- The Urban Sprawl as Planning Problem in the Information Age - Germany and the USA in comparison   4 kb by    Streich, Bernd & null, null & null, null | streich@rhrk.uni-kl.de    Short Outline Environment and landscape are threatened by urban sprawl. In the United States of America as well as in Germany we can observe that the open space and the green areas around the cities are disappearing. In Germany, every day more than 100 hectares open space are gobbled up for new residential areas or infrastructure. In the USA the change of landscape and the daily loss of open space is similar dramatic. Only in the area of Washington D.C. the changing from open space into other land use categories occur at a rate equal to 21 football fields a day. Furthermore, during the last twenty years we can observe urban sprawl as an increasing phenomenon. In the boom years of the 1980s the growth rate of Washington D.C. was exceeded only by that of Los Angeles. The sprawling development is reshaping the face of cities and metropolitan areas. Suburbanization becomes a big problem. The disappearance of open space and green areas is affecting the regions' environment, economy and quality of life. Growth control seems to be one of the most important tasks in urban development for the near future. It is necessary to inform the public and the citizens that the unsupervised converting of the open space and the green areas are culminating to a big problem with a lot of unwanted consequences for the society. There is also a need to push forward political discussions and strategies to reduce the rate of changing landscape. The paper gives an introduction into the urban sprawl discussion in the USA and in Germany. Different methods of information and of visualization the sprawling development of urban areas will be given. New methods of graphic-based computer simulations which can enforce the awareness of the urban sprawl problem will be presented by examples. Abstract Environment and landscape are threatened by urban sprawl. The paper gives an introduction into the urban sprawl discussion in both countries. Further new methods of graphic-based computer simulations which can enforce the awareness of the urban sprawl problem will be presented by examples. Keywords - Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2001: Honey, I Shrunk the Space   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper