Do Metropolitan Areas With Rich Central Cities Experience Less Sprawl?

This study explores the extent to which richer central cities are associated with slower suburban sprawl. The authors use a unique approach to categorizing municipalities in urbanized areas based on their relative densities. Richness is measured in terms of the central city's relative share of high-income households. The central finding (both for the decade from 1990 to 2000 and for 2000 to 2004) is that although metropolitan areas with rich central cities sprawl somewhat less, the pace of suburban sprawl is primarily driven by metropolitan growth.