Global trends and local variations in land take per person

Globally, urban areas are growing at a faster rate than their population, potentially reducing environmental sustainability due to undesirable land take in (semi)natural and agricultural lands. However, it is unclear what extent this trend varies locally, which may hamper the formulation implementation of local-scale policies context global competition for land. Here, we attribute built-up change population dynamics changes per person, >75,000 administrative regions worldwide, typically representing municipalities or counties. Results show that expressed as area capita, relate 38.3%, 49.6%, 37.5% total increase during periods 1975–1990, 1990–2000, 2000–2015, respectively, but with large local variations. Interestingly, find centres cities densify all three periods, while rural an opposite development, suggesting polarization effect. We also densification many Global South already have high density, leading potential trade-offs terms human wellbeing. Therefore, our work provides novel insights into debate on sustainable development scale.