Just as Chattanooga celebrates designation as a National Park City, a Newsweek article says new satellite images from NASA "reveal just how much the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee has changed in just two decades as a result of urban expansion."
The article says, "In a stunning visual comparison, satellite images taken 23 years apart -by the Landsat 7 satellite in 2001 and the Landsat 8 satellite in 2024 - highlight the transformation of Chattanooga from a mid-sized manufacturing town into a sprawling metropolitan area."
The article says the "once lightly populated outskirts now hum with new residential developments, shopping centers and industrial parks" and the population has grown from 350,000 to 437,000.
It cites the city's revived manufacturing sector and a rash of new residential developments.
It says there was a 134 percent increase in urban land area (approximately 33 square miles) between 1984 and 2021, which "leads to more impervious surfaces like roads and rooftops, sometimes contributing to problems with flooding and water quality."
The article is at https://www.newsweek.com/nasa-satellite-image-tennessee-chattanooga-urbanization-2058554