Journal of Environmental Management 115 (2013) 87e97

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Journal of Environmental Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jenvman

Urban sprawl and fragmentation in Latin America: A dynamic quantification and

characterization of spatial patterns
Luis Inostroza a, *, Rolf Baur b,1, Elmar Csaplovics a
a
Institute of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, TU Dresden, Helmholtzstrasse 10, Dresden Saxony D-O1062, Germany
b
CIPSEM Centre for International Postgraduate Studies of Environmental Management, DIU/TU Dresden, Zellescher Weg 41c, 01062 Dresden, Germany

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: South America is one of the most urbanized continents in the world, where almost 84% of the total
Received 31 March 2012 population lives in cities, more urbanized than North America (82%) and Europe (73%). Spatial dynamics,
Received in revised form their structure, main features, land consumption rates, spatial arrangement, fragmentation degrees and
31 October 2012
comparability, remain mostly unknown for most Latin American cities. Using satellite imagery the main
Accepted 7 November 2012
Available online 12 December 2012
parameters of sprawl are quantified for 10 Latin American cities over a period of 20 years by monitoring
growth patterns and identifying spatial metrics to characterize urban development and sprawling
features measured with GIS tools. This quantification contributes to a better understanding of urban form
Keywords:
Urban sprawl
in Latin America. A pervasive spatial expansion has been observed, where most of the studied cities are
Latin America expanding at fast rates with falling densities trend. Although important differences in the rates of land
GIS metrics consumption and densities exist, there is an underlying fragmentation trend towards increasing sprawl.
Spatial development These trends of spatial discontinuity may eventually be intensified by further economic development.
Urban Sprawl/Latin America/GIS metrics/spatial development.
Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
With almost 84% of the total population living in cities, South
America is one of the most urbanized continents in the world, more
urbanized than North America (82%) and the European Union
countries (73%) (UN, 2009). Certainly the destiny of the subconti-
nent will be led by urban development and driven by urban
systems. However besides a few studies analysing urban sprawl
among some of the bigger South American cities (Huang et al.,
2007; Schneider and Woodcock, 2008; Angel et al., 2010b), there
is a lack of analytical studies addressing urban spatial development
in this continent.
South America plays a relevant role in the global urban context:
in 1950 three cities were counted among the 30 most populated
cities of the world. By 2005 the continent counted four cities in the
ranking and by 2025 it will have five (UN, 2009).
Cities are growing in population and size; and this expansion is
a common urban challenge. By 2050 urban population will increase
by 34% on the South American continent; growth rates will be
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ49 351 463 33680.
E-mail addresses: inostroza@urbansprawlproject.com (L. Inostroza), rolf.baur@
tu-dresden.de (R. Baur), Elmar.Csaplovics@tu-dresden.de (E. Csaplovics).
1
Tel.: þ49 351 497 99 11.
highest in Bolivia by 84%, and in Paraguay by 99% (UN, 2009). The
impact on the land and the surrounding ecosystems will depend on
how urban development would take place in responding to these
trends. Urban form, intentionally driven by urban planning, could
make a difference in limiting the undesirable effects of urban
expansion e such as watershed degradation, wetland destruction,
and agricultural land consumption (Kasanko et al., 2005a; Schwarz,
2010). However it has to be properly defined by adequate spatial
indices and an appropriate scale under integrated land use and
resource management perspective.
To give a better understanding of the spatial development of
urban systems a differentiation between expansion, sprawl and
fragmentation seems to be necessary, because these terms are not
equivalent in the literature (Galster et al., 2001). Although sprawl
and expansion refer both to the spatial process of size increase in
cities, a sprawling process implies in most cases a specific expan-
sion pattern, identified with the model of suburban growth. This
determines a certain urban form opposite to the compact city
model (Galster et al., 2001; UN, 2011).
Within this debate between critics of urban sprawl and their
opponents, the critics of the compact city do not argue on matters
of definitions alone, but also take into consideration the potential
impacts of different patterns of urban expansion in certain devel-
oping countries where most urban growth is still to come (UN,
2011).

