Sustainable Development Compatible With Liveability

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Recommended: The nature of sustainable development

Recently, there are growing debates over the sustainability and the liveability of our cities. Some argue that sustainable development is necessary if human want to stay alive, while some oppose to sustainable development as they placed sustainability in the opposite side of liveability and suspect that these practices may hinder their present luxurious lifestyle. However, it is a common fallacy in people’s mind. The concept of sustainability is compatible to liveability, instead of contradicting to each other. In the following essay, this argument will be justified.

Some people may concern that sustainable practices in urban content may obstruct the liveability of the city. In the year 2012, Hong Kong awarded as the most liveable city in the world by the Economist Intelligence Unit (Yoo, 2012) and also ranked third among Asia’s cities in the research done by the ECA international (ECA international, 2012). Hong Kong, with extremely bad air quality and income disparity ranked top in the liveability charts owing to its’ high global connectivity, extensive infrastructure and good transport connections. This reflects that some people assume a liveable city should have great connections, efficient and having extensive infrastructure that supporting the global business and trading. As they evaluate liveability from the economic point of view, no wonder they are being conservative towards sustainable measures which they believed will increase the cost of businesses and hinder the economic development of the city (Munier, 2006).However, they are having this view point due to their misunderstandings towards sustainability and liveability.

There are a lot of different definitions of “sustainability”.According to Collins Dictionary, it m...

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...://www.un.org/en/sustainablefuture/sustainability.shtml

World Footprint. (n.d.). Retrieved February 24, 2014, from Global Footprint Network: http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/gfn/page/world_footprint/

Roberto Camagni, Roberta Capello and Peter Nijkamp. (2001). Handbook of Urban Studies. London: SAGE Publications.
Shahriar Shafiee, Erkan Topal. (2009). When will fossil fuel reserves be diminished? Energy Policy, 181-189.

WONG, E. (2013, September 12). China’s Plan to Curb Air Pollution Sets Limits on Coal Use and Vehicles. Retrieved February 24, 2014, from The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/13/world/asia/china-releases-plan-to-reduce-air-pollution.html?_r=0

Yoo, A. (2012, July 09). And the Best City in the World Is…. Retrieved February 24, 2014, from Times NewsFeed: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/07/09/and-the-best-city-in-the-world-is/

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