Journal of Environmental Protection, 2012, 3, 1010-1019 http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jep.2012.39117 Published Online September 2012 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/jep) Urban Sprawl and the Challenges for Urban Planning Maurício Polidoro 1,2 , José Augusto de Lollo 3 , Mirian Vizintim Fernandes Barros 4 1 Federal University of Sao Carlos, Sao Carlos, Brazil; 2 Federal University of Parana, Curitiba, Brazil; 3 Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho, São Paulo, Brazil; 4 Londrina State University, Londrina, Brazil. Email: polidoro@ufpr.br, lolloja@dec.feis.unesp.br, vizintim@uel.br Received April 20 th , 2012; revised May 25 th , 2012; accepted June 27 th , 2012 ABSTRACT Dispersed urbanization, urban planning and management instruments such as zoning, and urban expansion zones, have become increasingly consistent in leading cities toward an uncertain and chaotic future. The urban perimeters of mu- nicipalities have been used increasingly in favor agents of the reproduction of unequal urban space, aggravating the process of socio-spatial segregation, the formation of urban gaps and real estate speculation. Inherent to this process, infrastructure, one of the most important components of urban land and one of the most costly for local governments, has become increasingly dispersed and obsolete in the midst of the disordered occupation of the city’s land. Based on the above, this paper aims to analyze the phenomenon of urban sprawl in the city of Londrina by means of geotech- nologies and to identify the impacts that the form of land occupation the city has employed may cause on the current and future scenario of the municipality in general. To this end, thematic maps were drawn up from multiple sources, which, allied to a review of the literature, indicate that the municipality of Londrina exhibits intense characteristics of the phenomenon of urban sprawl, leading to consequences for territorial ordering and the egalitarian spatial distribution of essential services to the population. Keywords: Urbanization; Geotechnologies; Urban Planning; Urban Gaps 1. Introduction Brazilian urbanization has specific dual characteristics: on the one hand is the formal city and on the other, the informal one, both of which result from the lack of terri- torial planning and ordering. The formal city is the one composed of areas equipped with infrastructure in which public investments are con- centrated, while the “informal city” is characterized as the region where growth is disordered and unplanned, and where the lack of infrastructure and the socio envi- ronmental differences are alarming. Rolnik (2001) [1] stated that institutionalized urban planning in Brazil dates back to the 1970s. This is the period when the chasm in the evolution of the urban landscape in medium-sized and large cities became ob- vious. On the one hand there was “urbanity”, the attempt to install territorial ordering and infrastructure, while on the other was the illegal installation of homes, lack of organization and social vulnerability, with urban gaps scattered throughout the territory. Those model of urban occupation commonly found in Brazilian citiesis the conspicuous materialization of the hegemonic interests of the agents that produce urban space, such as real estate agents. Despite major advances achieved in urban legislation as a result of the Federal Constitution of 1988, and later, through the City Statute and numerous instruments avail- able for effective and coherent urban planning and man- agement, some of these instruments are widely used in detriment to others. Urban expansion zones and the urban perimeter, for example, are important instruments that, in theory, can control the city’s encroachment into rural areas, preserv- ing the latter and making the best possible use of the in- frastructure installed in already occupied areas. However, these instruments are notoriously used to create urban gaps for the valuation of land, which has become one of the major producers of value and accumulation of capital in cities. In Brazil, it is common to use the expansion of urban zones to allocate social interest housing and middle and low-cost housing projects in locations far removed from the consolidated city center. Thus, the infrastructure in- stalled in certain regions serves as a factor for land val- uation, while the city outskirts suffer for the lack of or poor quality infrastructure, as well as difficulties in trans- portation due to the precarious system of public transport to the regions where jobs are concentrated. All these characteristics, resulting primarily from the form of urban occupation, define what many American researchers (especially urban engineers) call urban sprawl, Copyright © 2012 SciRes. JEP