Living on the edge: An exploration of "urban sprawl" in Sydney's north-west growth corridor from four research perspectives

The concept of "urban sprawl" is one that features prominently in numerous debates in contemporary urbanisation - diverse issues such as pollution, traffic congestion, urban planning, infrastructure consumption, housing affordability, incursion into rural lands, spatial inequality and urban aesthetics - issues in which "sprawl" is often presented as playing a pivotal role. Such is the near-ubiquity of the concept it also often poses as a cause or consequence of numerous indirect issues in urbanisation - such as taxation, obesity, national security and social capital. This apparent "vigour" of the concept across a broad body of research is the fundamental motivation for the work presented in this thesis. The starting point of the research is an engagement with the concept of "sprawl" itself. Observations of the literature suggest that its usage is highly conflicted and lacking in consensus - in stark contrast to the obvious certainty in which stances with respect to "urban sprawl" are often defended. In this thesis the response to the ill-defined nature of "sprawl" is based on four interrelated propositions.