You are right. "Zersiedlung" is a term of art in land-use and development planning to describe the undirected expansion of settlements into rural areas. I happe

You are right. "Zersiedlung" is a term of art in land-use and development planning to describe the undirected expansion of settlements into rural areas. I happen to work in the periphery of planning and approval and the term comes up quite often. The English equivalent would be the mentioned "suburban sprawl".