Urban Sprawl and Sustainable Development in Ghanaian Cities: A Systematic Review of Environmental Sustainability

Abstract

Urban sprawl in Ghana is most pronounced in large cities such as Accra, Kumasi, and Tamale. Inadequate urban growth policies, coupled with the prevalence of customary land tenure systems, have encouraged horizontal urban expansion at the expense of agricultural lands and bioclimatic zones. Rapid, low-density development on the outskirts of Ghana's largest cities is reshaping land use, service provision, and social organization in ways that compromise the country's progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. This review explored how urban sprawl intersects the three pillars of sustainable development during 2000-2025. A PRISMA-guided systematic Scopus, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar search yielded 57 qualifying sources, which were coded and thematically synthesised. The findings demonstrate that: (1) rampant peri-urban expansion hastens wetland, forest, and agricultural land destruction, expands urban heat island impacts, and increases flood risk; (2) urban sprawl entrenches spatial inequity as it renders essential services inaccessible, displaces indigenous persons, and increases daily travel distances; and (3) the low-density urban form model has drastic fiscal implications for municipal governments as it distorts land values and degrades peri-urban livelihoods and ultimately food security. They are exacerbated by inefficient land-use management, speculative land markets, and fragmented infrastructure planning. The paper proposes a multi-level conceptual framework linking demographic pressures, tenure regimes, and infrastructure corridors to the social, economic, and environmental implications that have been identified. Policy recommendations include the establishment of growth boundaries, integrating customary authorities in statutory planning, investment in transit-oriented and mixed-use development, and the rehabilitation of critical green infrastructure. Cumulatively, these actions have the potential to guide Ghana's urban trajectory towards a denser, more equitable, and climate-resilient future.