Fifty nine percent of the world's growth and development is taking place on prime land. Farmland serves as a source for local tax dollars, which helps keep a stable economy in rural areas. Farmland provides a buffer between residential areas and areas such as highways and industrial land. This cuts down on noise and gives the air a chance to be dispersed and cleaned(Dekalb). .
Farmland also means jobs to may people. When people think about jobs associated with farmland most of the time they only see the farmers or the ones planting and harvesting crops as the ones effected by its loss. In reality though many other jobs depend on farmland such as people who work in grain elevators, farm machinery salesmen, farm machinery mechanics, livestock feed producers, livestock producers, and many more. Along with producing money for many people farmland is also much cheaper to maintain compared to residential and industrial areas because of the need of fewer public services. .
The growing population of our country also plays a large role in urban sprawl. Over half of the nations urban sprawl is contributed to rising populations(Kolankeiwicz). Eighty percent of us now live in urban areas this is scary because at the rate we are growing and sprawling there will be no rural land left in a matter of years(American). From 1969 to 1989 the population of the United States increased by twenty three percent, and from 1983 to 1987 the population increased by 9.2 million people alone(highway). Those facts are just a small sample of what has happened over the past decades. Along with a rising population comes a rising number of vehicles being driven on United State's roadways. From 1983 to 1987 the number of cars and trucks being driven increased by 20.1 million; and the number of miles driven by our population climbed ninety eight percent(highway). All of these extra vehicles and miles being driven are starting to take its toll on our environment from our increase of air pollution to our declining amount of clean ground water; steps need to be taken to reverse these effects(CBS).