Urbanization, the growth of cities and
megacities notes
Urbanization
Half of the World’s People Live in Urban Areas Urbanization is the creation and growth
of urban areas, or cities and their surrounding developed land. It is measured as the
percentage of the people in a country or in the world living in urban areas. Urban growth
is the rate of increase of urban populations. The world’s first cities emerged about 6,000
years ago. Since then, the world has become increasingly urbanized. Today 79% of
Americans and almost 50% of the world’s people live in urban areas).
Urban areas grow in two ways—
● by natural increase (more births than deaths)
● by immigration, mostly from rural areas.
Rural people are pulled to urban areas in search of jobs, food, housing, educational
opportunities, better health care, entertainment, and freedom from religious, racial, and
political conflicts. Some are also pushed from rural to urban areas by factors such as
poverty, lack of land for growing food, declining agricultural jobs, famine, and war.
People are also pushed and pulled to cities by government policies that favor urban
over rural areas. For example, developing countries tend to spend most of their budgets
on economic development and job creation in urban areas and especially in capital
cities where their leaders live. Some governments establish lower food prices in urban
areas, which rewards city dwellers, helps to keep leaders in power, and attracts the rural
poor.
Major trends in urban population dynamics do seem clear, and they are important for
understanding the problems and challenges of urban growth
1. the proportion of the global population living in urban areas is increasing.
Between 1850 and 2008, the percentage of people living in urban areas
increased from 2% to almost 50% and could reach 60% by 2030 Urbanization
continues to increase steadily and the numbers and sizes of urban areas are
growing rapidly, especially in developing countries. Most cities are
unsustainable because of high levels of resource use, waste, pollution, and
poverty. A combination of plentiful land, inexpensive fuel, and expanding
networks of highways in some countries has resulted in dispersed cities
whose residents depend on motor vehicles for most transportation.
2. Urbanization continues to increase steadily, and the numbers and sizes of
urban areas are growing rapidly, especially in developing countries. Cities
growth will occur in already overcrowded and stressed cities in developing
countries, where 44% of the people live in urban areas.
3. Urban areas are expanding rapidly in number and size. Each week 1 million
people are added to the world’s urban areas. Between 2008 and 2019, the
number of urban areas with a million or more people is projected to increase
from 400 to 564. And there are 18 megacities or megalopolises—cities with
10 million or more people—up from 8 in 1985. Fifteen of them are in
developing countries. Such megacities will soon be eclipsed by hypercities
with more than 20 million people each. So far, Tokyo, Japan, with 26.5 million
people, is the only city in this category. But according to U.N. projections,
Mumbai (formerly Bombay) in India, Lagos in Nigeria, Dakar in Bangladesh,
and São Paulo in Brazil will become hypercities
4. .Urban growth is much slower in developed countries than in developing
countries. Still, developed countries, now with 75% urbanization, are
projected to reach 81% urbanization by 2030.
5. Poverty is becoming increasingly urbanized, mostly in developing countries.
The United Nations estimates that at least 1 billion people in developing
countries live in crowded and unsanitary slums and shantytowns within most
cities or on their outskirts; within 30 years this number may double.
Urbanization in the United States
Between 1800 and 2008, the percentage of the U.S. population living in urban areas
increased from 5% to 79%. This population shift has occurred in four phases. First,
people migrated from rural areas to large central cities. Currently, three-fourths of
Americans live in cities with at least 50,000 people, and nearly half live in urban areas
with 1 million or more residents .
Many people migrated from large central cities to suburbs and smaller cities. Currently,
about half of urban Americans live in the suburbs, nearly a third in central cities, and the
rest in rural housing developments beyond suburbs.
Many people migrated from the North and East to the South and West. Since 1980,
about 80% of the U.S. population increase has occurred in the South and West.
Between 2008 and 2043, demographers project that the fastest growing U.S. states will
continue to be Nevada, Arizona, and Florida, although increased drought and heat
waves due to climate change may alter this trend. According to a 2006 study by the
Center for Environment and Population, the South and West also contain many of the
country’s ecological hotspots (Figure 10-27, p. 241) where biodiversity is being
threatened.
