The term is usually referred to as <u>urban sprawl</u> or <u>suburban sprawl</u>. It is used to describe an unrestricted growth in many urban areas of commercial development, housing and roads over large portions of land. The main characteristic of a sprawl is the little to no concern for urban planning.
Sprawl, or urban sprawl more accurately put, is the result of economic tendencies that privilege free and unregulated economic practices of construction enterprises which, a fortiori, lack any form of urban planning and which, in many rapidly growing cities, like Mexico City, Rio De Janeiro, Bangkok, amongst many other places, is the reason behind most environmental crisis (an extreme hazardous air quality and poor water provisions, most notably) that continue to plague these cities.