0301-4797/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2012.11.007
88 L. Inostroza et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 115 (2013) 87e97
The compact city has already been on the political agenda for
Europe (CEC, 1990, 1996; Kasanko et al., 2005b). It is an objective of
urban planning (Burton, 2002) to accommodate urban develop-
ment while minimising the use of undeveloped land and identi-
fying areas with a high need of “policy” intervention (Schwarz,
2010). In this spatial perception the gaps in the urban fabric
suggest a lack of efficiency in the urban development due to inor-
ganic growing processes (Batty et al., 2003). This sets the impor-
tance of analysing urban sprawl over other urban forms (Galster
et al., 2001; UN, 2011).
Urban sprawl has been defined as growth by the creation of new
low-density suburbs with detached or semi-detached housing and
large commercial strips (Schneider and Woodcock, 2008; Schwarz,
2010). It has been described as the physical pattern of low-density
expansion of large urban areas, under market conditions, mainly
into the surrounding agricultural areas. Sprawl is the leading edge
of urban growth and implies little planning control of land subdi-
vision and urban development. It is patchy, scattered and strung
out, with a tendency for discontinuity, and it leap-frogs over areas
leaving agricultural or open space enclaves behind. Sprawling cities
are the opposite of compact cities, with empty spaces that indicate
the inefficiencies in development and highlighting the conse-
quences of uncontrolled expansion (EEA, 2006).
Under this perspective urban sprawl has been understood as
a specific pattern of urban expansion; typifying an increasing trend
of undesirable effects. It has been mostly studied as a matter of
dismissing densities in the spatial development of cities (Galster
et al., 2001; Angel et al., 2010a), or as a matter of differences in
the extent of urban development (Burchfield et al., 2006).
Nevertheless, urban sprawl remains as a diffuse and elusive
concept. There is no general agreement on what sprawl means, or
its measurement empirically and the comparison of its occurrence
across different cities (Galster et al., 2001). Despite increasing
awareness of the need for rigorous definition and systematic
measuring of sprawl (Galster et al., 2001; Tsai, 2005; Angel et al.,
2005), the term is used ambiguously and is equivalent to expan-
sion (Galster et al., 2001; Angel et al., 2005). But at the same time
the term is strongly controversial, with no neutral point about
sprawl: there are foes (EEA, 2002; Kasanko et al., 2005a, 2005b) and
friends (Bruegmann, 2005; Neuman, 2005; Echeñique et al., 2012).
On the contrary expansion is a neutral definition which depicts the
increases of cities in size and surface into surrounding land areas
without qualitative implications. As cities expand as a result of
demographic and economic growth further expansion is an
unavoidable fact. What is aimed to be addressed in this study is
whether the specifics patterns of urban expansion are leading
towards sprawl and fragmentation. If these trends are clear, what
similarities and differences will be observed along the continent
looking at population dynamics and spatial arrangements?
The concept of fragmentation has been largely used in Land-
scape Ecology and Urban Planning (Angel et al., 2010b; Schneider
and Woodcock, 2008; Schwarz, 2010). Fragmentation reflects the
morphological e spatial in this paper - efficiency of the urban
expansion process (Batty et al., 2003) and has been normally
understood as static metric and measured as the morphological
property of patches. Studies about urban form refer to fragmenta-
tion as one or more landscape metrics: edge density, mean patch
size, etc. (Schwarz, 2010), where fragmentation can be understood
as the spatial pattern of discontinuity.
In a dynamic way, by assessing how new development is taking
place in relation to the existing urban tissue, two types of spatial
behaviour of urban growth patterns can be distinguished. The first
being, new urban development taking place along the boundaries
of already urbanized areas with the implication of “how growth
attracts further growth”. It usually advances in an asymmetric
radial direction around the city centre or in a linear direction along
the road network, on the urban fringe, at the edge or close by an
existing urban area or along the highways: new developments will
tend to follow naturally a city edge. This is a gravitational force
dragging urban development to the city core. Benefits arise from
being part of the infrastructure network. As a result, urban cores
follow an “oil stain” pattern of expansion. Such continuous
expansion over the edges is a physical behaviour present in all cities
despite the enormous variations in shapes (Andersson et al., 2002).
It is possible to distinguish two spatial patterns: infill and axial
development, understood in all new development taking place in
adjacency with the pre-existing urban tissue where infilling makes
formerly sprawling areas more compact. Axial growth follows the
main development axis, and is strongly determined by infrastruc-
ture. Infill might change depending on the criteria used to define it.
Infill has been defined as vacant parcels or remaining open
spaces, in already urbanized areas which might or might not
include patches located at a certain distance from the existing
urban tissue (Angel et al., 2005, 2010b). In this study, a spatially
explicit threshold of adjacency which determines infill patterns in
new urban development is proposed.
At the same time, a second spatial behaviour can be observed:
a tendency to escape from the city core and to spread urban
development over hinterlands where urban development as spatial
pattern rises from discontinuity of the urban tissue. Here we find
leapfrogging development or isolated patches, a process driven by
centrifugal forces from the city. All this behaviour is mainly spatial
(physical): cities, at certain scale, behave according to similar rules
following some common patterns that lie beyond social or cultural
context.
The quantification of the sprawl might provide certain facts
towards a better understanding of spatial urban development,
determining under spatial metrics, whether urban expansion
trends towards sprawl and fragmentation. It must be determined
what development patterns and trends are most common and
where different patterns are taking place. This is the first step to
develop parameters to monitor city trends. By using common
spatial classification criteria, the degree of fragmentation of urban
sprawl was quantified, characterizing and comparing the differ-
ences in the Latin American urban development scenario in the
general expansive processes.
2. Methodology
The approach towards the investigation of urban expansion and
sprawling processes constitutes a big challenge in Latin-America,
considering the enormous lack of information and measurement
of urban phenomena. Thus the first aim is to quantify the urban
development process in a simple way that allows comparisons and
further applications beyond the scope of this study, like informing
policy options for instance.
The aim is to address the problem with the use of appropriate
analytical tools. A platform of categories, concepts and method-
ology for comparing urban sprawl and fragmentation across the
continent is proposed to quantify the processes of urban sprawl and
fragmentation in ten large Latin American cities, by using simple
well known metrics, readily available.
A dynamic approach towards sprawl and fragmentation is
applied, considering it as an on-going process that shows trends in
spatial behaviour with specific characteristics, topology and rela-
tionship with the pre-existing urban tissue e core city, spatial
structure, infrastructure, land use, etc.
The method defines a spatially explicit threshold of adjacency in
order to determine compactness and fragmentation, with general
 L. Inostroza et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 115 (2013) 87e97 89