Since the 1970s, and especially since 1990, some people have fled both cities and
suburbs and migrated to developed rural areas. The result is rapid growth of
exurbs—housing developments scattered over vast areas that lie beyond suburbs and
have no socio-economic centers
Since 1920, many of the worst urban environmental problems in the United States have
been reduced significantly. Most people have better working and housing conditions,
and air and water quality have improved. Better sanitation, public water supplies, and
medical care have slashed death rates and incidences of sickness from malnutrition and
infectious diseases (Figure 6-6, p. 128). Concentrating most of the population in urban
areas also has helped protect the country’s biodiversity by reducing the destruction and
degradation of wildlife habitat. However, a number of U.S. cities—especially those that
are older—have deteriorating services and aging infrastructures (streets, bridges,
schools, housing, water supply pipes, dams, and sewers). Indeed, according to a 2007
study by the U.S. American Society of Civil Engineers, the United States has fallen $1.5
trillion behind in maintaining its vital public infrastructure. This maintenance backlog
amounts to an average of $5,000 for each U.S. citizen. Maintenance is not glamorous,
but without it, urban areas and much of the country can suffer from physical and
economic collapse as the costs of long-neglected repairs rise sharply. At a time when
there are urgent needs to upgrade rapidly declining infrastructure, many U.S. cities face
budget crunches and decreasing public services, as businesses and people move to the
suburbs and exurbs and city revenues from property taxes decline. And there is rising
poverty in the centers of many older cities, where unemployment rates are typically 50%
or higher.
Urban sprawl advantages and disadvantages notes
Urban Sprawl
In the United States and some other countries, urban sprawl—the growth of low-density
development on the edges of cities and towns—is eliminating surrounding agricultural
and wild lands. It results in a far-flung hodgepodge of housing developments, shopping
malls, parking lots, and office complexes that are loosely connected by multilane
highways and freeways. Six major factors promoted urban sprawl in the United States.
1. ample land was available for most cities to spread outward.
2. federal government loan guarantees for new single-family homes for World
War II veterans stimulated the development of suburbs starting around 1950.
3. low-cost gasoline and federal and state funding of highways encouraged
automobile use and the development of outlying tracts of land.
4. tax laws encouraged home ownership.
5. most state and local zoning laws favored large residential lots and separation
of residential and commercial areas.
6. most urban areas consist of multiple political jurisdictions, which rarely work
together to develop an overall plan for managing urban growth.
In a nutshell, urban sprawl is the product of affordable land, automobiles, cheap
gasoline, and poor urban planning. It has caused or contributed to a number of
environmental problems. Because of nonexistent or inadequate mass transportation in
most such areas, sprawl forces people to drive everywhere and, in the process, to emit
greenhouse gases and other forms of air pollution. Sprawl has decreased energy
efficiency, increased traffic congestion, and destroyed prime cropland, forests, and
wetlands. It has also led to the economic death of many central cities as people and
businesses moved out of these areas. On the other hand, many people prefer living in
suburbs and exurbs. Compared to central cities, these areas provide lower density living
and access to larger lot sizes and single-family homes. Often they also have newer
public schools and lower crime rates. As they grow outward, separate urban areas
sometimes merge to form a megalopolis. For example, the remaining open spaces
between the U.S. cities of Boston, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C., are rapidly
urbanizing and coalescing. The result is an almost 800-kilometer-long (500-mile-long)
urban area that contains about 35 million people and is sometimes called Bowash.
Megalopolises are developing all over the world and include the areas between
Amsterdam and Paris in Europe, Japan’s Tokyo–Yokohama–Osaka–Kobe corridor
known as Tokohama (with nearly 50 million people), and the Brazilian industrial triangle
made up of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte.
Urban sprawl news article
[Link]
stainability-urban-age
Links to an external site.
The Impacts of Urban Sprawl
Urban sprawl is the extension of low-density residential, commercial, and industrial
development into areas beyond a city’s boundaries that occurs in an unplanned or
uncoordinated manner. It is generally characterized by:
● low-density development that is dispersed and situated on large lots (greater
than one acre)
● geographic separation of essential places such as work, home, school, and
shopping
● high dependence on automobiles for travel
● increased impervious surface area in watersheds
● habitat fragmentation and degradation
Urban sprawl combines low density and fragmentation of the urban area , increases the
average travel distances for daily trips, and hinders a shift toward less energy-intensive
transportation modes.
The sprawling nature of cities is critically important because of the major impacts that
are evident in increased energy, land and soil consumption. These impacts threaten
both the natural and rural environments, raising greenhouse gas emissions that cause
climate change, and elevated air and noise pollution levels which often exceed the
agreed human safety limits. Thus, urban sprawl produces many adverse impacts that
have direct effects on the quality of life.
Health
If communities are not walkable or bikeable, we need to drive to schools, shops, parks,
entertainment, play dates, etc. Thus we become more sedentary. Residents of
sprawling counties were likely to walk less during leisure time and weigh more than
residents of compact counties. A sedentary lifestyle increases the risk of overall
mortality, cardiovascular disease, and some types of cancer. The effect of low physical
fitness is comparable to that of hypertension, high cholesterol and diabetes.
