication compared to European countries
proving the Asian countries especially countries in the South East
Asia need to have more awareness on the sprawl effect on their
built environment.

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Figure 3: Research Publications on Factor and Causes of Urban Sprawl

according to Countries (1996 to 2015)

RESULTS AND FINDINGS OF CONTENT ANALYSIS

TECHNIQUES
Urban sprawl has some characteristics that differ from urban
growth and urbanisation. Also, a researcher from different fields
has various viewpoints on its factor and causes. By referring to
the statement in the previous section, the factors and causes of
urban sprawl need to be examined not only based on different
viewpoints but also in different countries experience as well. In
this section, all of the collected journals were analysed to see the
most probable factor that instigating urban sprawl. The result
from databases provides reliable information on studies of urban
sprawl factor and causes. After reviewing each journal articles,
the factor and causes of urban sprawl are represented into six
categories by considering the definition of urban sprawl provided
for this paper. The categories of factors and causes of urban
sprawl include socio-demography, economic, political, physical,
environment, and transportation (refer Table2).

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Nur Aulia Rosni, and Norzailawati Mohd Noor

Table 2: Collection of Studies on Urban Sprawl Factor and Causes

No Factor Causes Authors

1. Socio-  Housing demand  (Couch & Karecha, 2006)
Demographic (affordable), low crime  (De Ridder et al., 2008)
and quiet neighbourhood.  ((EEA), 2006)
 Connected-urbanisation  (Fang et al., 2005)
process of rural  (Jaeger & Schwick, 2014)
population  (Lopez, 2004)
 Lifestyle and behaviour  (Wu, 2006)
 Cultural value  (Anas & Rhee, 2006)
emphasizing on  (Amato, Pontrandolfi, &
automobile use Murgante, 2015)
 Health  (Brueckner & Helsley, 2011)
 Age and household  (Chorianopoulos et al., 2010)
structure  (Habibi & Asadi, 2011)
 Population growth  (Ibrahim & Sarvestani, 2009)
 Population redistribution  (Jain, 2008)
in urban fringe
 (Abdullah, 2012)
 Migration from rural to
 (Boori et al., 2016)
urban area
 Income growth
2. Economic  Socio-economic changes  (Couch & Karecha, 2006)
in developed society  (Anas & Rhee, 2006)
 Unpriced/ under-pricing  (Bart, 2010)
traffic congestion  (Anas & Pines, 2008)
 Subsidies and taxation  (Abdullah, 2012)
 Economic growth  (Brueckner & Largey, 2008)
 Disparity of urban and  (Eid, Overman, Puga, &
rural area Turner, 2007)
 (Fang et al., 2005)
 (Habibi & Asadi, 2011)
 (Ibrahim & Sarvestani, 2009)
 (Jain, 2008)
 (Ji, Ma, Twibell, & Underhill,
2006)
3. Political  Government Spatial  (Couch & Karecha, 2006)
Planning Policies  (Bart, 2010)
 Government Policies  (Abdullah, 2012)
 Competition among cities  (Fang et al., 2005)
 (Feng, Du, Zhu, Luo, &
Adaku, 2015)
 (Lopez, 2004)
 (Poelmans & Van Rompaey,
2009)
4. Physical  Urban planning not well  (Altieri, Cocchi, Pezzi, Scott,

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managed & Ventrucci, 2014)

 Conversion of open space  (Anas & Rhee, 2006)
to build-up spaces  (Brueckner & Largey, 2008)
 Urbanisation  (Chorianopoulos et al., 2010)
 Failure to account spaces  (Durieux, Lagabrielle, &
for facilities, amenities Nelson, 2008)
and open space value in  (Eid et al., 2007)
urban centre  (Fang et al., 2005)
 Pattern of urban  (Feng et al., 2015)
development  (Ibrahim & Sarvestani, 2009)
 Sub-urbanisation  (Jain, 2008)
5. Environment  The role of physical  (Coisnon, Oueslati, & Salani,
geography 2014)
 Quality of inner city  (Couch & Karecha, 2006)
environment, landscape  (Lichtenberg, 2011)
and townscape
 Zoning and forest
planting requirement
6. Transportation  Adoption of automobile  (Anas & Rhee, 2006)
 Availability of roads and  (Anas & Pines, 2008)
highways  (Brueckner & Helsley, 2011)
 Increased automobile  (De Ridder et al., 2008)
ownership  ((EEA), 2006)
 Infrastructure investment-  (Ji et al., 2006)
highways and roads
 Increase transport
demand
Sources: Various Literatures (1996-2015)

SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC
Couch & Karecha, (2006) suggesting the causes of urban sprawl
can be grouped into two categories: (i) the general drift of socio-
economic change in developed societies and (ii) government
spatial planning policies. In this section, the focus is on the social
and demographic factor of urban sprawl. Their research proves
the demand for housing and its external characteristic from socio-
economic perspectives is what actually influencing the growth of
urban sprawl. People living in the city will have a tendency to
leave the centre and settle in the surrounding greener areas due to
lower cost of living (De Ridder et al., 2008). This situation is the
main reason for urban sprawl phenomena in the United States. It
was fuelled by the rapid growth of private car ownership and the
preference for detached houses with gardens (EEA, 2006). Jaeger

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Nur Aulia Rosni, and Norzailawati Mohd Noor

& Schwick, (2014) and Lopez, (2004) added that sprawl is a

result not just of population growth but also of new lifestyles that
require more space. Socio-demographic context involved several
component like population growth, economic development,
proximity to resources and basic amenities (Almeida, 2005;
Boori, Netzband, Voženílek, & Choudhary, 2016; Jain, 2008).
Improvement in socio-demographic factor like growing
population and income lead to high demand for housing and other
facilities. This situation cause land and housing prices to increase
greatly, causing the shifting of lower and middle income city
population towards the suburban areas due to a reduced cost of
residential properties (Abdullah, 2012; Amato et al., 2015;
Brueckner & Helsley, 2011; Brueckner & Largey, 2008; Rahman,
2016). Anas & Rhee, (2006) and Chorianopoulos et al., (2010)
mentioned urban sprawl is dominantly associated with
urbanisation and increasing population growth rate towards the
urban fringe causing an upturn in congestion level, scarcity of
open space and initiate more instalment of the road network and
usage of automobiles. Habibi & Asadi, (2011) also summarised
the most important factors that encourage sprawl is socio-
demographic like population and income growth, followed by
other factors such as better accessibility, low price of land and
transportation, better infrastructure and public services.
According to Ibrahim & Sarvestani, (2009), a socio-demographic
factor not only became the cause of urban sprawl but the
continuation of great environmental and social problems as well.

Economic
Urban sprawl is a most association with poorly planned urban
land use and economic activity. It is extensively evaluated and
characterized based on the main socioeconomic indicators
particularly commuting costs, employment shifts, city revenue
change, and some commercial establishments (Ji et al., 2006). A
large number of researcher also agreed that economic factors are
one of the most significance cause of urban sprawl (Habibi &
Asadi, 2011; Ibrahim & Sarvestani, 2009; Jain, 2008). Zhao
(2011) claimed that planning control might not be successfully
achieved when political, economic motivations are involved.
Globalization and economic competitiveness among nations and

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cities have caused governments in Southeast Asia, including

Malaysia, to focus on the economic development in the existing
metropolitan areas to make cities economically more competitive.
This situation, however, has caused many cities in the South East
Asia to have high disparities between urban and rural as well as
causing urban sprawl (Abdullah, 2012). The urban-rural
disparities demonstrate that low-income residents have limited
transportation mobility and inaccessibility to job opportunities
which affecting their social mobility (Brueckner & Largey, 2008;
Ewing, Hamidi, Grace, & Dennis, 2016).

