Spatiotemporal dynamics of housing growth hotspots in the North Central U.S. from 1940 to 2000

Collaborators: Volker C. Radeloff, Roger B. Hammer, and Susan I. Stewart

Sprawl is one of the major causes of landscape change and habitat fragmentation in the United States as well as worldwide. In the North Central United States recent housing growth has been rampant at the outlying fringe of metropolitan areas and in remote regions with attractive recreational and aesthetic amenities. Our goal was to identify hotspots of housing growth so that policy, planning, and management efforts to curtail sprawl can be focused and areas suitable for detailed examination of underlying causal factors selected.

Using a set of recently derived fine scale (mean size of < 400 ha) housing data we measured decadal housing growth hotspots from 1940 to 2000 for the entire North Central region. Hotspots were estimated using the G-star statistic, a local indicator of spatial autocorrelation, based on neighborhood sizes ranging from 5 to 50 km. Over the 60 year period the number and mean area of hotspots, measured both as absolute and percent growth, remained essentially the same. However, total area of all hotspots increased significantly over time as measured by absolute growth, but tended to decrease insignificantly over time as measured by percent growth.

Spatially, the hotspots of shifted over time, moving away from city centers to suburban and rural locations, many of which are rich in natural amenities and particularly sensitive to environmental change. These analyses indicate a continuing trend of decentralizing housing growth and highlight the need to target specific locations in future management efforts.

As this project nears fruition we are beginning to use a similar approach in the Northeast United States in order to make regional comparisons.

Acknowledgements
This research was funded by the Northern Research Station and the Northern Global Change Program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service.

Presentations:
Lepczyk, C.A., Hammer, R.B., S.I. Stewart, and V.C. Radeloff. 2005. A comparison of housing growth hotspots in the Midwestern and Northeastern U.S. from 1940-2000. Emerging Issues Along Urban/Rural Interfaces: Linking Science and Society. Atlanta, GA.

Lepczyk, C.A., R.B. Hammer, V.C. Radeloff, and S.I. Stewart. 2004. Spatiotemporal dynamics of housing growth hotspots in the Northeastern U.S. from 1940 to 2000. 10th International Symposium on Society and Resource Management, Keystone, CO.

Lepczyk, C.A., R.B. Hammer, V.C. Radeloff, and S.I. Stewart. 2004. Spatiotemporal dynamics of housing growth hotspots in the North Central U.S. from 1940 to 2000. United States Region of the International Association for Landscape Ecology, 19th Annual Meeting. Las Vegas, NV.