criteria but specific spatial application which allows comparisons
despite the differences between cities.
2.1. Data sources and selection of cities
To face the aims of this study a complete spatial data base for 10
Latin American cities was developed using LANDSAT imagery as the
main source. The images are covering a time window of 20 years,
one image circa 1990 (T1) and one circa 2010 (T2) (Table 1).
An unsupervised land cover classification routine was done for
the 20 images (see 2.2 below) (Fig. 1). This classification was
complemented with vector information (neighbourhoods, infra-
structure, and census), field information, and other ancillary vector
and raster data collected and obtained during visits of the cities,
complemented by interviews with local professionals of urban
planning, architecture, real estate market, infrastructure develop-
ment and other backgrounds, aiming to improve the classification
accuracy.
2.2. Spatial approach, and land cover classification criteria
Administrative definitions are widely used in spatial analysis,
but they introduce distortions and are not directly comparable for
different cities and countries. Thus, a spatially explicit approach
was used to define the geographical area to be included in the
analysis: the MOLAND method (Kasanko et al., 2005a; EEA, 2002)
which defines a fringe area around the city core. This approach is
both spatially explicit and dynamic as it varies according to the city
size and time.
The city core (area) corresponds to the urban continuous fabric
and it was determined for each city based on the on-screen
segmentation process. The city core is an approximation of the
true physical city boundaries and is an alternative definition of
urban footprint (Angel et al., 2005; Taubenböck et al., 2012),
although the aim is similar: to obtain a delineation of the physical
man-made properties of cities.
Morphological continuity of the urban tissue was the criterion
to find the city edge and to separate cores from their fringes; where
that continuity finishes, whether by a geographical barrier,
a sudden or smooth interruption of the urban fabric, the city core
will find its edge. This was determined by using spectral behaviour,
shapes and textures of the LANDSAT images in T1 and T2. The
continuity of the urban fabric is following roads and infrastructure
which are important vectors leading to the expansion of cities; this
fact has been tested by random checks during the field excursions
by following certain transects from the very centre towards the
hinterland. For some cities this determination was complemented
by aerial photography and other ancillary data, such as the coverage
of water supply or sewerage. To support the determination of city’s
edge, an analysis with the ARCWORLD imagery tool of ArcGIS10Ó,
based on GeoEye IKONOS 1 m resolution imagery was done. The
delimitation of the core areas was finally cross tested by 3 different
GIS analysts’ experts, with an overall delta error of less than 2% of
the total perimeter.
One aim of the applied method of segmentation before the pixel
classification, was to include suburbanization into low density
urban fabric from the core area. The suburbanization process is
mainly a land use change, the transformation of agricultural land,
and it implies the subdivision into smaller plots or new suburban
rural neighbourhoods with or without minimal infrastructure
(roads, equipment, etc) taking place around the edge of the cities.
This kind of urban development has not been normally considered
into the quantification of urban sprawl (Schneider et al., 2009;
Taubenböck et al., 2012). However to improve the sprawl quanti-
fication it is necessary to properly include these new morphological
typologies of urbanization. A second aim of the edge delineation
was to improve the image classification by running separated
routines for fringes and cores. The derived land cover imagery
performed a high level of accuracy: an average above 89% accuracy
with ground field points collected during our visits to the cities.
Four main classes were defined: built-up or sealed surfaces
(core and fringe), open spaces (only in the core area), geographical
constraints including all areas where urban development could not
take place such as sea, rivers, lakes, mountains, etc., and develop-
able area including either agricultural or natural land representing
all areas susceptible to receive further urban development. This
classification criterion was aimed to focus on land cover changes
over time, estimating the amount of new land transformed from
non-urban to urban cover/uses.
Image classification of urban open space (golf clubs, cemeteries,
sport fields, playgrounds, etc.) is a challenge, as these land use types
have a spectral performance similar to natural open space.
Attempting to reduce the amount of fuzzy open space in the cities
edge, most of these urban areas were identified during the
segmentation process, the separation of core from fringe areas.
Thus, all open space within the core area is considered as urban.
However, with LANDSAT imagery as main source it was hardly
possible to estimate the capture of open space in the fringe without
controversial assumptions. Free space being used for new urban
development in the fringe gets lost in mixed pixel spectral signa-
tures or is being confused with natural/agricultural land; thus very
high resolution imagery or high quality of ancillary data (owner-
ship data sets for instance) is needed to identify such areas. Even
though there are some general assumptions in the reviewed liter-
ature (e.g. Angel et al., 2005), they are all indirect mechanisms. For
this study direct measuring of urban phenomena was preferred.

Table 1
Selected cities and respective satellite imagery. The first a priori selection of cities tried to cover all capitals for the whole continent. This preliminary selection was adjusted and
several possibilities were explored, assessing both availability and quality of imagery for the two times period. The final selection of cities with the dates of the imagery used in
the analysis is shown in this table.

