Measuring Urban Form: Is Portland Winning the War on Sprawl?

Abstract

Although many have written about urban sprawl, few have sought to measure it. In this article, we present several quantitative measures of urban form and compute these for neighborhoods of varying age in Washington County, the western portion of the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan area. Our results suggest (1) neighborhoods in Washington County have increased in single-family dwelling unit density since the 1960s; (2) internal street connectivity and pedestrian access to commercial areas and bus stops have improved since the early 1990s; (3) external connectivity continues to decline; and (4) the mixing of land uses remains limited. We conclude that while several measures appear to be improving, Portland's war on sprawl is not yet won.