IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i10p4097-d359274.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Self-Reinforcing Processes Governing Urban Sprawl in Belgium: Evidence over Six Decades

Author

Listed:
  • Ahmed Mustafa

    (Urban Systems Lab, The New School, New York, NY 10003, USA)

  • Jacques Teller

    (Local Environment Management and Analysis, Liège University, 4000 Liège, Belgium)

Abstract

Urban sprawl is widely acknowledged as an environmental and socio-economic challenge worldwide. This study examines urban sprawl in Belgium over six decades from 1950 to 2010. We assume that sprawl is a self-reinforcing process, i.e., sprawl is fueling further sprawl over time. The main objective of this study is to examine this assumption. We measure urban sprawl at four different levels in this study: country, regions, municipalities, and 1-km 2 cells. Three sprawl indices are employed: the degree of urban dispersion, degree of urban permeation of the landscape, and built-up land uptake per capita. These three indices consider both the growth of built-up areas and population density to measure the magnitude of sprawl. The drivers of urban sprawl have been analyzed at a 1-km 2 level. The examined drivers are previous urban dispersion patterns, distance to urban cores, elevation, and slope degree by means of linear regression. Urban sprawl significantly increased between 1950 and 1980, whereas its increase was more moderate between 1980 and 2010. Urban dispersion and permeation strongly affect the Brussels and Flanders regions. The results show that the increase in the degree of dispersion is locally driven by previous values of dispersion; i.e., it provides an adequate milieu for further dispersion. Therefore, our conclusion is that urban sprawl in Belgium tends to be a self-reinforcing process.