ciudades Pais Coordinates Image T1 Image T2 Projections

Latitud Longitud Date Fecha UTM, m

1 Asunción Paraguay 25 160 0000 S 57 400 0000 W 03.03.1987 29.01.2010 WGS 21 S
2 Bogotá Colombia 4 350 56.5700 N 74 040 51.3000 W 22.03.1988 22.01.2010 WGS 18 N
3 Brasilia Brasil 15 460 000 S 47 550 000 W 24.07.1988 18.07.2009 WGS 23 S
4 Buenos Aires Argentina 34 360 1400 S 58 220 5400 W 25.11.1988 18.10.2009 WGS 21 S
5 Córdoba Argentina 18 280 0000 N 69 540 00"W 22.06.1985 12.09.2009 WGS 20 S
6 La Paz Bolivia 16 300 0000 S 68 090 0000 W 02.08.1987 11.04.2010 WGS 19 S
7 Lima Perú 12 030 0000 S 77 030 0000 W 05.03.1987 02.04.2009 WGS 18 S
8 Montevideo Uruguay 34 530 100 S 56 100 5500 W 20.02.1985 17.08.2009 WGS 21 S
9 Santa Cruz de la Sierra Bolivia 10 300 0000 N 66 550 0000 W 11.01.1985 04.06.2010 WGS 20 S
10 Santiago Chile 33 260 1600 S 70 390 0100 W 11.10.1986 19.03.2010 WGS 19 S
90 L. Inostroza et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 115 (2013) 87e97

Fig. 1. Flow diagram of the image processing and land cover classification protocol. The land cover classification protocol has followed three main steps: imagery pre-processing,
imagery processing and GIS modelling. The classification procedure followed the method proposed by Angel et al. (2005), to allow comparability of the results.

Thus, the classification focuses on the quantification of built up all built-up pixels, district population has been assigned to those
areas e sealed surfaces e in the fringe, leaving the consideration of built-up pixels, considering zero population value for “non-urban”
open spaces being captured by urban development for further pixels, such as agricultural land. This spatial assignation of pop-
research. ulation is methodologically more robust than the administrative
density or another modelling starting from already estimated
2.3. Population densities densities.
Densities were calculated estimating the amount of population
Official census data has been used as the main source for ana- living in the specific spatial unit and then aggregated in order to
lysing population growth and densities. However, census data are estimate averages for larger areas. The measure of density used
indexed to administrative boundaries, which in most cases are not corresponds to the net built-up density, which is the ratio of pop-
comparable among countries e administrative denominations vary ulation living in all built-up areas into the core, as against all built-
across the continent with enormous differences in size and scope. up area into the fringe. While not including open spaces in this
The use of census data without taking into consideration its spatial calculation, trends of net density changes between T1 and T2 are
implications might produce misunderstandings about population clear, in terms of determining how much more or less dense new
and density dynamics. Population dynamics are clear on a certain developments are (Table 2).
scale, according to administrative levels, but within those areas at
a smaller scale the spatial process of populations, such as de-
2.4. Metrics for measuring sprawl
concentration, loss of density, suburbanization and others, might
be hidden.
Four quantifiable indicators are used: built-up area, density,
Accumulated statistics for city areas or for the whole urban
spatial configuration and speed. While the first three metrics are
regions suggest that large urban regions are becoming more pros-
commonly used in similar studies (Angel et al., 2005, 2010a;
perous while not being affected by demographic changes. They do
not consider developments on a smaller scale (Kroll and Kabisch,
2011). Table 2
For the purposes of this study, the aim was to get a realistic Dates of census, dates of imagery acquisition and respective methods of adjustment.
estimation of densities in the specific spatial arrangement where When official estimations were not available for the times of the imagery, census
data were interpolated/extrapolated to match T1 and T2 (Table 2) times using linear
the new urban development is taking place, being capable of
or exponential demographic models.
characterizing net density trends and answering the questions if
new built-up areas are more or less dense than existing ones, giving City Census Imagery Method Census Imagery Method
overall sprawl trends of net cities densities. The objective was, to 80’s T1 00’s T1
arrive at the real extension of urban developments with their Asunción 1982 1987 INTRAPOL 2002 2010 EXTRAPOL
respective population data, where normal census districts are too Bogotá 1985 1988 OFICIAL 2006 2010 OFICIAL
big in the periphery to compare with inner city census districts. Brasilia 1991 1988 EXTRAPOL 2010 2009 CENSUS
Buenos Aires 1991 1988 EXTRAPOL 2010 2009 CENSUS
The methodological problem of addressing the shared pop-
Còrdoba 1991 1985 EXTRAPOL 2010 2009 CENSUS
ulation in periphery districts e shared population between urban La Paz 1992 1987 EXTRAPOL 2001 2010 OFICIAL
and rural areas e emerges from the fuzzy definition of “urban” used Lima 1981 1987 INTRAPOL 2007 2009 OFICIAL
by census approaches. To overcome this issue, population data have Montevideo 1985 1985 CENSUS 2004 2009 EXTRAPOL
been assigned only to built-up areas in the periphery districts by Santa Cruz de 1992 1985 EXTRAPOL 2001 2010 OFICIAL
la Sierra
using the smallest available spatial unit (blocks, neighbourhoods, Santiago 1982 1986 INTRAPOL 2002 2010 OFICIAL
etc.) of census data bases. As the classification method determined
 L. Inostroza et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 115 (2013) 87e97 91

