Urbanization of Land in the Northeastern United States

About 85 percent of the rural land urbanized in 96 counties in 12 Northeastern States went to residential use during 1950-60. The remaining 15 percent was used for industrial, commercial, institutional, and recreational purposes, and for airports. Residential use was mainly open type; that is, land averaged above 0.5 acre per dwelling. About 50 percent of the land urbanized was cropland. Land going to urban use was largely the better farmland--about 80 percent was in land use capability classes I-III. For the entire study area, about .22 acre of land was converted to urban use for each person added to the population