Link to the full Poverty & Race Journal (May-September 2026)
by Stephen Pinkney
Urban areas are densely developed spaces that include residential neighborhoods, commercial districts, and other nonresidential land uses. Urbanization is the migration of populations from rural areas to urban and suburban areas. This particular process of urbanization in the U.S. has taken place for centuries. Today, more than 80 percent of Americans live in urban areas. This migration phenomenon has unfolded throughout the 19th and 20th centuries as industrialization and metropolitan growth reshaped settlement patterns. While urban populations continue to grow, the pace of urbanization has slowed in recent decades compared with earlier periods. Growing cities typically bring major changes, including suburban expansion and shifts in population distribution as well as increasing demands on areas of infrastructure and resource management. The challenges associated with urbanization are environmental issues, housing shortages, and congestion. There are also opportunities created, such as economic growth, innovation, and cultural exchange. When it comes to urbanization and sustainability, there is a deep interconnection. Rapid growth presents serious challenges, including higher pollution, increased resource use, and environmental degradation, while also creating opportunities for more sustainable and equitable development. The principles of smart growth and green design are essential to advancing environmental sustainability, community resilience, equity, and equality. Achieving these goals requires the commitment and collaboration of urban planners, policymakers, community organizations, and residents to guide development toward cleaner, healthier, more sustainable, and equitable communities, cities, and regions achieving a sustainable future requires thoughtful planning that minimizes environmental harm, advances social equity, and supports long-term economic resilience.
Today, more than 4 billion people reside in urban areas, accounting for over half of the global population. According to United Nations estimates, this historic shift occurred in 2007, when the number of people living in cities exceeded those living in rural areas for the first time. Urbanization accelerated throughout the 19th and 20th centuries as industrialization concentrated jobs and economic opportunity in urban centers. In the United States, urbanization is widespread but uneven. Both Western and Northeastern Regions of the U.S. are the most urbanized, while the Southern and Midwestern Regions have smaller shares of their populations living in urban areas. Over the past century, the proportion of Americans residing in cities has risen dramatically—from less than 10 percent in the early 1800s to more than 80 percent today. States such as California and Nevada rank among the most urbanized, with over 90 percent of residents living in urban environments. Recent trends in U.S. urbanization include sustained population growth in metropolitan areas, rising urban density, and continued land development. Driven by a range of socioeconomic forces, this pattern is expected to persist, with a substantial majority of Americans projected to live in urban areas by midcentury. A combination of negative and positive environmental impacts added strain on infrastructure, and a rising demand for housing are real concerns as cities grow.
Cities in the U.S. serve as core engines of America’s economy, producing benefits that reach the suburbs, rural, and tribal communities. By more than three-quarters, the United States gross domestic product is backed by the nation’s largest metro areas. Metropolitan areas stimulate innovation, economic growth, and sustainability by attracting residents and businesses to concentrated areas. New York City is the nation’s most populous city with around 8.4 million people. Its energy consumption is lower than that of other larger U.S. cities. This can largely be attributed to its well-developed public transportation network and widespread adoption of energy-efficient building practices. Urban Centers such as New York-Newark tend to shape culture and attract residents who value diversity and inclusion, creating, multicultural environments with broad social, educational, and economic opportunities. These urban centers are characterized by their continued appeal and attractiveness for living. As of 2024, the nation’s four largest cities (by population) are New York City, followed by Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston, according to the United States Census Bureau. Current growth numbers emphasize this pattern. From 2010 to 2013, Los Angeles alone gained approximately 65,000 residents, which nearly matches the city’s total population increase during the prior decade. Research by the Urban Land Institute further shows that key demographic groups, including millennials and Latinos, strongly favor urban living. Roughly 62 percent of Americans planning to move in the next five years prefer mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods typical of cities.