Schneider and Woodcock, 2008; Schwarz, 2010), speed of the
fastest vector, is a new proposed metric. By assessing the trends
across these metrics between T1 and T2 the approach leads to
a dynamic measure of sprawl and fragmentation.
Built-up area corresponds to the total amount of sealed surfaces
and is used to measure land cover changes from non-urban to
urban over the period analysed. Urbanized area corresponds to the
core area, including open space, plus built-up into the fringe.
Density is measured as population per area and it is a key metric
of sprawl. A net built-up density (built-up in core þ built-up in
fringe) was used. This metric does not consider open spaces. When
comparing net density, T1 and T2 indicates the average trend in the
land consumption, whether new developments (changes T1eT2)
are more or less dense than pre-existing ones (net built-up
density in T1) and how the average net density is changing (trend
T1eT2).
Spatial configuration corresponds to a dynamic assessment of
fragmentation, differing from the common measure calculated by
typical landscape ecology metrics. To identify trends of fragmen-
tation all new urban developments between T1 and T2 were clas-
sified into three categories: infill, axial and isolated (Fig. 2),
according to its spatial relationship with the pre-existing urban
tissue.
Infill: corresponds to new build-up pixels within the infilling
area defined for each city. This infilling area represents the
maximum feasible optimization of the urban form possible to
achieve in T2. Morphologically, it reflects the maximum compact-
ness a city can achieve within the period investigated. It corre-
sponds to the negative buffer from the fringe towards the core area
by using the same value of fringe thickness (W in MOLAND defi-
nition, Kasanko et al., 2005a). All new urban fabric into that area
was classified as infill.
Axial: all new urban fabric physically connected with, but
beyond the infill area was classified as axial. This kind of develop-
ment typically follows the main infrastructure axes.
Isolated: these are all patches discontinuously spread in the
fringe (Fig. 3).
The share of infill, axial and isolated built up area between T1
and T2 shows the relative spatial efficiency of new urban fabric.
This configuration of new urban fabric is showing spatially explicit
trends of urban expansion by their relationship with the pre-
existing city. The overall proportion of those patterns between T1
and T2 shows the fragmentation trend: a city with higher propor-
tion of infill patches is increasing its compactness while others with
higher proportion of isolated patches are decreasing. This trend is
easy to calculate and clear while giving a fast and spatially explicit
assessment of new urban fabric in a certain window of time.
Speed has been measured with two different metrics: first being
defined as the rate of land conversion per capita per year. In addi-
tion, the expansion speed of the fastest vector in meters per year

Fig. 2. Spatial configuration of urban space: a dynamic characterization (T1eT2) of fragmentation of Santiago de Chile by classifying all new development into the three proposed
categories: infill, axial and isolated. The red line shows the proposed spatial threshold of adjacency for this city.
92 L. Inostroza et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 115 (2013) 87e97

Fig. 3. Core areas (Km2) and built-up areas (Km2) in fringes: sizes and increases. The ratio of built-up area is moving towards fringes: The average of built-up area in the fringe was
8% in T1 and 12% in T2. All cities have experienced an increase. Brasilia for instance had 9% of all the built-up area in the fringe during the middle 80s, and that percentage has more
than doubled up to 23% nowadays (Fig. 4).

was measured. This is a new proposed metric, easy to calculate and
self evident. It shows the dynamics of cities in the context of
persistent urban expansion and has been calculated by measuring
the changes in length of the longest vectors of core areas expansion
in T1 and T2 starting from the city centre (CBD).
3. Results and discussion
On average in the 10 studied areas, city cores account for 92% of
the urbanized area. This high proportion of cores over the urban
spatial structure is subject to change: cities like Brasilia or Santiago
are loosing weight of the city core (80%) (Figs. 3 and 5).
With the exceptions of Montevideo, Asuncion and Buenos Aires,
the amount of built-up area growing in the fringe between T1 and T2
has been bigger than the pre-existing built-up area (Fig. 3). The built-
up fringes are growing at an average rate of 11% per year, thus, much
faster than the core areas (2.9%) or the urbanized areas (3.1%) (Fig. 4).
Looking at densities, they are still high in comparison with
densities in developed countries (Kansako et al., 2005a; Angel et al.,
2010a; Schwarz, 2010), 98,4 inhabitants per hectare in T1 and 101
inhabitants per hectare in T2. Even though two opposite trends can
be observed: in four cities (Asuncion, Santa Cruz, Lima and Bogotá)
densities are increasing while in the rest six cities (Brasilia,
Córdoba, Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Santiago and La Paz) densities
are decreasing (Fig. 6). While decreasing in density, these cities are
in a clear trend of sprawl and consuming more land than before.
Density trend of Bogotá however differs from all the rest of the
continent, first because its initial density is already too high for the
south American context, almost two and a half times bigger than
the average density in T1 (213.8 for Bogotá and 85.5 for the rest nine
cities) and even three and a third times in T2 (271.9 and 81.1
respectively). Secondly because Bogotá’s trend of increasing
density is an outlier: the city has increase its net built-up density by
58 inhabitants per hectare between T1 and T2, which is more than
twofold the second increasing density value, Santa Cruz with 22
inhabitants per hectare increase between T1 and T2.
To improve the estimations in the continent, not considering
Bogotá in the calculations a trend of dismissing densities appears:

Fig. 4. Changes in the percentage of built-up area in the fringe over all built-up area. All cities have increased their respective amount of built-up areas in the fringes between T1 and
T2. However, the percentage of increase differs between the study areas on a wide range; it is for: Brasilia 711%, La Paz 536% and Santa Cruz 356%; whereas the lowest in Montevideo
with 44%.
 L. Inostroza et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 115 (2013) 87e97
Fig. 5. Changes in Km2 of built-up surface in the fringe (Buenos Aires not included:
158 km2 Built-up in fringe T1 and 258 km2 Built-up in fringe T2).
a total average decrease of 2.4% and a 0.13% decrease per year. This
downward trend coincides with that found in other studies (Angel
et al., 2010a).
Net built-up density as an average might be hiding spatial trends
of changes across the urban tissue. This decrease might show
a spatial divergence process which is changing the population
distribution within the urban structure. To look at these processes
an analysis at a smaller scale is necessary. On the other hand, cities
like Bogotá, Lima, Asuncion and Santa Cruz are still in a densifica-
tion process. It is interesting to note that this densification process
is taking place in the cities with both highest and lowest density
(Fig. 6). Bogotá, the city with the highest density, is (Fig. 7) showing
an increase of net density of 27% during the study period. In the
case of Lima (12% of net density increase) this densification process
might be a response to the serious land availability restrictions and
despite the decreasing density of some very central districts.
Asuncion has increased its low density by 18% responding to an
important migration processes from the rural area (Rodriguez and
Busso, 2009). Santa Cruz shows the highest increase of 42%. On the
contrary Brasilia is loosing net density at an average of 31%.
The amount of the per capita per year land consumption shows
big differences: with an average of 3 m2 per capita per year in the
Fig. 6. Net built-up densities of population per ha in T1 and changes T1eT2. Six cities are decreasing their net built-up density at an average of 15.6%, in some cases like Brasilia and
Montevideo the trend of decreasing densities is taking place in considerable amounts between T1 and T2 (31% and 18% respectively).
93
ten cities, Bogotá consumed just 0.4 m2 while Brasilia 7.9 m2.
However, the speed of the fastest vector does not match per capita
land consumption (Fig. 7).
Under this persistent urban expansion scenario the way cities
will expand could make a big difference (Fig. 8). If the average land
consumption continues at the same annual rate as it has during the
past twenty years (Fig. 7) the urban core area of major cities in
South America will have doubled by 2035. This would be even more
dramatic if densities persist to decline at similar rates as now.
3.1. Spatial configuration and trends
Although all studied cities are filling their infill areas, which is
expected behaviour in the pervasive expansion scenario, the
growth into axial and isolated patterns is more prominent. This
demonstrates the trend of urban development towards increasing
sprawl: growing by adding small, low density and patchy areas of
newly developed land located further from the established core,
instead of growing by adding plots at the edge or adjacent to the
urban core (in the infill area) aiming to reduce fragmentation and
increase compactness (Fig. 10).
On average, about 30% of all new development took place within
the infill area, 49% was axial and 21% isolated. The highest infilling
city was Cordoba, with 62% of infill, 28% axial and 10% isolated
development. La Paz shows the lowest total infilling rate with
percentages of 13%, 86% and 1% for infill, axial and isolated
respectively (Fig. 9). However the overall efficiency in the use of
infill is led by the increase of the core area, with a correlation of 0.7,
followed by surface of geographical constraints with 0.5. Higher
infilling rates are found in both: faster growing cities and cities with
more geographical constraints. Population growth was not statis-
tically significant while explaining infilling trends.
3.2. Discussion
Three aspects of the present study are discussed: the estimation
of population in the periphery, and the quantification of open space
being captured by urban development are related to the method-
ological approach; the links between sprawl and possible driving
factors focus on potential implications of the results.
Population and densities have been measured for specific spatial
units facing the methodological constrains of spatial estimations
between different sizes of census units. The gross density for the
whole “administrative city” has been normally accepted as the
94 L. Inostroza et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 115 (2013) 87e97

Fig. 7. Land consumption (m2 per year) and speed of fastest vector (m/year).

Fig. 8. Buenos Aires and Bogotá: sprawl v/s compact. Spatial patterns of urban development differ highly along the continent. It can be seen easily that Buenos Aires is more
sprawled and fragmented than Bogotá, which is more compact. Buenos Aires core area is 6 times larger than that of Bogotá (2103 km2 vs. 361 Km2), while its population is two times
less (12.9 million vs 7.6 million).

Fig. 9. Relative spatial efficiency: percentage of infill, axial and isolated of new built-up areas. Despite infilling cities, Bogotá and Córdoba, the sprawling trend is prevalent due to the
higher amount of axial and isolated patterns. At the same time there is an underlying trend of fragmentation reflected in the high average of isolated patterns, 21% for the ten cities.
 L. Inostroza et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 115 (2013) 87e97 95

Fig. 10. Spatial configuration of all cities, from above left: Asunción, Bogotá, Brasilia, Buenos Aires, Córdoba, La Paz, Lima, Montevideo and Santa Cruz, (Santiago, in Fig. 3).