Political
According to Couch & Karecha (2006) political factors is one of
the most important aspects of the process of urban development.
The absence of strong planning intervention at the regional and
local level further leads to urban sprawl. Bart (2010) added that
sprawl is not an inevitable consequence of economic growth, but
rather a result of specific government policies. Government
spatial planning policy is one of the main factors leading to urban
sprawl (Lopez, 2004; Poelmans & Van Rompaey, 2009).
Evidence suggests that where unplanned, decentralised
development dominates, sprawl will occur in a mechanistic way.
Conversely, where growth around the periphery of the city is
coordinated by strong urban policy, more compact forms of urban
development can be secured (EEA, 2006). However, in many
Asian cities, socio-demographic, economic and physical factors
are mostly regarded as the causes of urban sprawl neglecting the
political factors (Feng, 2008). Feng et al., (2015) in their study
has conclude that the implementation of land use planning policy
in China played a major role in ensuring the lowest effective rate
of change of sprawl. Also, Couch & Karecha, (2006) compares
cities in Brazil, Switzerland, and Britain to see how the political
factors influencing the rate of urban development and urban
sprawl. They found out that the rate of urban development for a
given period is similar to Switzerland and Brazil. However,
without proper government planning policy implementation,
Brazil shows higher increase rate of urban sprawl and air
pollution. For the similar period, Britain has the highest rate of
urban development but has small sprawl growth due to the proper
implementation of government policies. Based on a comparative
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Nur Aulia Rosni, and Norzailawati Mohd Noor

case study, many city governments have elaborate regulatory

systems composed of zoning ordinances, subdivision regulations,
and building codes in controlling urban sprawl (Ewing, 2008;
Tian & Ma, 2009).

Physical
Urban sprawl can be perceived physically, usually occurs when
urban planning is not well managed, turns open spaces into built
spaces, and degrading the environment. The development and
expansion of urban patterns is the main driver of landscape
sprawling (Altieri et al., 2014; Ewing et al., 2002; Ibrahim &
Sarvestani, 2009). In developing countries, where urbanisation
rates are high, urban sprawl is a significant contributor to the land
use change (Sudhira & Ramachandra, 2007). Urbanisation
process caused local traffic congestion levels to increase and
urban open spaces to become scarce. These trends, in turn, have
fuelled increasingly popular sentiments against urban expansion,
commonly referred to as urban sprawl, and the advocacy of more
compact cities (Anas & Rhee, 2006; Chorianopoulos et al., 2010).
Another researcher also concluded that urban sprawl is the by-
product of urbanisation which is highly linked to the physical
pattern of land use (Durieux et al., 2008; Ngoran & Xue, 2015).
Also, Eid et al., (2007) suggesting that the good physical
arrangement of land use not only can be used to prevent urban
sprawl but can be used as planning control. They conclude their
theories in term of compact development. Compact
neighbourhoods may induce people to use their cars less often
than those where buildings are scattered. Similarly,
neighbourhoods where houses are mixed with a variety of local
grocery stores and other shops may encourage people to walk
more and eat healthier food than those where all land is devoted
to housing.

Environment
The role of physical geography such as zoning and forest planting
requirement are among the identified fundamental forces leads to
urban sprawl (Coisnon et al., 2014). These types of activities
increase the amount of land needed to accommodate a population
of any given size in another area, which, contribute to sprawl and
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hence to the loss of open space at the urban fringe (Lichtenberg,

2011).

Transportation
The last recognised factor and causes of urban sprawl is
transportation. Anas & Rhee, (2006) clearly stated that the
adoption of automobiles and the availability of roads and
highways are among the major drivers of urban sprawl.
According to them, the automobile-related distortion causing too
much highway-building promotes by transport planner and
engineers triggering urban expansion into suburban areas where
land was initially cheap (Anas & Rhee, 2006). Although there are
many other causes for urban expansion such as an increase in
incomes, economists and planners agree that the automobile is a
major contributor but perceptions differ widely (Anas & Pines,
2008). Many researcher seems to agree with Anas & Pines,
(2008) and Anas & Rhee, (2006) opinion on urban sprawl caused
by transportation factors. Brueckner & Helsley, (2011) and Ji et
al., (2006) viewing highway investment and growing automobile
ownership as contributing to sprawl by reducing the cost of access
to employment centres from suburban locations. In addition, the
tendency for people to leave cities and settle in the urban fringe
areas led to a significant loss of natural landscapes and induced an
enhanced in transport demand (De Ridder et al., 2008; Theobald,
2003).

ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

The analysis shows that the factors and causes of sprawl either
contribute to sprawl independently, associated with each other or
the combination of different factors and causes leads to the
formation of another. In the category of social factors, housing
cost and demand from the people cause the development of
affordable housing towards the boundary of a city as housing cost
in the inner city are higher. Moreover, due to cultural influences,
some people tend to choose safer, quiet and larger space of
housing which requires them to be automobile independent to
commute from their house to their workplace. The economic
growth also become as one of the major drivers of urban sprawl,
lack of effective government policies to control land use

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Nur Aulia Rosni, and Norzailawati Mohd Noor

development and competitiveness among cities has cause

centralisation of economic activities in the city centre causing
urban and rural disparity. The disparity attracts people to
commute in longer distance from the workplace due to the lower
living cost at the rural area. This situation is worse for more
infrastructure investment that not supporting public
transportation, more roads and highways are constructed
encouraging more people to drive and affecting the environment
through pollution.
Also, it can be seen that people strive for having a better
quality of life and safe environment. However, this case always
leads to the occurrence of urban sprawl. A stronger integration
between each category of urban sprawl factors and causes is
required to lessen its adverse consequences to provide a better
quality of life, preserving the environment at the same time excel
in the physical and economic development of a city. After
surveying the factor and causes of urban sprawl, the positive and
negative result of this phenomenon can be acquired. Regardless of
the positive aspects of urban sprawl, most of the viewpoints
focused on negative results. Among the mention issues associated
with the factor and causes of urban sprawl are a concentration of
poverty, low quality of educational centres and shortage of
financial resources. In transportation, sprawl cause to more
commuting, long travels, and more congestion. Households can
pass more distances to access to better housing, educational
centres and job and it intensify by access to infrastructure. Sprawl
increases the cost of infrastructures. Other examples are
highways, parking, water, electricity costs. Also, it will cause to
usage more energy, emergence of pollution and eliminate lands.
Living in these regions also has many psychological and social
costs.

Conclusion
This paper provides some solid findings on the trend of urban
sprawl growth factors and causes. Urban sprawl has been studied
mainly from the built environment context since urban sprawl
involves the modification of spatial factors. Therefore, urban

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sprawl studies are main dominated by fields that involve in the

spatial arrangement and management such as planning,
architecture, engineering and geography. Nevertheless, other
areas such as economic and medicine also have serious attention
on urban sprawl studies due to its influence on the socio-
economic aspect. Despite gaining the attention from significant
fields, urban sprawl experiences are vastly based on single
geographical context only. The great gaps of research publications
between developing and developed countries proving that urban
sprawl remains a serious threat especially in the developing
countries. As the economic and social development, have to
stabilize in the North America and European countries, the issues
of sprawl can be controlled with the implementation of planning
concepts such as “New Urbanism,” “Green Cities” or “Compact
Cities.” However, these planning concepts might not be suitable
to be implemented in the context of developing countries
especially in Asia where the countries are competing in term
economic and physical development. So, by recognising urban
sprawl through its factors and causes, the pattern of urban sprawl
in the local context can be acknowledged, and suitable measures
can be implemented to control its growth. Other than that, a clear
distinction of urban sprawl can be seen by placing each factor and
causes into categories. This effort contributes to defining urban
sprawl in line with as previous work by Galster et al., (2001)
method which is to identify urban sprawl by its factor and causes.
This paper provides contributions towards the way to determine
urban sprawl. Thus, for future improvement, the author aim to
develop the land use geospatial indices to measure and determine
this concept. Based on this paper, the geospatial indices not only
focused on one perspective that causes urban sprawl only but
included all factors so the sprawling growth can be control
effectively.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors sincerely thank all the referees and reviewers for their
comments and suggestions which contributed in improving this
paper.

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Nur Aulia Rosni, and Norzailawati Mohd Noor

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