Consumption of Energy
A consequence of the increasing consumption of land and reductions in population
densities as cities sprawl is the growing consumption of energy. Generally, compact
urban developments with higher population densities are more energy efficient.
Evidence from 17 cities around the world shows a consistent link between population
density and energy consumption, and in particular high energy consumption rates that
are associated with lower population densities, characteristic of sprawling environments,
dependent on lengthy distribution systems that undermine efficient energy use.
Population density and energy consumption, selected World cities. Right: Population
density and CO2 emissions, selected European cities.
Transport related energy consumption in cities depends on a variety of factors including
the nature of the rail and road networks, the extent of the development of mass
transportation systems, and the modal split between public and private transport.
Evidence shows that there is a significant increase in travel related energy consumption
in cities as densities fall. Essentially, the sprawling city is dominated by relatively energy
inefficient car use, as the car is frequently the only practical alternative to more energy
efficient, but typically inadequate, relatively and increasingly expensive public
transportation systems. Increased transport related energy consumption is in turn
leading to an increase in the emission of CO2 to the atmosphere. Urban sprawl
therefore poses significant threats to the commitments to reduce GHG gas emissions.
Air pollution
Using fossil fuels also results in the emission of other gases and particulates that
degrade air quality (note that commuters generate emissions of air pollution, which
lowers the ambient quality of the air in areas they pass through and causes health
problems for other people). Longer transportation distances intensify traffic congestion,
resulting in lost productivity, and increase the need for more extensive infrastructure
(such as more highways) that negatively impact the environment by increasing the
amount of impervious cover and by requiring more natural resources. Finally, traffic
congestion and air pollution from driving contribute to an estimated 900,000 fatalities
per year worldwide.
Sprawling areas
Natural and Protected areas
The impacts of sprawl on natural areas are significant. The considerable impact of
urban sprawl on natural and protected areas is exacerbated by the increased proximity
and accessibility of urban activities to natural areas, imposing stress on ecosystems and
species through noise and air pollution. Immediate impacts such as the loss of
agricultural and natural land or the fragmentation of forests, wetlands and other habitats
are well known direct and irreversible impacts. Urban land fragmentation, with the
disruption of migration corridors for wildlife species, isolates these populations and can
reduce natural habitats to such an extent that the minimum area required for the viability
of species populations is no longer maintained.
Forrest fragmentation.
The environmental impacts of sprawl are evident in a number of ecologically sensitive
areas located in coastal zones and mountain areas. The Mediterranean coast, one of
the world’s 34 biodiversity hotspots, is particularly affected, and the increased demand
for water for urban use, competes with irrigation water for agricultural land. This problem
has been exacerbated by the increased development of golf courses in Spain, where
the over-extraction of groundwater has led to salt water intrusion into the groundwater.
Increased transit and tourist traffic, particularly day tourism from the big cities, also adds
to the exploitation of the mountain areas as a natural resource for ‘urban consumption’
by the lowland populations.
Rural Environments
The growth of European cities in recent years has primarily occurred on former
agricultural land. Typically, urban development and agriculture are competing for the
same land, as agricultural lands adjacent to existing urban areas are also ideal for
urban expansion. The loss of agricultural land has major impacts on biodiversity with the
loss of valuable biotopes for many animals, and particularly birds. Sprawling cities also
threaten to consume the best agricultural lands, displacing agricultural activity to both
less productive areas (requiring higher inputs of water and fertilizers) and more remote
upland locations (with increased risk of soil erosion).
Soil
Urban sprawl and the development of urban land dramatically transform the properties
of soil, reducing its capacity to perform its essential functions. These impacts are
evident in the extent of compaction of soil leading to impairment of soil functions; loss of
water permeability (soil sealing) which dramatically decreases; loss of soil biodiversity,
and reductions of the capacity for the soil to act as a carbon sink. In Germany, for
example, it is estimated that 52 % of the soil in built-up areas is sealed (or the
equivalent of 15 m2 per second over a decade). In addition, rainwater which falls on
sealed areas is heavily polluted by tire abrasion, dust and high concentrations of heavy
metals, which when washed into rivers degrade the hydrological system.
Water Quality
Increasing numbers of roads and parking lots are needed to support an automobile
transportation system, which lead to increased non-point source water pollution and
contamination of water supplies (road runoff of oil/gas, metals, nutrients, organic waste,
to name a few) with possible impacts on human health. Increased erosion and stream
siltation causes environmental damage and may affect water treatment plants and thus
affect water quality.
