🏗️ What sprawling growth patterns mean for land, food, and resilience

If you've read our post on why Texas is losing farmland, you know that millions of acres of agricultural land are disappearing. But it’s not just that we’re losing land.

It’s how we're developing that land — and Texas does it differently than most.

🧭 What Makes Texas Growth Different?

Texas is famous for open space, fast growth, and affordability. But that comes at a cost: we tend to build out, not up.

A 2021 study on the Texas Triangle (Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio) found that:

1. 95% of new development from 2001–2016 occurred in metro peripheries, not within cities.
2. Most of that development was low-density sprawl: subdivisions, big-box retail, highways, and parking lots.
3. Growth was driven more by car infrastructure and population booms than by compact or walkable planning.

📚 Source: Guo & Zhang (2021), MDPI Land

Compared to other major U.S. regions like the Pacific Northwest, Northeast Corridor, or parts of Europe, Texas growth tends to be:

1. Faster
2. Cheaper per square foot at the outset
3. Far more land-consuming per household

That’s how we end up losing 3.7 million acres of working land in 25 years, while many states lost far less.

🌎 The Global Contrast

Globally, many developed countries prioritize smart growth and land-use planning:

1. In countries like Germany or the Netherlands, zoning limits sprawl and protects agricultural belts.
2. Japan maintains dense, transit-oriented cities with green space protections outside.
3. Even many U.S. states—like Maryland, Oregon, and Massachusetts—invest heavily in compact development, land conservation, and urban growth boundaries.

Texas has relatively few land-use regulations statewide, leaving cities and counties with limited tools to direct growth. That’s part of why we lead the nation in conversion of agricultural land to development—and why that development is often the least efficient in terms of land use.

🌳 What’s at Stake?

When we pave land inefficiently, we don’t just lose farmland. We lose:

1. Flood control from healthy soils
2. Carbon storage from grasslands and forests
3. Biodiversity from fragmented wildlife habitat
4. Efficient infrastructure (low-density areas cost more per person to service)

A Texas A&M Forest Service report found that:

Texas forests alone provide $90+ billion in annual ecosystem services, including $51 billion related to water.

Yet many of these forests are being cleared for low-density growth.

📚 Source: Texas A&M Forest Service, 2021

In the San Antonio River Basin, researchers found that:

1. Rangelands declined by 65%, while urban land rose by 29% over 15 years
2. The region lost over $6 million in ecosystem service value due to sprawl

📚 Source: Kreuter et al., Journal of Environmental Management, 2017

🐄 And Yes, Farms Feel It First

Farms aren’t just displaced — they’re fragmented. A 1,000-acre cattle ranch outside Dallas might shrink to 80 acres surrounded by cul-de-sacs. That land is:

1. Harder to work
2. Harder to irrigate or rotate
3. More vulnerable to noise, runoff, and pressure to sell

And once it’s gone? That land almost never returns to production.

This is one reason Texas leads the country in “threatened farmland” — land that is productive, accessible, and at highest risk of being developed.

📚 Source: American Farmland Trust, Farms Under Threat 2040

🚶 So What’s the Alternative?

We’re not anti-growth. But other places show it’s possible to grow smarter:

1. Invest in compact, mixed-use development
2. Direct housing and jobs toward existing city infrastructure
3. Preserve working lands through easements and planning tools
4. Prioritize nature-based solutions in city design

These approaches:

1. Use less land per person
2. Lower infrastructure and energy costs
3. Protect regional food systems, water, and resilience

🌱 Where Delve Fits In

At Delve, our mission isn’t to design cities—but to help people experience what’s at stake when development goes unchecked.

When you visit a local farm, hear from a rancher, or explore native land stewardship, you see what makes these spaces irreplaceable.

Our goal is to make it easier to:

1. Understand the value of working lands
2. Support small producers under pressure
3. Explore land use with curiosity and care

And through that, we help build support for protecting what still remains.

📣 Want to Learn More?

Check out these posts to dig deeper:

1. Why Texas Is Losing Farmland — and Why It Matters
2. Texas Working Lands: Then & Now (insert correct slug once finalized)

Or learn from these leaders in land conservation and planning:

1. American Farmland Trust
2. Texas Land Conservancy
3. Texas A&M NRI

🛤️ Let’s Grow More Intentionally

Texas will keep growing—and that's not a bad thing. But the way we grow shapes the land, the food system, and the future.

At Delve, we invite you to explore what's being lost—and what's still worth protecting.

Book a farm experience. Start a conversation. See the land up close.