measure of the cities’ population density, despite differences in the
size of administrative areas and the size of the real city. When
estimations for smaller spatial units are used in the periphery they
have to face the problem of population shared between urban and
rural administrative units, besides the larger size of suburban
districts which can produce underestimated population density
(Chomitz et al., 2005). This could result in bias when assessing the
dynamics of density. A smaller level of desegregation for population
data (blocks, smaller districts) was needed to better spatially
address population and density information. This has been the
96 L. Inostroza et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 115 (2013) 87e97
methodological key in order to properly assess densities in new
urban developments; it strongly depends on the data availability
and common frame for comparisons. This research attempted to
estimate densities on a smaller possible scale by assigning pop-
ulation to the built-up area; here, more detailed work should be
done in future research. Average city density estimations and big
census districts in the periphery are concealing the real perfor-
mance of the sprawling process and to face that, studies on the
basis of small scale spatial entities are needed.
Bogotá depicts a specific case. Density values of Bogotá were
outliers in the continent, showing strong differences with the rest
of the studied cities. Two considerations can be taken to the
discussion: first the reliability of the population data, which still
remains in estimations based on population models and not relying
in direct measuring techniques as is normally obtained in the other
countries. The second consideration is the possible link with high
levels of violence, as was suggested in many interviews. This
connection between lower rates of urban expansion with high
levels of violence and terrorism was proposed by Glaeser and
Shapiro (2002), suggesting violence as a strong driving factor of
compact development. Whether the failure of population models
or violence are driving the high densities found in Bogotá, needs
small scale studies to be determined.
To achieve a better understanding of urban sprawl it is necessary
to have a closer approximation to the specific spatial behaviour of
every city, looking also at the density configuration within the
urban structure. The aim of a compact development will be difficult
to achieve if we cannot adjust those differences within the inner
city spatial structure.
The second aspect to be discussed is the quantification of open
space being captured by urban development. In this research
a method has been developed to catch suburbanization in the
periphery based on the core edge delimitation prior to running the
land cover classification. Beyond the core edge, direct measures of
open space in the fringe are not possible with LANDSAT imagery as
a main source of information. Appropriate ancillary data (cadastre
or similar together with a very high resolution imagery) or land use
maps are necessary to catch this kind of urban development within
the fringe. Here, only built-up pixels were measured, which is in
fact an underestimation of urban development because it is not
including all land being transformed into urban use, such as play-
grounds, cemeteries, sport facilities and other land uses that cannot
be classified by a pure pixel-based approach. Though, there are
some possible estimations (e.g. Angel et al., 2005) direct measuring
during random field samples, experts’ interviews and GeoEye
Fig. 11. GDP per capita and land consumption in hectares per year. Such patterns
emerge due to economic performance of countries and cities.
Fig. 12. Motorization rate versus percentage of infill areas (relative spatial efficiency).
IKONOS 1 m resolution imagery (ARCWORLD imagery tool of
ArcGIS10Ó) have been used in this research. With more accurate
estimation of urban open space in the fringe, the impact of urban
sprawl would be certainly bigger than it was addressed in this
research.
Urban sprawl as a specific spatial development pattern is led by
economic dynamics of both the city itself and the country, while the
factor of population is losing its importance (Kasanko et al., 2005a).
Urban sprawl is strongly connected to economic indicators such as
the GDP (Angel et al., 2005; Huang et al., 2007). The correlation
between GDP per capita and amount of land consumption in
hectares per year in all studied cities is 0.77 (Fig. 11). Thus, as the
GDP increases, further sprawling patterns might be expected.
Issues of transportation are at the root of many discussions of
urban sprawl and urban density (Angel et al., 2005; Huang et al.,
2007; UN, 2011). Regarding this link, in the studied cities higher
levels of fragmentation were correlated with higher motorization
rates. The low efficiency in the use of the infill area correlates with
the motorization rate in vehicles per 1000 inhabitants (Fig. 12).
Vehicles availability is playing an important role in the sprawling
trends which Latin American cities are facing.
4. Conclusions
The aim of the study was to improve the understanding of urban
sprawl in Latin America. The general urban expansion scenario in
the continent was addressed by using certain metrics, some of
them new, like the speed of the fastest vector (Fig. 7).
Cities will expand, which is unavoidable, but how to avoid
sprawl and manage the urban development in the highest compact
way is a matter of urban planning. Morphologically, Latin American
cities tend to concentrate most of their built-up area in the core in
an average of over 92% of the total urbanized area. Population
densities are still high if we compare with cities in other latitudes
(Kansako et al., 2005a; Huang et al., 2007; Angel et al., 2010a). The
lack of maturity in the Latin American economies explain this
surprising fact, however if we compare the actual average of built-
up area in the fringe (12%) with cities in developed countries (27%)
(Angel et al., 2005; Kasanko et al., 2005a; Schwarz, 2010) an
important increase in the share of isolated patches is expected: at
least twofold compared to what it was during the last two decades.
As urban systems evolve and the national economies reach stronger
performance, cities will certainly expand more and faster. The
dynamic assessment of fragmentation also shows a trend towards
