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Effects of urbanization on the environment
Environmental effects of urbanization
The consequences of urban sprawl
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At a global growth rate of 80 million people a year, the discussion about what precautions must be taken to combat urban sprawl and overpopulation have come into question (Growth). To determine the most appropriate means of combating this issue, it is important that we understand the points presented by both sides of the debate. Proponents to the issue push that there is a need to expand into suburbs in an attempt to accommodate the growing shortage of affordable housing. As availability of homes becomes smaller, people across the country have been forced to purchase housing at rates 56% higher then the construction cost, all due to a lack of enough houses to supply (CNBC). Opponents to the topic, however, stress the environmental repercussions caused by the expansion of suburbs. To mention one consequence of urban sprawl could include the increased commute time of residence, who “on average, make ten car trips a day,” unnecessarily contributing additional pollution to the atmosphere (Sprawl). …show more content…
Proponents strive to provide security by offering more secure resource allocation in suburbs, as increased populations in cities begins to place a strain on the availability of resources. Indeed, environmentally damaging practices such water mining have become more popular as resource demand in cities has grown (Growth). In return, opponents stress the value of efficiency and animal rights. By encouraging more efficient resource usage, and improving standards of living within cities, opponents seek to reduce the need for urbanization. In slowing down urbanization, opponents seek to prevent the depletion of food sources and animal habitats, as urbanization causes an annual loss of 1.2 million acres of farmland and destroys ecosystems
People will be more willing and capable of living in denser, more efficient environments only when the underlying culture that sustains sprawl is altered. The sense of the American community needs to be re-established if there is to be any real progress in the battle against sprawl. The REAL problem here then, is that changing the culture of a state, of a nation, is a very long and difficult undertaking…
to fund public programs or make general improvements throughout the community. Urban sprawl is expensive not only on people’s wallets, but is taxing on their health, the environment, their relationships. The.. After examining all of the problems associated with urban sprawl it is hard not to question how America lost the genuine communities of old and adopted the new community of
To simply say gentrification is good or bad would ignore the intricacies of this complicated issue. This essay will explore both the positive and negative consequences of gentrification, as well as how policymakers can balance the pros and cons of the process through public policy and further research. Lees et al. (2008, p. xv) define gentrification as “the transformation of a working-class or vacant area of the central city into middle-class residential and/or commercial use.” This essay will focus on gentrified areas that transform from working-class to middle-to-upper class, since these transformations are more commonly accepted as gentrification and have more impact overall. It is debated whether transformation of vacant areas is gentrification
Gentrification does not follow traditional urban growth theory, which predicts ?the decline of inner city areas as monied classes move to the metropolitan fringe.? The traditional economic model of real estate says that wealthy people can choose their housing from the total city market (Schwirian 96). Once these people decide to live in the suburbs, the lower social classes move into the old homes of the upper class, essentially handing housing down the socioeconomic ladder. Gentrification is actually a reversal of this process. For a variety of reasons, many inner city areas are becoming more attractive to the wealthy, and they are selecting their housing in those areas (Schwirian 96). The problem is that now when the wealthy take over poor homes and renovate them, the poor cannot afford the housing that the wealthy have abandoned. Many researchers have argued whether gentrification has truly created problems in cities. I will analyze the arguments for and against gentrification by exploring the subject from both sides.
Gentrification is the keystone for the progression of the basic standards of living in urban environments. A prerequisite for the advancement of urban areas is an improvement of housing, dining, and general social services. One of the most revered and illustrious examples of gentrification in an urban setting is New York City. New York City’s gentrification projects are seen as a model for gentrification for not only America, but also the rest of the world. Gentrification in an urban setting is much more complex and has deeper ramifications than seen at face value. With changes in housing, modifications to the quality of life in the surrounding area must be considered as well. Constant lifestyle changes in a community can push out life-time
Gentrification is generally a sign of growth in economics. As money flows into a neighborhood, many characteristics of everyday life are transformed for the “better”. Buildings and parks are modernized and revamped. Jobs become available with the increased construction activity and new service and retail businesses. The funding for local public schools will increase as the property tax base increases. There are many benefits of gentrification. However, the questions posed by critics of gentrification are, "Do new and old residents alike equally share the benefits of economic growth?" and "Socially, what is the cost of economic growth?" These two questions provoke a host of others, such as: Who benefits the most from this growth? What will be the damage to the cultural and social fabric of the neighborhood with the arrival of new expectations, tastes, and demographics?
Urban sprawl is the effect of the suburbs—houses that are further apart than in the city, grocery stores that are too far away to walk to, better school districts, better roads than in the country. Urban sprawl has been increasing since soon after World War II, when cities were booming and automobiles became a main source of transportation. There are pros and cons to urban sprawl. One of the cons is the possible affect on air quality because of the necessity of driving in the suburbs. Nothing is close enough to walk to, so people drive to work, to the grocery store, to pick up the kids from school, etc. In the middle of a city, the grocery store is probably easy to walk to than drive to and public transportation is readily available and cuts down on automobile use. The cost of providing transportation goes up when the population goes down. This makes the possibility of creating good public transportation in small towns very low. I grew up in Champaign, a town of about 120,000, which has a great public transportation (bus) system. Eureka, Illinois, is small enough to walk around in, but few people walk because they all own cars. A city that is a suburb has even more problems, because it is often a bedroom community with no grocery stores, etc, so it is necessary to drive everywhere. One solution to these problems that the website suggests is a Personal Rapid Transportation system (PRT). PRT offers individual pod cars which are automatically driven on a gridline in a city and its suburbs. PRT is unique because it offers privacy (individual cars for a few people) and goes to the destination that the passenger picks instead of sticking to a schedule. PRT could be used to transport goods and people. Because PRT pods are light, the gridlines could be small and take up less space, and would therefore be cheaper. PRT would decrease air pollution, in part because of decreased starting and stopping time and the possibility of using electric or solar power. PRT is currently only in two cities: Morgantown, West Virginia and London Heathrow Airport.
