Urban sprawl is defined as the growth of city in an unplanned manner.

Urban sprawl causes many problems because it is outward growth with single

family residences, not upward. Several solutions have been proposed to solve

them, including New Urbanism. In fact, there is a real town named Celebration,

built in 1999 in Florida, meeting the goals of New Urbanism.

One of the problems of urban sprawl is that it takes land from nature as

cities are expanded so there are no more spaces for wildlife or parks. The

solution that New Urbanism proposed is to create environmental protections

like forbidding water pollution, tree removal or building a green city. In

Celebration, the town is surrounded by a wide protected greenbelt. In

addiction, energy-efficient cooling and electric systems are used in buildings in

order to limit environmental impact.

Because of single family residences, urban sprawl also prevents people

from socialization. To solve this, New Urbanism provides single and multi

family housing to encourage socialization. For example, apartment buildings in

Celebration are close to downtown, houses with lobbies and porches are built

close together with small yards so that residents can connect to each other

socially. A lot of downtown events and festivals also help to bring residents

together.

Another serious problem of urban sprawl is traffic jam. People often live

in suburbs and work in cities so everyday they have to commute to work

mainly by cars or buses and cause traffic jams. Therefore, New Urbanism

wants to develop transportation systems, like “traffic calming” in Celebration

to encourage bicycling and walking, and provide housing and jobs close

together so that residents don’t have to live far from work. There is such a

centralized district built in Celebration.

 With the above solutions, New Urbanism may change the city life and

bring to resident a friendly environment.