Socio-economic Impacts
From a social perspective urban sprawl generates greater segregation of residential
development according to income. Consequently, it can exacerbate urban social and
economic divisions. The socio‑economic character of suburban and peripheral areas is
typified by middle and upper income families with children, who have the necessary
mobility and lifestyle to enable them to function effectively in these localities. However,
the suburban experience for other groups, including the young and old, who lack
mobility and resources can be very different and can reduce social interaction.
Furthermore, large segments of urban society are excluded from living in such areas.
From an economic perspective urban sprawl is at the very least a more costly form of
urban development due to:
● increased household spending on commuting from home to work over longer
and longer distances;
● the cost to business of the congestion in sprawled urban areas with inefficient
transportation systems;
● the additional costs of the extension of urban infrastructures including utilities
and related services, across the urban region.
Urban sprawl inhibits the development of public transport and solutions based on the
development of mass transportation systems, and the provision of alternative choices in
transportation that are essential to ensure the efficient working of urban environments.
These conclusions are reinforced by experience from both Munich and Stockholm
where the efficient control of urban sprawl and resulting increase in population densities
fosters the use of public transport and reduces the growth of car use.
Social Capital
On the social sustainability side, we can look at social capital otherwise defined as the
“connectedness” of a group built through behaviors such as social networking and civic
engagement, along with attitudes such as trust and reciprocity. Greater social capital
has been associated with healthier behaviors, better self-rated health, and less negative
results such as heart disease. However, social capital has been diminishing over time.
Proposed causes include long commute times, observed in sprawling metropolitan
areas. As of 2011, according to an article in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago commuting
times are some of the worst – with Chicagoans spending 70 hours per year more on the
road than they would if there was no congestion – up from 18 hours in 1982. They have
an average commute time of 34 minutes each way. These drivers also use 52 more
gallons per year per commuter.
Advantages and disadvantages of cities, and major
resource and environmental problems notes
Major Urban Resource and Environmental Problems notes
Advantages and Disadvantages of urban areas
Urbanization Has Advantages
Urbanization has many benefits. From an economic standpoint, cities are centers of
economic development, innovation, education, technological advances, and jobs. They
serve as centers of industry, commerce, and transportation. Urban residents in many
parts of the world tend to live longer than do rural residents and have lower infant
mortality rates and fertility rates. They also have better access to medical care, family
planning, education, and social services than do their rural counterparts. However, the
health benefits of urban living are usually greater for the rich than for the poor. Urban
areas also have some environmental advantages. Recycling is more economically
feasible because concentrations of recyclable materials and funding for recycling
programs tend to be higher in urban areas. Concentrating people in cities helps to
preserve biodiversity by reducing the stress on wildlife habitats. And central cities can
save energy if residents rely more on energy-efficient mass transportation.
Urbanization Has Disadvantages
Half of the world’s people live in urban areas and each year, about 63 million
people—an average of nearly 7,200 per hour—are added to such areas. Such intense
population pressure makes most of the world’s cities more environmentally
unsustainable every year.
They Have Huge Ecological Footprints. Although urban populations occupy only about
2% of the earth’s land area, they consume 75% of its resources and produce 75% of all
carbon dioxide emissions from human activities, according to the Worldwatch Institute.
Because of this high resource input of food, water, and materials and the resulting high
waste output, most of the world’s cities have huge ecological footprints and are not
self-sustaining systems. By concentrating people in a small area urbanization helps to
preserve some of the earth’s biodiversity. But at the same time large areas of land that
must be disturbed and degraded to provide urban dwellers with food, water, energy,
minerals, and other resources. This decrease and degrades the earth’s overall
biodiversity. Thus, urban areas have huge ecological footprints that extend far beyond
their boundaries.
Recent studies also reveal that most urban dwellers live in an artificial environment that
isolates them from forests, grasslands, streams, and other natural areas that contain the
world’s biodiversity. As a result, many of them tend to have little passion for protecting
biodiversity and other forms of natural capital that support their lives and the cities
where they live. They Lack Vegetation.
In urban areas, most trees, shrubs, or other plants are destroyed to make way for
buildings, roads, parking lots, and housing developments. So most cities do not benefit
from vegetation that would absorb air pollutants, give off oxygen, cool the air through
transpiration, provide shade, muffle noise, provide wildlife habitats, and give aesthetic
pleasure. As one observer remarked, “Most cities are places where they cut down most
of the trees and then name the streets after them.”