Adverse Effects of Urbanization and Sprawl
Negative effects of urbanization include limited access to certain resources, persistent poverty, housing shortages, inadequate transportation, high unemployment rates, overcrowding, high crime, rising pollution levels, and increased strain on infrastructure. Intensified congestion in urban areas is exacerbated by large-scale migration from rural areas, which bolsters the effects of geographical poverty and increases crime and violence. Large-scale migration can put severe strain on city infrastructure and economy, including overcapacity, transportation network gridlock, spatial mismatch in affordable housing, slum expansion, and resource scarcity. There are numerous perspectives on urbanization, with some viewing it as a trigger for economic development due to labor shifting from agriculture to certain higher-paying industries in the urban areas. History perceives the view of urbanization as a stimulus of economic growth, poverty reduction, and broader social transformation. This is based on the assumption that people moving from rural to urban areas will pursue expanding economic opportunities. However, verifiable evidence does show that the effects of urbanization generate new patterns of inequality and urban poverty.
Urbanization frequently contributes to urban sprawl—unplanned, fragmented growth characterized by limited access to essential land uses such as housing, employment, schools, healthcare, and public transit. Sprawl-oriented development has siphoned population, jobs, investment, and tax revenue away from urban cores, while its dispersed form has forced a heavy reliance on automobiles. In the U.S., 17 percent of Black households lack access to a vehicle, disproportionately compared to white at 6 percent and Latino households at 10 percent in 2022. The nation’s residents who lack access to vehicles face challenges such as barriers to employment, education, healthcare, financial institutions, food, and other services. Sprawl results in urban decline, racial segregation, a lack of affordable housing, unequal education systems between central cities and suburbs, reduced community relationships, air and water pollution, and the loss of farmland and wildlife habitat. Houston, Texas, for example, has expanded rapidly in recent years due to industrialization and its status as a major energy hub. While this is happening, Houston has faced serious issues related to sprawl and strained infrastructure, disproportionately affecting Black communities. Both Houston and Atlanta are cities with growing Black populations that exhibit key features of urban sprawl, including low-density development, heavy reliance on automobiles, and continuous outward expansion from their urban cores.
Job Sprawl and Spatial Mismatch
Research indicates that job sprawl, the relocation of employment from central cities to outlying areas, intensifies spatial mismatch between where Black residents live and where jobs are located. While job sprawl has relatively little effect on white workers. In Southern metropolitan regions, sprawl is a major contributor to spatial mismatch and inequality. Areas with high levels of job sprawl also experience more severe racial segregation, on average about 15 percent higher than in low-sprawl regions, even after accounting for metropolitan size. This geographic separation restricts access to employment, limits residential mobility, and narrows neighborhood choices, reinforcing patterns of inequality.
Urban Sprawl and Health Correlation
In the 1950s and 1960s, health consequences due to urban sprawl began appearing in medical and public health literature. Recent research has focused on broader, systemic connections between neighborhood conditions and population health. Such consequential conditions include residents’ physical safety, access to clean water and sanitation, opportunities for routine physical activity, and a strong presence of social network support. The environmental justice movement has advanced the emphasis on how racial and economic discrimination structurally shapes patterns of waste disposal, the placement of polluting industries or “dirty plants”, access to public amenities, and transportation planning. It has been noted that Black and Hispanic children are among the most vulnerable to pollution, food insecurity, and poverty. Although children of color make up roughly one-third of the U.S. child population, they account for about 45 percent of those attending so-called “sick schools”—facilities that are underfunded, poorly maintained, and located in low-income communities with hazards such as mold, indoor air pollution, toxic pesticides, asbestos, radon, and lead in paint and drinking water. In Louisiana, the situation is even more difficult, with roughly half of the children of color attending such schools.
Federal housing policy has also played a central role in encouraging urban sprawl. From the mid 1940s to the 1960s, the Federal Housing Administration and the Veterans Administration loan programs expanded homeownership by lowering down payments and interest rates, spurring suburban housing construction, and encouraging many middle-income white households to leave central cities. Additional policies, including mortgage interest deductions, capital gains tax advantages, and extensive federal investment in highways and infrastructure—further accelerated suburban expansion. Attracted by the lure of cheaper land and closeness to suburban consumers, retail and industrial development followed this outward migration. Numerous inner-city neighborhoods experienced disinvestment, aging of infrastructure, and population decline. Environmental pollution has become a major issue under this development pattern, posing serious risks and hazards to public health and economic well-being. As cities become more vehicle-dependent, air pollution levels rise. Greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary byproduct of motor vehicle use, trap heat in the atmosphere, boost the greenhouse effect, and contribute to climate change. Vehicle exhaust also contains carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOX), particulate matter (PM), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which contribute to smog and are linked to respiratory disease, cardiovascular illness, and cancer. When you add other factors such as urban growth, innovation of technology, and lack of environmental regulation, they strongly influence pollution levels. Advances in industrial and energy technologies can reduce emissions by improving efficiency, encouraging the use of cleaner energy sources, and shrinking ecological footprints. At the same time, taxation and regulatory policies can further incentivize reductions in carbon output.
Transportation policy has been equally influential in reinforcing sprawl. Since 1980, more than $3 trillion has been invested in highway construction. By the mid-90s, federal spending on highways far exceeded funding for mass transit. Many policies heavily favored the use of private automobiles through tax incentives for parking, while offering limited comparable benefits for those who utilize public transportation. These investments benefited communities in the suburbs while many inner-city residents faced worsening housing conditions, job losses, and rising crime. Shifts in retail markets compounded challenges, particularly in Black neighborhoods, where supermarkets experience closures or relocated to suburban areas. These stores were replaced by convenience stores, liquor stores, check-cashing, and payday loan businesses. Residence in urban areas often depends on smaller grocery stores. These grocery stores charge higher prices for fewer and less nutritious food options. A federal study found that city residents paid up to 37 percent more for groceries than their suburban counterparts which typically offer a wider selection of healthy, nutritious foods. Research by Morland, Wing, and Diez-Roux in 2022 further illustrates how neighborhood wealth and racial segregation shape food access. Their study of 216 census tracts across four U.S. metropolitan areas found that high-income neighborhoods had three times as many supermarkets as low-income areas and far fewer bars, taverns, and small convenience stores. Predominantly white neighborhoods had more than 4 times as many supermarkets as predominantly Black neighborhoods, which relied heavily on corner stores and convenience shops. By accounting for housing patterns, transportation access, demographic factors, and the locations of more than 2,400 food-related businesses, the study demonstrates how land-use and economic policies associated with urban sprawl directly influence community health, dietary choices, and long-term well-being.
The Present and Future is Smart Growth and Green Design
Smart growth and green design principles are essential to environmental sustainability, resiliency, equity, and equality. It takes the willingness and determination of urban planners, policymakers, and community advocates, in collaboration, to guide development toward cleaner, healthier, and more equitable communities, cities, and regions.. When it comes to the strategies of smart growth, it supports improved health, job creation, and affordable housing for the Black American communities and other marginalized communities that have been historically underserved. At the same time, green design emphasizes reducing ecological harm by implementing environmentally responsible practices. Together, these approaches form a cohesive framework for steering continued urbanization in ways that protect our environment, while simultaneously enhancing the overall quality of life.
Implementing Smart Growth
Urban sprawl can be reduced or even prevented through coordinated urban planning and transportation policies that concentrate development in compact, walkable centers, by utilizing an approach known as Smart Growth. Smart Growth prioritizes and emphasizes the creation of healthy, livable communities that protect both natural and cultural resources. Smart Growth offers a range of housing and employment options and expands sustainable transportation choices. The core elements of smart growth are mixed-use development, neighborhood-based schools, transit-oriented and bicycle-friendly planning, and pedestrian-focused design within compact areas.
The benefits of Smart Growth are substantial. It supports job creation, improves housing affordability, and enhances public health—outcomes that are particularly important for the Black American community and other historically marginalized communities, which often benefit most from equitable development. Simultaneously, Smart Growth strengthens environmental, economic, and fiscal performance by revitalizing disinvested neighborhoods and reducing the social, environmental, and financial costs associated with urban decline. Given the billions—or even trillions—of dollars invested in transportation systems, water infrastructure, utilities, and social services, a central challenge for planners and policymakers is ensuring that Smart Growth initiatives equitably benefit Black and disadvantaged communities while also advancing broader regional goals. Smart Growth offers a promising framework that addresses some of the most pressing urban challenges of the present day. Although it is a planning strategy to preserve open space, lower infrastructure costs, or prioritize pedestrian access, its long-term success depends on confronting deeper questions about where residents of different races and income levels live, work, and attend school. Strategies of compact development reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transportation and energy use, improve air and water quality, and support climate change mitigation. In addition, Smart Growth encourages vibrant, mixed-use districts that provide convenient access to jobs, services, and recreation, thereby enhancing residents’ overall quality of life.
