Section: Human Geography

46) What is sprawl?

1. change in density within an urban area from the center to the periphery
2. development of new housing sites not contiguous to the existing built-up area
3. land maintained as open space surrounding an urban area
4. period in the morning and evening with the heaviest volumes of traffic

Urban sprawl or suburban sprawl describes the expansion of human populations away from central urban areas into low-density, monofunctional and usually car-dependent communities.