NE

Impacts of Urbanization

  • Urbanization
    • Creation and growth of urban areas or cities and their surrounding developed land
    • Urban growth
    • The rate of increase of urban populations
    • Urban areas grow in two ways
      • Natural increase
      • Immigration
    • Rural people are pulled to urban areas in search of jobs, housing, educational opportunities, health care, entertainment, and freedom from religious, racial, and political conflicts
    • Main advantages
    • Access to education
    • Sanitation
    • Access to health care
    • More jobs
    • Better transportation
    • Main disadvantages
    • Worse air quality
    • High population density
      • Increase spread of communicable disease
    • Noise pollution
      • High levels of stress
    • High crime rate
  • Advantages of Urbanization
    • Cities
    • Centers of economic development, innovation, education, industry, commerce, transportation, and jobs
      • Better access to medical care, family planning, education, and social services
    • Recycling is more economically feasible because concentrations of recyclable materials
    • Concentrating people in cities helps preserve biodiversity by reducing the stress of wildlife habitats
    • Central cities can save energy if residents rely more on energy-efficient mass transportation
  • Disadvantages of Urbanization
    • Huge ecological footprints
    • Lack of vegetation
    • Water problems
    • Concentrate air pollution
    • Health issues
    • Excessive noise
    • Create different climates
    • Light pollution
  • Phases of Urbanization
    • People migrated from rural ares to large central cities
    • Many people migrated from large central cities to suburbs and smaller cities
    • Some people fled both cities and suburbs and migrated to developed rural areas
  • Urban Sprawl
    • The growth of low-density development on the edges of cities and towns
    • Major factors that promoted urban sprawl in the U.S.
    • Ample land was available for most cities to spread outward
    • Federal government loan guarantees for new single family homes for WWII veterans stimulated the development of suburbs starting around 1950
    • Low cost gasoline and federal and state funding of highways encourages automobile use and the development of outlying tracts of land
    • Technology has made possible to work from home
    • Goof suburban school districts
    • More space to raise children
    • Higher quality of life
  • Environmental Problems
    • Building homes in preserved areas causes habitat destruction/fragmentation
    • Problems related to the high usage of fossil fuels, since more people drive to work and other places
  • Ecological Footprints
    • Urban populations only occupy around 2% of the earth’s land are, but they consume 75% of its resources and produce 75% of all carbon dioxide emissions from human activities
    • Most of the world’s cities are not self-sustaining systems
    • Large areas of land must be destroyed and degrade to provide for the urban people, which results in the lowering of biodiversity
    • Most urban dwellers live in an artificial environment that isolates themselves from natural areas that contain biodiversity
  • Lack of Vegetation
    • Most trees, shrubs, and other plants are destroyed in urban areas in order to make way for development
    • Vegetation is important because it absorbs air pollutants, gives off oxygen, cools the air through transpiration, provides shade, muffles noise, and provides habitats
  • Water Pollution
    • As water demands increase, expensive reservoirs must be built, and deeper wells must be drilled
    • Can deprive rural and wild ares of surface water and deplete groundwater
    • Covering land with asphalt and concrete causes precipitation to runoff quickly and overload storm drains, causing flooding
    • Global warming is causing urban dwellers in arid areas to have a shortage of water
  • Pollution
    • High population densities and high resource consumption causes cities to produce most of the world’s air pollution, water pollution, and waste
    • Pollution is produces in a small area and cannot be dispersed and diluted as easily as pollution in rural areas
    • Most of the CO2 from human related sources are due to urban areas
    • Nitrogen nutrients in runoff can disrupt the nitrogen cycle
  • Excessive Noise
    • Urban dwellers are subject 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
    • Too much noise can kill someone and cause permanent hearing damage
  • Light Pollution
    • The artificial light created
    • Affects some plant and animal species
    • Migrating birds
      • Lured off course by the lights of a high rise building
      • Fatally collide with the buildings
  • Heat Island Effect
    • Cities are generally warmer than the suburbs and rural areas
    • Causes
    • The enormous amount of heat created by cars, factories, air conditioners, and heat-absorbing dark roofs and streets in cities creates an urban heat island, surrounded by cooler rural and suburban areas
    • Consequences of the heat island effect
    • Increases the formation of photochemical smog
    • Increases dependence on air conditioning for cooling
    • Increases energy consumption
  • Transportation
    • Motor vehicles have many harmful effects on people and the environment
    • Automobile accidents kill approximately 1.2 million people a year and injure another 15 million
    • Kill about 50 million wild animals and family pets a year
    • World’s largest source of outdoor pollution, and cause 30,000 to 60,000 premature deaths per year in the U.S.