Ultimately, Smart Growth requires regional collaboration or, in some cases, legislative action, to collectively address the root causes of sprawl. Specific Smart Growth strategies, such as infill development and brownfield redevelopment, reduce land consumption while maximizing the use of existing infrastructure. Smart Growth helps protect biodiversity and natural habitats by steering development away from environmentally sensitive areas such as floodplains, wetlands, and habitats for rare species.
Implementing Green Design
Green Design, also known as sustainable or eco-design, is an approach to creating buildings, products, and systems that minimize environmental impact while supporting ecological balance. The objective is to reduce waste, conserve resources, and promote healthier environments for people and for ecosystems. Within Smart Growth, Green Design plays a critical role by emphasizing buildings that are energy-efficient, durable, adaptable, and designed for long-term use. Reduction of construction waste through recycling is an aspect of Green Design, as is the reuse of materials and the selection of environmentally responsible products. This technique not only considers the immediate environmental effects of materials and technologies but also their long-term impact and performance. True sustainability requires a life-cycle perspective, which recognizes that early design decisions strongly influence a building’s environmental footprint over time. The goal is to produce more sustainable buildings that are flexible, resilient, and adaptable to changing needs. Sustainable buildings should remain environmentally sound across generations.
Green Design key principles include maximizing energy efficiency, ensuring healthy indoor environments, planning for multiple uses, and designing structures that can be easily modified for cheaper cost. Using durable, non-toxic materials, water-efficient fixtures, rainwater harvesting, and drought-resistant landscaping supports conservation. It does include high-performance insulation, solar energy systems, and natural ventilation reduce energy demand. Simultaneously, it uses low-VOC materials, ample daylight, and proper ventilation that improve indoor air quality and occupant well-being. The ultimate goal of Green Design is to reduce the built environment’s overall environmental footprint, protect ecosystems, and conserve our most critical resources. This goal also extends beyond individual buildings to resilient, inclusive spaces that present population needs without compromising future generations’ needs. The last important aspect is that Green Design should be available and accessible to all communities, not just to communities with wealth or financial means. The principles associated with Green Design should apply beyond architecture, influencing transportation design, energy efficiency, and the planning of walkable communities.
The Advancement of Environmental Sustainability
Combining Smart Growth with Green Design is essential to advancing environmental sustainability, creating resilient communities, and managing natural resources responsibly to ensure their long-term availability, balancing the needs of human and ecological health, and preventing environmental degradation. These advancements include reducing pollution, conserving water and energy, managing waste effectively, and promoting renewable resources while reducing reliance on nonrenewable resources. Protecting biodiversity and ecosystems is included in sustainable practices. This is achieved through providing essential services. These services include clean water and air, climate regulation, and food systems. Environmental sustainability can generate long-term economic benefits through cost-effective savings and the growth of green industries by encouraging efficient resource use. Because environmental harm disproportionately affects vulnerable populations, sustainability efforts also advance equity and social justice. Ultimately, environmental sustainability ensures that future generations inherit a healthy planet with the resources necessary to thrive.
Conclusion
Urbanization and sustainability are deeply interconnected. Many of our nation’s metropolitan areas have experienced rapid growth, which presents serious challenges but also brings meaningful opportunities to build healthier, more equitable, and more resilient communities. Cities are known to drive economic growth and innovation; however, they also intensify resource consumption, pollution, and environmental stress. Planning strategies that reduce environmental impacts, promote social equity, and support long-term economic stability are essential for sustainable urban development. Smart Growth plus Green Design provides a complementary framework relationship that advances environmental sustainability. This complementary framework should include all communities, especially those that have been historically vulnerable and marginalized. Through collaboration among planners, policymakers, and community advocates, these approaches can guide responsible development and help create cleaner, greener, and more inclusive communities. n
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Dr. Stephen Pinkney is a former Postdoctoral Scholar at the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice. He also has a published book, Systemic Black American Poverty in Northwest Louisiana: The Two Parishes of Caddo and Bossier. He can be reached via email at pinkneysj@yahoo.com
