How to Use urban sprawl in a Sentence

urban sprawl

noun
  • For one week a year, urban sprawl gets a chance to shine in all its tacky glory.
    — Paul Newberry, The Seattle Times, 13 Apr. 2019
  • As a city, Houston has long been famous for its urban sprawl.
    — Michelle Sandlin, Houston Chronicle, 23 June 2019
  • And thanks to urban sprawl in the South, the target is growing.
    — Washington Post, 22 Mar. 2022
  • The heat, the desolate landscape and the urban sprawl took a toll on her.
    — Melina Walling, The Arizona Republic, 8 Sep. 2022
  • Oregon is renowned for statewide policies that constrain urban sprawl.
    — Bart Johnson, The Conversation, 6 Aug. 2021
  • It was created to restrict urban sprawl in an area that does not have water and sewer lines.
    — Martin E. Comas, orlandosentinel.com, 30 Sep. 2020
  • Copenhagen is trying to avoid the kind of urban sprawl that consumes valuable resources and land.
    — Christopher Elliott, Forbes.com, 24 May 2026
  • As more estates have been built on greenfield sites outside the center, the rise in urban sprawl has brought problems.
    — Michael Taylor, The Christian Science Monitor, 11 July 2018
  • As Austin’s outer bounds have grown, the urban sprawl has encroached on coyote habitat.
    — Cross Harris, Austin American-Statesman, 9 July 2024
  • Poor planning, urban sprawl and scorching dry weather have strained the water supply.
    — Somini Sengupta César Rodríguez, New York Times, 18 May 2024
  • But mostly, San Jose is mass urban sprawl, track housing, and strip malls, kind of boring.
    — Alyssa Shelasky, Curbed, 2 Aug. 2022
  • Commutes had lengthened due to urban sprawl and more traffic congestion.
    — Rafaela Jinich, The Atlantic, 5 Mar. 2026
  • Decades of urban sprawl have paved over swamp and wetlands and destroyed much of the land’s ability to absorb water.
    — National Geographic, 1 Sep. 2017
  • Fields soon replaced the graffiti and urban sprawl, stretching in rectangles of straw-gold and damp green.
    — Vic O'Sullivan, Travel + Leisure, 4 Mar. 2026
  • But for now, Ms Ding sees herself as a victim of urban sprawl, not the denizen of a seamless city cluster.
    — The Economist, 21 June 2018
  • Past the urban sprawl of northern Naseriyah, with its small auto repair shops and vegetable stands, the land empties out.
    — Alissa J. Rubin, BostonGlobe.com, 30 July 2023
  • The city has passed development rules that were intended to reduce the impact of urban sprawl.
    — John Tedesco, San Antonio Express-News, 29 June 2018
  • The notion that real estate was a risk-free place to park money helped fuel China’s urban sprawl.
    — Yvonne Lau, Fortune, 2 Dec. 2021
  • Today, urban sprawl has covered almost the entire former lakebed, and most of the city's water is pumped from beneath it.
    — Lizzie Wade, Science | AAAS, 2 July 2018
  • The idea of Los Angeles as a wildlife preserve disrupts its image of glitzy urban sprawl.
    — Ali Martin, The Christian Science Monitor, 27 Sep. 2024
  • Concerns about urban sprawl and green space emerged in Toronto in the early 1970s.
    — Norimitsu Onishi, New York Times, 5 Feb. 2023
  • Entering the lobby space from the urban sprawl is like peering into a kaleidoscope.
    — Angelina Villa-Clarke, Forbes, 27 June 2022
  • Lu’an transformed into urban sprawl stretching across about 6,000 square miles.
    — Yoko Kubota, WSJ, 4 Oct. 2021
  • Haddad concedes that Los Angeles’ urban sprawl and reliance on cars makes such projects a tough sell.
    — Salvador Hernandez, Los Angeles Times, 23 Sep. 2023
  • Indigenous groups that reside in the region and already lost parts of their land fear that urban sprawl from the new capital could make things even worse.
    — Edna Tarigan and Victoria Milko, The Christian Science Monitor, 9 Mar. 2023
  • North River Farms is an example of urban sprawl, the opponents said.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 19 Aug. 2019
  • But here in the Pallikaranai marsh, a rare pocket of calm in southern India’s urban sprawl, nature holds its ground.
    — Kalpana Sunder, Christian Science Monitor, 16 Oct. 2025
  • Oregon adopted a unique set of land use laws in the late 1960s and 1970s that helped curb urban sprawl.
    — Rob Davis, ProPublica, 7 Aug. 2025
  • On a societal level, bigger cars take up more public space, leaving less room for the livable, likeable city and promote urban sprawl.
    — Mattias Goldmann, Forbes.com, 17 Aug. 2025
  • Bike sharing in urban areas, public transit-friendly cities and avoiding urban sprawl can help cut emissions even further.
    — Stacy Morford, The Conversation, 20 Mar. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'urban sprawl.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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