This creates a whole new world for animals and plants to live in while reversing the effects of extinction. In addition, urban rewilding can also have a large impact on human health. First, urban rewilding helps to increase air quality by “80%” (Source A). This is because of the increase of plants in the area that allow more oxygen to get into the atmosphere. This can help solve the air pollution problem, which is more serious in urban communities.
These motives are behind the current world’s 50% urbanization rate. Among all countries, Canada heads the urbanization process with 80% of its total area (Snell par.7). The ever-increasing urbanization rate is characterized by human-related destructive activities, which lead to creation of urban centers by destroying inherent biodiversity. The rate is increasing each passing day. However, one thing to note is that destructive activities embody the causes of urban biodiversity wicked problem. The easy way of identification provides land conversion, climate change, consumerism, land fragmentation, and invasive species as the main causes of the wicked problem of urban biodiversity. These causes constitute every aspect of urban life. For instance, there is no way that people living in urban areas can do without proper infrastructures (such as houses, roads, and communication lines). All kinds of infrastructure need space, and, in creating it, there is clearance of all natural vegetation and conversion of land to other uses. The result is annihilation of nature and predisposition of climatic changes. The only easy approach to identify an appropriate solution to the wicked problem of urban biodiversity is to decrease the rate of urbanization by
With respect to housing, Kwame Ture and Charles V. Hamilton name programs of urban renewal, and suburban zoning laws, as two principal factors that are responsible for the abject conditions black residents face in “ghettos” (Ture and Hamilton 156). Urban renewal is a process by which poor (and usually black) residents of an urban area are forcibly evicted and relocated, so as to facilitate the return of wealthy (and usually white) residents. Ture and Hamilton note that in an eastern urban area of St. Louis called Mill Creek, “a black slum was cleared and in its place rose a middle-income housing development” (Ture and Hamilton 156). This process inevitably exponentiates the crisis of overpopulation in the remaining black ghetto areas.
Indeed, many global cities face compelling urban planning issues like urban sprawl, population, low density development, overuse of non-renewable natural recourses, social inequities and environmental degradation. These issues affect the cities themselves, the adjacent regions and often even globally. The resulting ecological footprint upsets the balance in adjacent rural and natural areas. Unplanned or organic development leads to urban sprawl, traffic problems, pollution and slums (as evident in the case of Mumbai city). Such unplanned development causes solid waste management and water supply to fall inadequate. Urban sprawl gives rise to low density development and car dependent communities, consequently leading to increased urban flooding, low energy efficiency, longer travel time and destruction of croplands, forests and open spaces for development.
Nowadays, more than half of the world population lives in cities. Urban populations consume 75% of the world 's natural resources and generate 75% of waste. Cities have become consumers of enormous amounts of natural resources and generating massive environmental
First of all, overpopulation drastically affects the land. Possibly the most prominent example of the depreciating health and amount of land is the need for developments. Due to the exploding population in the United States, about 1.2 million acres of land every year is being converted to subdivisions, malls, workplaces, roads, parking lots, resorts, and many other developments (“Overpopulation,” Internet). That is a substantial amount of land being overturned to satisfy human desires. To put it in better perspective, between 1982 and 1997, the land mass lost to development is equal to the size of Maine and New Hampshire combined, which is approximately 25 million acres (“Overpopulation,” Internet). While soil is being ruptured for human preference, the number of cities has remarkably modified. In 1975, Mexico City, Tokyo, and New York City were the only cities considered as megacities (“Special,” Internet). In today’s world, that number is considerably small. Now, there are 21 megacities in the world. A megacity is when the population of that city becomes greater than 10 million people (“Special,” Internet). Therefore, the 21 megacities that are currently in the world holds more than 21...
An emerging issue is that of urban sprawl. While some aspects of urban sprawl has been seen since ancient times, this phenomenon has started gaining the most momentum in the past century, aided by the advancement of technology, especially with the rise of mass produced automobiles, houses and highway systems. Many people unknowingly contribute to this environmental problem, as is the nature of it. Urban sprawl deals with the growth of the suburbs, the area between the urban and rural areas of a city. Most of America’s largest cities and states, in terms of population, are prime examples of urban sprawl. Opponents of urban sprawl usually cite the government as a major cause of sprawl. The government may be a major catalyst of sprawl in the present day, but history of sprawl dates back to mainly an economic and social root rather than political. Ironically, urban sprawl is also known as rural sprawl; the terms just refer to the spreading of urban population and area into rural areas (Cornell University). With the encroachment of human development comes the destruction of wilderness areas, something that is commonly known to contribute to a wide variety of environmental problems. Automobiles are also a major part of sprawl, contributing to the depleting supply of global oil and the addition of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Noticing these negative effects, some communities around the country and the world are taking measures to reduce their city’s sprawl, ultimately saving the environment.
The Negative Effects of Urbanization on People and their Environment As our world becomes increasingly globalized, numerous people travel to urban areas in search of economic prosperity. As a consequence of this, cities in periphery countries expand at rates of 4 to 7 percent annually. Many cities offer entrepreneurs the potential for resources, labor, and resources. With prosperity, cities also allow the freedom of a diversity of ways of life and manners (Knox & Marston, 2012). However, in the quest to be prosperous, increasing burdens are placed on our health and the condition of our environment.