Financial costs of urban sprawl: a case study of housing development in Penang State

Penang State experienced rapid urban development for the past three decades. Urban sprawl is a global phenomenon and is characterised by increase in population growth in urban areas, migration, change in built-up areas and spatial form. Urban sprawl creates economic, social and environmental costs such as environmental degradation due to more intensive land and car use as well as economic challenges brought about by increased distance to jobs, goods and service markets. Infrastructure costs seem to increase in new sprawling development than compact development. It becoming more difficult to pay for the additional costs incurred by urban sprawl. The purpose of this study is to examine the development of urban sprawl and to quantify financial costs. This paper adopts a case study approach. Mathematical and statistical analysis are applied on actual, adjusted, additional and hypothetical data. The descriptive statistics include central tendency applications, cross tabulation analysis and inferential statistics analysis which include the General linear Model (GLM). The results indicate that all the five districts in Penang State are sprawling. The results cross tabulation analysis revealed that development in city center is costly due to high land cost. The estimation techniques (GLM) are analysis of variance-one- way ANOVA, Pos Hoc analysis and T- Test. The results indicate that there is significant cost variations on Penang Island as compared to Seberang Perai. The most significant infrastructure cost is sewerage costs. Housing development farther from city center is cheaper. The additional infrastructure costs are significant to location of housing projects. It is hope that the study can contribute valuable information to the enhancement of sustainable urban development in Penang State.