Bright Lights, Big City    Part one of a three part series.
  Part 2: Reaping What We Sow   Part 3: Urbanization’s Aftermath
      Page 2     Las Vegas Sprawl   Global City Lights
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Urbanization in any country generally begins when large-scale
commerce takes root and most new jobs are to be found in the
factories and financial centers in cities. In the United States,
urbanization began to occur roughly around the turn of the last
century. Since then, the percentage of people living in the
United States in urban areas has risen from 39 percent to more
than 73 percent (U.S. Census Bureau, 1995). From decade to
decade the amount of rural land that has been consumed by
urbanization is enormous. Between 1982 and 1992, for instance,
19,000 square miles of otherwise rural cropland and wilderness
were developed in the U.S. This would be the equivalent of
covering half of Ohio into one big subdivision in a ten-year
period (World Resources Institute, 1996).