    • Fastest growing source of climate changing CO2 emissions
    • Account for ⅔ of oil used in the form of gasoline in the U.S. and ⅓ of the world
    • At least a third of urban land worldwide, and half in the U.S. is devoted to roads, parking lots, gasoline stations, and other automobile related uses
  • Reducing Automobile Use
    • Charge a tax on gasoline to cover the estimated harmful cost of driving
    • Such a tax would amount to about $3.18 per liter of gasoline in the U.S.
  • Alternatives to Car Ownership
    • Mass transit rail
    • Advantages
      • Uses less energy
      • Produces less air pollution
      • Requires less land
      • Causes fewer injuries and deaths
      • Reduces car congestion in cities
    • Disadvantages
      • Expensive
      • Commits riders to a schedule
      • Causes noise and vibration
    • Bicycles
    • Advantages
      • Affordable
      • No pollution
      • Quiet
      • Require little parking space
      • Easy to maneuver in traffic
      • Require few resources
    • Disadvantages
      • Little protection in an accident
      • No protection from bad weather
      • Impractical for long trips
      • Tiring
      • Lack of secure parking
    • Buses
    • Advantages
      • Can be rerouted
      • Cost less to develop and maintain
      • Can reduce car use and air pollution
    • Disadvantages
      • Can lose money due to low fares
      • Can get caught in traffic and add to pollution
      • Commits riders to a schedule
      • Noisy
    • Rapid Rail
    • Advantages
      • Reduce travel by car and plane
      • Ideal for long trips
      • Energy efficient
    • Disadvantages
      • Expensive
      • Must operate along heavily used routes
      • Cause noise and vibration
  • Conventional Land-Use Planning
    • Urban and rural areas use some form of land-use planning to determine the best present and future use of each parcel of land
    • Encourage future population growth and economic development, regardless of the environmental and social consequences
    • Leads poorly controlled urban growth and sprawl
    • 90% of the revenue of local governments used to provide public services comes from property taxes levied on building/property based on economic value
    • Zoning
    • Most widely used approach in which various parcels of land are designated for certain uses
      • Can be used to control growth and protect areas from some types of development
      • Disadvantages
      • Threatens/destroys environment
      • Favors high-priced housing over protecting environmentally sensitive areas and low-priced housing because of property tax revenue from high-priced developments
  • Smart Growth
    • Limits and regulations
    • Limit building permits
    • Urban growth boundaries
    • Greenbelts around cities
    • Public review of new development
    • Zoning
    • Encourage mixed use of housing and small businesses
    • Concentrate development along mass transportation routes
    • Promote high-density clutter housing developments
    • Planning
    • Ecological land use planning
    • Environmental impact analysis
    • Integrated regional planning
    • State and national planning
    • Protection
    • Preserve existing open space
    • Buy new open space
    • Buy development rights that prohibit certain types of development on land parcels
    • Taxes
    • Tax land, not buildings
    • Tax land on value of use
    • Tax breaks
    • For owners not agreeing to allow certain types of developments
    • For cleaning up and developing abandoned urban sites
    • Revitalization and New Growth
    • Revitalize existing cities/towns
    • Build well-planned new towns and villages within cities