Weekly Blog for Class 9: How Does Urbanization Affect the Environment?
As I am currently living in one of the biggest cities in the world and the biggest city in the United States, it seems appropriate to base this blog entry around the effects of urban places and the phenomenon of urbanization has on the environment. In today’s society, half of the world’s total population lives in urban areas, despite only 2.8% of Earth’s land surface being considered urban. The culmination of these two statistics alone is enough to display how dense the populations of cities are in this day and age. However, the Earth’s population was not always distributed like this as this change has come in the most recent century, thanks to this idea of urbanization previously mentioned.
Urbanization is a term used to describe the movement of people from out of rural and suburban areas to urban cities. Two major causes of urbanization are immigration and a generally higher rate of natural increase. Urbanization began in the 19th century in the U.S. and is still a trend to exist today and a number of early environmental problems of the past were eliminated during the following century, but in less advanced, poorer cities major environmental problems are still around. Reasons for these problems are based around poor infrastructure including factors like, travel routes, water supply, and sewage systems. Urbanization has also created “urban sprawl”, which refers to the geographic expansion at the edges of cities that tends to threaten agricultural and wildlife lands, both of which are environmentally harmful. While not all instances of urban sprawl are damaging in the same way that not all cities are, certain cases are some of the U.S.’s biggest threats against environmental protection.
It is important to acknowledge the widespread population growth that has also contributed to high population density in urban areas. Since 1950, the world population has nearly tripled and there is currently an average growth rate of 241,000 people per day. Believe it or not, the growth rate is not at an all time high, but exponential population growth is still occurring. The graph to the below shows not only the historic rate of population growth and population size, but also projections of each shown in the blue. Increased population size and a globally higher per-person rate of resource usage have come together to cause human activity to degrade roughly 60% of natural capital. Population growth is not something that can be easily slowed down and at the current rate of resource usage, it is clear that a more sustainable lifestyle is the more appropriate response to the problem at hand.
With such a high concentration of the population in cities, making city life more sustainable is a key step in ensuring the environmental safety for future generations of humans. Some notable environmental problems in urban areas include a very large environmental footprint and typical lack of green spaces and vegetation, which can make each more threatening when you think about how essential plants are in absorbing carbon dioxide. Let’s first analyze what is causing the size of the environmental footprint. Due to the size of the population, the resource intake of cities is much higher, which then causes there to be more waste being put out as well with typically less area to dispose of this waste. Another major factor is the high amount of motor vehicles that are found in cities. The latter of these two problems seems to have a much more straightforward solution than the first in my mind, which is the expansion of public transportation systems. Though New York City has a great public transit system, many other American cities do not, hence why you always hear stories about how bad the Los Angeles traffic is. Two alternatives to cars come in the form of public buses and train systems. As a whole the U.S. rail system is far behind Europe’s, which also explains why they have such a lower amount of vehicles compared to us. Shown on the lower left hand side are the advantages and disadvantages of transitioning over to bus and train systems. The major plus in my mind in regards to the bus system would be that car usage is reduced, which in turn causes carbon emissions to decrease. As explored in previous entries, cars are one of the biggest contributors of atmospheric carbon dioxide and to climate change as a whole. Trains are also a more
pollution friendly alternative to cars, but do require a large amount of funding in order to develop and maintain rail systems. In terms of handling the lack of green space in cities, I think the only way that this problem can be solved is by thinking outside the box. Rooftop gardens are a great way to grow vegetation in cities and should be something that a majority of buildings have. I also think that the maintenance of pre-existing green areas is key as there is no benefit of having them if they’re unhealthy or covered in trash. These are just some of the areas of urban sustainability that stood out to me, the book lists other problems and potential solutions, which can be found below.
Word Count: 867
Question: If recycling is more feasible in urban areas, what are some examples of local recycling facilities or organizations?
