From the book Coastal Sprawl

Coastal counties cover 17% of the land area of the United States, but it is home to more than half of America’s citizens. More than half of the nation’s population increase will funnel into this narrow corridor along the edge of the ocean. Some large coastal metropolitan areas are consuming land ten times as fast as they are adding new residents. Across the country, driving has increased at three to four times the increase in population. Abundant research on rivers and estuaries confirms that when imperious surface covers more than ten percent of a watershed, the rivers, creeks, and estuaries they surround become biologically degraded. A one acre parking lot produces about 16 times the volume of runoff that comes from a one-acre meadow. These magnified "pulses" of runoff alter stream flow and the shape of the stream channel. Streams in watersheds with more than ten percent hard surface becomes physically unstable, causing erosion and sedimentation. Overall, habitat quality falls below the level necessary to sustain a broad diversity of aquatic life. Urban runoff transports a vast assemblage of pollutants into the aquatic environment, including sediments; nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus; organic carbon, trace metals such as copper, zinc, and lead; petroleum hydrocarbons; and pesticides. Urban streams have the second highest levels of nitrates and phosphorus, exceeded only by waters adjacent to row-crop agriculture. If today’s growth continues, in the next 25 years, many healthy waterbodies will experience sharp and irreversible declines.

During the mid 1990’s, Florida saw an additional 4,400 new residents every week. As populations have spread out, driving distance have lengthened. Nationally, the average commuter trip was 20% longer in 1995 than in 1983. Further, more driving has produced more traffic congestion and slower average driving speed. In Miami interstate highway travel speeds dropped from 53 to 41 miles per hour, between 1983 and 1997. All of this translates into more fuel used and an increase in air and water pollution. More than one-fourth of all of the land converted from rural to urban and suburban uses since 1500 occurred in only 15 years. This 25 million acre expansion represents an area roughly the size of Ohio. During the same 15 years period, between 1982 and 1997, population grew by 15%.