Suggested Citation

  • Ahmed Mustafa & Jacques Teller, 2020. "Self-Reinforcing Processes Governing Urban Sprawl in Belgium: Evidence over Six Decades," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-14, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:10:p:4097-:d:359274
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/10/4097/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/10/4097/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Reid Ewing & Robert Cervero, 2010. "Travel and the Built Environment," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 76(3), pages 265-294.
    2. Gianni Guastella & Walid Oueslati & Stefano Pareglio, 2019. "Patterns of Urban Spatial Expansion in European Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-15, April.
    3. Mustafa, Ahmed & Cools, Mario & Saadi, Ismaïl & Teller, Jacques, 2017. "Coupling agent-based, cellular automata and logistic regression into a hybrid urban expansion model (HUEM)," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 529-540.
    4. Vandenbulcke, Grégory & Steenberghen, Thérèse & Thomas, Isabelle, 2009. "Mapping accessibility in Belgium: a tool for land-use and transport planning?," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 39-53.
    5. Walter Musakwa & Adriaan van Niekerk, 2014. "Monitoring Urban Sprawl and Sustainable Urban Development Using the Moran Index: A Case Study of Stellenbosch, South Africa," International Journal of Applied Geospatial Research (IJAGR), IGI Global, vol. 5(3), pages 1-20, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Clemens de Olde & Stijn Oosterlynck, 2021. "Taking Implementation Seriously in the Evaluation of Urban Growth Management Strategies: “Safeguarding the Future” of the Antwerp City-Region," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-20, February.
    2. Xuanxuan Xia & Kexin Lin & Yang Ding & Xianlei Dong & Huijun Sun & Beibei Hu, 2020. "Research on the Coupling Coordination Relationships between Urban Function Mixing Degree and Urbanization Development Level Based on Information Entropy," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(1), pages 1-24, December.
    3. Vermeiren, Karolien & Crols, Tomas & Uljee, Inge & De Nocker, Leo & Beckx, Carolien & Pisman, Ann & Broekx, Steven & Poelmans, Lien, 2022. "Modelling urban sprawl and assessing its costs in the planning process: A case study in Flanders, Belgium," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    4. Bernardino Romano & Lorena Fiorini & Alessandro Marucci & Francesco Zullo, 2020. "The Urbanization Run-Up in Italy: From a Qualitative Goal in the Boom Decades to the Present and Future Unsustainability," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-16, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mehzabin Tuli, Farzana & Mitra, Suman & Crews, Mariah B., 2021. "Factors influencing the usage of shared E-scooters in Chicago," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 164-185.
    2. John Stanley & Janet Stanley, 2023. "Improving Appraisal Methodology for Land Use Transport Measures to Reduce Risk of Social Exclusion," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-18, August.
    3. Marie Geraldine Herrmann-Lunecke & Cristhian Figueroa-Martínez & Francisca Parra Huerta & Rodrigo Mora, 2022. "The Disabling City: Older Persons Walking in Central Neighbourhoods of Santiago de Chile," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-19, September.
    4. Deslatte, Aaron & Szmigiel-Rawska, Katarzyna & Tavares, António F. & Ślawska, Justyna & Karsznia, Izabela & Łukomska, Julita, 2022. "Land use institutions and social-ecological systems: A spatial analysis of local landscape changes in Poland," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    5. Li, Jingjing & Kim, Changjoo & Sang, Sunhee, 2018. "Exploring impacts of land use characteristics in residential neighborhood and activity space on non-work travel behaviors," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 141-147.
    6. Ding, Chuan & Wang, Donggen & Liu, Chao & Zhang, Yi & Yang, Jiawen, 2017. "Exploring the influence of built environment on travel mode choice considering the mediating effects of car ownership and travel distance," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 65-80.
    7. Van Acker, Veronique & Ho, Loan & Stevens, Larissa & Mulley, Corinne, 2020. "Quantifying the effects of childhood and previous residential experiences on the use of public transport," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    8. Verhetsel, Ann & Vanelslander, Thierry, 2010. "What location policy can bring to sustainable commuting: an empirical study in Brussels and Flanders, Belgium," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 691-701.
    9. Ding, Yu & Lu, Huapu, 2016. "Activity participation as a mediating variable to analyze the effect of land use on travel behavior: A structural equation modeling approach," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 23-28.
    10. Singleton, Patrick A. & Park, Keunhyun & Lee, Doo Hong, 2021. "Varying influences of the built environment on daily and hourly pedestrian crossing volumes at signalized intersections estimated from traffic signal controller event data," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    11. Toşa, Cristian & Sato, Hitomi & Morikawa, Takayuki & Miwa, Tomio, 2018. "Commuting behavior in emerging urban areas: Findings of a revealed-preferences and stated-intentions survey in Cluj-Napoca, Romania," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 78-93.
    12. Liu, Yan & Wang, Siqin & Xie, Bin, 2019. "Evaluating the effects of public transport fare policy change together with built and non-built environment features on ridership: The case in South East Queensland, Australia," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 78-89.
    13. Regine Gerike & Caroline Koszowski & Bettina Schröter & Ralph Buehler & Paul Schepers & Johannes Weber & Rico Wittwer & Peter Jones, 2021. "Built Environment Determinants of Pedestrian Activities and Their Consideration in Urban Street Design," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-21, August.
    14. Chetan Doddamani & M. Manoj, 2023. "Analysis of the influences of built environment measures on household car and motorcycle ownership decisions in Hubli-Dharwad cities," Transportation, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 205-243, February.
    15. Jie Gao & Dick Ettema & Marco Helbich & Carlijn B. M. Kamphuis, 2019. "Travel mode attitudes, urban context, and demographics: do they interact differently for bicycle commuting and cycling for other purposes?," Transportation, Springer, vol. 46(6), pages 2441-2463, December.
    16. He, Mingwei & He, Chengfeng & Shi, Zhuangbin & He, Min, 2022. "Spatiotemporal heterogeneous effects of socio-demographic and built environment on private car usage: An empirical study of Kunming, China," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    17. Boukarta Soufiane & Berezowska-Azzag Ewa, 2020. "Exploring the Role of Socio-Economic and Built Environment Driving Factors in Shaping the Commuting Modal Share: A Path-Analysis-Based Approach," Quaestiones Geographicae, Sciendo, vol. 39(4), pages 87-107, December.
    18. Mouratidis, Kostas & Ettema, Dick & Næss, Petter, 2019. "Urban form, travel behavior, and travel satisfaction," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 306-320.
    19. Su, Rongxiang & Xiao, Jingyi & McBride, Elizabeth C. & Goulias, Konstadinos G., 2021. "Understanding senior's daily mobility patterns in California using human mobility motifs," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    20. Bala, Alain Pholo & Peeters, Dominique & Thomas, Isabelle, 2014. "Spatial issues on a hedonic estimation of rents in Brussels," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 104-123.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:10:p:4097-:d:359274. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.