Why is there an urban pattern toward sprawling development?

In the last two decades, Taipei metropolitan area has undergone a spatial development pattern – some areas appear to show a sprawling development trend, while others show a compact development trend. With a multinomial logit model, this paper discusses the causes behind the discrepant urban development trends; covering social economy, institutional change of land use, spatial location, transportation and public infrastructure plans. Moreover, the study has discovered that the continued population migration to the Taipei metropolitan area has made habitation in the urban centre so costly that people choose to live in suburban areas. This is how the sprawling development pattern has come into shape. In summary, the impact factors on the urban development discrepancy come from the (a) institutional change: the diversified land use has contributed to the sprawling development; (b) transportation: the mass rapid transport system has brought in the compact development, while the expressway and highway systems have lifted the urban sprawling development; and (c) public infrastructures: major governmental construction projects have made the spatial development patterns fractional and scattered.