I’m a bit of a small-town kid at heart, so there’s always something a surprising being in towns with roads that don’t end at 30th. Omaha, Nebraska, has is my first foray into city living (though Omaha residents will tell you this is a large town, not a city). One day early in my time here, I found myself driving west doing some errands. Not only the avenue count started surprising me, but the sheer number of new homes and bulldozed landscapes blew me away. I instantly found myself grabbing my phone to start documenting these rapidly changing landscapes. I started making dedicated trips with my Nikon to dedicate these rapidly growing areas of the city. The hot housing market over the last few years has undoubtedly contributed to the explosion of new homes.

I have many questions when it comes to urban sprawl. Who will inhabit these new converted farmlands on the edge of town? Who are the intended residents? Who won’t be living here? And further: What does the loss of farmland—which was prairie before that—mean? What does it mean that existing homes in the older core of Omaha are decaying while we build new ones further out?

I also don’t mean to portray this project as solely a critique of uncontrolled growth, capitalism, monotony, and habitat and farming land loss. As with many issues, this is a complex one. For many people, these new homes represent opportunity. Places to raise new families. Perhaps fewer of the issues that plague the older buildings in Omaha’s central core. Our society is structured to often make it much easier to get new things than fix the old.

These photos represent my first few years documenting sprawl on the outskirts of Omaha.

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