Living in sprawling areas: a cost–benefit analysis in Poland

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Suburbanization still remains the key urbanization process in the world. Urban sprawl, as a specific manifestation of suburban morphology, belongs to the urban phenomena that is very often studied but still remains ambivalent. The ambivalence of the assessment results from the problems of weighing costs and benefits generated by sprawl. At the same time, there is a gap in international research on the costs and benefits of urban sprawl for households. Therefore, the aim of this article is to analyze and evaluate the household budgets in Poland in terms of potential costs and benefits of living in an urban sprawl area. The research hypothesis that households causing urban sprawl achieve net budgetary benefits was also adopted. In order to achieve the aim and verify the hypothesis, the data on the budgets of Polish households purchased from the Polish Central Statistical Office was used, and a questionnaire survey was carried out to determine the conclusions. The research hypothesis was not confirmed. The analysis and evaluation of many income and expenditure items of household budgets indicate that net costs in a significant group of budget items is high, while net benefits are relatively low. Households relocating to the sprawl zone, striving to meet their own needs, do not fully take into account all operating expenditures and ultimately incur net costs.