Definition of "urban sprawl" []

• The unplanned, uncontrolled spreading of urban development into areas adjoining the edge of a city. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "I know that the Black River Gorges contain small, precious remnants of forest, enclaves of wild landscape amid the sugar cane and the urban sprawl and the beach-tourism development that carpet modern Mauritius."
• "As population explosions and urban sprawl intersect with our increasingly chemical-laden landscape, other neighborhoods face similar concerns to those in Buffalo."
• "They were close enough to the urban sprawl that the static of so many deadheads would camouflage them, yet far enough away and with considerable grounds attached to the old school to give them some privacy, plenty of escape routes and room for expansion."