less compactness: out of the overall new urban development, only
one third is infilling, helping to reduce the fragmentation of the
periphery; two thirds are of a sprawled pattern.
 L. Inostroza et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 115 (2013) 87e97
In the current scenario of constant urban expansion, the ques-
tion for the urban planning is what the acceptable degrees of
sprawl and fragmentation are. Urban expansion will inevitably take
place, most cities in Latin America will double their size by 2035,
and thus there should be concern about its spatial configuration, to
have an appropriate estimation of the amount of land which will be
needed by urban development to implement an adequate spatial
strategy that can be achieved with the lowest cost and highest
efficiency possible. The way cities expand matters.
Acknowledgements
The main findings of this article were results of a Lincoln Insti-
tute 2010e2011 research project (project reference: LRB082510).
Lincoln Institute provided the LANDSAT imagery for T2. The authors
would like to thank three anonymous reviewers for comments on
earlier versions of this paper.
References
Andersson, C., Lindgren, K., Rasmussen, S., White, R., 2002. Urban growth simula-
tion from “First Principles”. Physical Review E 66 (2), 026204.
Angel S., Parent J., Civco D., Blei, A.M., 2010a. The Persistent Decline in Urban
Densities: Global and Historical Evidence of ‘Sprawl’. Lincoln Institute of Land
Policy Working Paper. Cambridge, MA. p. 151.
Angel, S., Parent, J., Civco, D., 2010b. The Fragmentation of Urban Footprints: Global
Evidence of Urban Sprawl 1990-2000. Lincoln Institute of Land Policy Working
Paper. Cambridge, MA, p. 104.
Angel, S., Sheppard, S.C., Civco, D.L., 2005. The Dynamics of Global Urban Expansion.
Transport and Urban Development Department, The World Bank, Washington
D.C, p. 205.
Burchfield, M., Overman, H.G., Puga, D., Turner, M.A., 2006. Causes of sprawl:
a portrait from space. Quarterly Journal of Economics 121 (2), 587e633.
Burton, E., 2002. Measuring urban compactness in UK towns and cities. Environ-
ment and Planning B 29 (2), 219e250.
Bruegmann, R., 2005. Sprawl: A Compact History. The University of Chicago Press, p.
302.
Batty, M., Besussi, E., Chin, N., 2003. Traffic, Urban Growth and Suburban Sprawl.
Working paper N 70, Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (UCL), London, UK.
CEC, 1990. Commission of the European Communities. Green Paper on the Urban
Environment. Communication from the Commission to the Council and
Parliament. COM 1990/218 final.
CEC, 1996. Commission of the European Communities. Expert Group on Urban
Environment. European Sustainable Cities Report. Brussels.
Chomitz, K. M., Buys, P., Thomas T.S., 2005. Quantifying the Rural-Urban Gradient in
Latin America and the Caribbean. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper
3634, June 2005.
97
Echenique, M.H., Hargreaves, A.J., Mitchell, G., Namdeo, A., 2012. Growing cities
sustainably. Journal of the American Planning Association 78 (2), 121e137.
EEA (European Environment Agency), 2002. Towards an Urban Atlas: Assessment of
Spatial Data on 25 European Cities and Urban Areas, Copenhagen, p. 128. <http://
www.eea.europa.eu/publications/environmental_issue_report_2002_30>.
EEA (European Environment Agency), 2006. Urban Sprawl in Europe. The Ignored
Challenge, Copenhagen, p. 60.
Galster, G., Hanson, R., Ratcliffe, M.R., Wolman, H., Coleman, S., Freihage, J., 2001.
Wrestling sprawl to the ground: defining and measuring an elusive concept.
Housing Policy Debate 12 (4), 681e717. http://www.fanniemaefoundation.org/
programs/hpd/pdf/HPD_1204_galster.pdf.
Glaeser, E.L., Shapiro, J.M., 2002. Cities and warfare: the impact of terrorism on
urban form. Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier 51 (2), 205e224 (March).
Huang, J., Lu, X.X., Sellers, J.M., 2007. A global comparative analysis of urban form:
applying spatial metrics and remote sensing. Landscape and Urban Planning 82
(4), 1847197.
Kasanko, M., Barredo, J., Lavalle, C., McCormick, N., Demicheli, L., Sagris, V.,
Brezger, A., 2005a. Are European cities becoming dispersed? A comparative
analysis of 15 European urban areas. Landscape and Urban Planning 77, 111e
130.
Kasanko, M., Barredo, J., Lavalle, C., Sagris, V., Genovese, E., 2005b. Towards urban
un-sustainability in Europe? An indicator-based analysis. 45th Congress of the
European Regional Science Association. Land Use and Water Management in
a Sustainable Network Society, Amsterdam, 23e27 August 2005.
Kroll, F., Kabisch, N., 2011. The relation of diverging urban growth processes and
demographic change along an urbanerural gradient. Population, Space and
Place 18, 260e276. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/psp.653.
Neuman, M., 2005. The compact city fallacy. Journal of Planning Education and
Research 25 (1), 11e26.
Rodríguez, J., Busso, G., 2009. Migración Interna y Desarrollo en América Latina
entre 1980 y 2005. Un Estudio Comparativo con Perspectiva Regional Basado en
Siete Países. Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL),
Santiago de Chile.
Schneider, A., Woodcock, C., 2008. Compact, dispersed, fragmented, extensive? A
comparison of urban growth in twenty-five global cities using remotely
sensed data, pattern metrics and census information. Urban Studies, 659e
692.
Schneider, A., Friedl, M.A., Potere, D., 2009. A new map of global urban extent from
MODIS satellite data. Environmental Research Letters. 4 article 044003.
Schwarz, N., 2010. Urban form revisited e Selecting indicators for characterising
European cities. Landscape and Urban Planning 96, 29e47.
Taubenböck, H., Esch, T., Felbier, A., Wiesner, M., Roth, A., Dech, S., 2012. Monitoring
urbanization in mega cities from space. Remote Sensing of Environment 117,
162e176.
Tsai, Y., 2005. Quantifying urban form: compactness versus ‘Sprawl’. Urban Studies
42 (1), 141e161. England, January 2005.
United Nations (UN), 2009. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population
Division. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2009 Revision. http://esa.un.org/
unpd/wup/index.htm (accessed 14.07.11.).
United Nations (UN), 2011. Population, Distribution, Urbanization, Internal Migra-
tion and Development: An Internal Perspective. Department of Economic and
Social Affairs, Population Division. http://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/index.htm
(accessed 14.07.11.).