Most cities produce little of their own [Link] people can grow their own food by
1. planting community gardens in unused lots,
2. creating gardens or green houses on roofs of apartment buildings and on
patios,
3. using window boxes and balcony planters, and
4. raising fish in tanks and sewage lagoon.
Rooftop gardens need little or no irrigation or fertilizer and are widely used in the
Netherlands and Germany. According to the UN, about 800 million urban farmers
provide about 15% of the world's food, and this proportion could be increased. The city
of Seattle, Washington, provide community garden space for 4500 urban gardeners in
more than 1,600 garden plots throughout the [Link] can also encourage farmers'
markets, which lower food prices by allowing farmers to sell directly to customers. This
also helps prevent nearby farmland from being swallowed up by urban sprawl.
They Have Water Problems. As cities grow and water demands increase, expensive
reservoirs and canals must be built and deeper wells must be drilled. This can deprive
rural and wild areas of surface water and deplete groundwater. Flooding also tends to
be greater in some cities, because they are built on floodplains near rivers or along
low-lying coastal areas subject to natural flooding. And covering land with buildings,
asphalt, and concrete causes precipitation to run off quickly and overload storm drains.
In addition, urban development has often destroyed or degraded wetlands that have
served as natural sponges to help absorb excess water. Many of the world’s largest
cities face another threat because they are located in coastal areas that could be
partially flooded some time in this century as sea levels rise due to projected climate
change. Other cities in arid areas that depend on withdrawing water from rivers and the
reservoirs behind dams may face severe water shortages as global warming reduces
the mountaintop glaciers and snow that melt each year to provide river flows and fill
reservoirs. As a result, in some hotspot arid areas in the western United States fed by
the Colorado River and California’s water distribution system, irrigated agriculture may
have to be abandoned. As a result, urban populations in some of these areas may drop
sharply as people are forced to move elsewhere because of a lack of water. Greater
reliance on groundwater is not an option in many areas where aquifers are being
depleted faster than they are being replenished.
They Concentrate Pollution and Health Problems. Because of their high population
densities and high resource consumption, cities produce most of the world’s air
pollution, water pollution, and solid and hazardous wastes. Pollutant levels are generally
higher because pollution is produced in a smaller area and cannot be dispersed and
diluted as readily as pollution produced in rural areas. The concentration of motor
vehicles and industry in urban centers, where about three-fourths of the world’s CO2
from human-related sources are emitted, causes disruption of local and regional
portions of the carbon cycle. This urban concentration also disrupts the nitrogen cycle
because of emissions of large quantities of nitrogen oxides, which play a key role in the
formation of photo chemical smog, and nitric acid and nitrates, which are major
components of acid deposition in urban areas and beyond. And nitrogen nutrients in
urban runoff and discharges from urban sewage treatment plants can disrupt the
nitrogen cycle in nearby lakes and other bodies of water and cause excessive
eutrophication. In addition, high population densities in urban areas can increase the
spread of infectious diseases, especially where there are no adequate drinking water
and sewage systems. They have excessive Noise. Most urban dwellers are subjected to
noise pollution: any unwanted, disturbing, or harmful sound that impairs or interferes
with hearing, causes stress, hampers concentration and work efficiency, or causes
accidents. Noise levels are measured in decibel-A (dbA) sound pressure units that vary
with different human activities. Sound pressure becomes damaging at about 85 dbA
and painful at around 120 dbA. At 180 dbA it can kill. Prolonged exposure to sound
levels above 85 dbA can cause permanent hearing damage. About one of every eight
children and teens in the United States has some permanent hearing loss, mostly from
listening to music at loud levels. They Have a Different Climate and Experience Light
Pollution.
Cities generally are warmer, rainier, foggier, and cloudier than suburbs and nearby rural
areas. The enormous amount of heat generated by cars, factories, furnaces, lights, air
conditioners, and heat-absorbing dark roofs and streets in cities creates an urban heat
island that is surrounded by cooler suburban and rural areas. As cities grow and merge,
their heat islands merge, which can reduce the natural dilution and cleansing of polluted
air. In addition to changing local and regional climate, the urban heat island effect in hot
climates puts heat stress on humans and many other organisms, can increase the
formation of photochemical smog, and greatly increases dependence on air conditioning
for cooling. This in turn increases energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and
other forms of air pollution in a positive feedback loop. The artificial light created by
cities hinders astronomers from conducting their research and makes it difficult for
casual observers to enjoy the night sky. Light pollution also affects some plant and
animal species. For example, endangered sea turtles lay their eggs on beaches at night
and require darkness. Each year, large numbers of migrating birds, lured off course by
the lights of high-rise buildings, fatally collide with the buildings.