Ecological Principles and Concepts

Urbanization
Introduction
For most of human history, most people across the world lived in small communities. Over the
past few centuries- and particularly in recent decades- this has shifted dramatically. There has been
migration of populations from rural to urban areas. In the visualization we see estimates from UN World
Urbanization Prospects on the people globally who live in urban and rural areas. In 2017, 4.1 billion of
people were living in urban areas. This means over half of the world (55%) live in urban settings.

In this chapter, we looked at the growth of the human population and urban areas, their
environmental impacts, ways to slow population growth, and how we can make urban areas more
sustainable and livable.

Trends:
1. The percentage of global
population has grown sharply.
2. The number nad sizes of urban
areas are mushrooming.
3. Poverty is increasingly urbanized.

URBANIZATION

Advantages:
1. Economic Development Diadvantages:
2. Lower infant and Fertility Rate. 1. Lacks vegetation
3. better access to medical care, 2. Water Problem
family planning, education and social 3. Pollutin and Health Problem
services. 4. Excessive Noise
4. Preserves Biodiversity by Reducing 4. Changes in Local Climate
stress to wildlife.

At the end of the lesson, the learner will be able to:

1. Determine the major advantages and disadvantages of urbanization.
2. Describe the major aspects of poverty in urban areas.
3. Explain why most urban areas are unsustainable.
4. Provide ways on how we can make urban areas more sustainable and livable.
Suggested Reading

Science Focus
Urbanization in the United States

Between 1800 and 2013, the percentage of the U.S. population living in urban areas increased
from 5% to 81%. This population shift has occurred in three phases.
First, people migrated from rural areas to large central cities. In 2013, about 71% of all
Americans lived in urban areas with at least 50,000 people, and about 54% lived in urban areas with 1
million or more residents.
Second, many people migrated from large central cities to smaller cities and suburbs.
Currently, about half of all urban Americans live in the suburbs, nearly a third in central cities, and the rest
in rural housing developments beyond suburbs.
Third, many people migrated from the North and East to the South and West. Since 1980,
about 80% of the U.S. population increase, occurred in the South and West. Since 1920, and especially since
1970, 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, clean public
water supplies, and expanded medical care
have slashed death rates and incidences of
sickness from infectious diseases. Also, the
concentration of most of the population in
urban areas has helped to protect some of the
country’s biodiversity by reducing the
destruction and degradation of wildlife
habitat. However, a number of U.S. central
cities—especially older ones—have
deteriorating services and aging
infrastructures (streets, bridges, dams, power
lines, schools, water supply pipes, and
FIGURE 2.18 Urbanized areas (shaded) in the United States where cities,
suburbs, and towns dominate the land area. sewers). Funds for repairing and upgrading
urban infrastructure have declined in many
Compiled by the authors using data from National Geophysical Data Center/National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration and U.S. Census Bureau. urban areas as the flight of people and
businesses to the suburbs and beyond has led
to lower central city property tax revenues. However, this trend, too, has been reversed in some cities,
including Portland, Oregon.

Urban sprawl gobbles up the countryside 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
agricultural and wild lands around many cities It results in a dispersed jumble of housing developments,
shopping malls, parking lots, and office complexes that are loosely connected by multilane highways and
freeways.

Urban sprawl is largely the product of ample affordable land, automobiles, federal and state
funding of highways, and inadequate urban planning. Many people prefer living in suburbs and exurbs—
housing developments scattered over vast areas that lie beyond suburbs. Compared to central cities, these
areas provide lower-density living and access to larger lot sizes and single-family homes. Often these areas
also have newer public schools and lower crime rates. On the other hand, urban sprawl has caused or
contributed to a number of environmental problems
 FIGURE 2.19 Urban sprawl in and around the U.S. city of Las Vegas, Nevada, between 1973 and 2009.

WHAT ARE THE MAJOR URBAN RESOURCE AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS?

Urban areas grow in two ways—by natural increase (more births than deaths) and by immigration,
mostly from rural areas. Rural people are pulled to urban areas in search of jobs, food, housing, educational
opportunities, better health care, and entertainment. Some are also pushed from rural to urban areas by
factors such as famine, losses of land for growing food, deteriorating environmental conditions, war, and
religious, racial, and political conflicts.

Three major trends in urban population dynamics are important for understanding the problems and
challenges of urban growth:

1. The percentage of the global population that lives in urban areas has grown sharply and this
trend is projected to continue. Between 1850 and 2013, the percentage of the world’s people living
in urban areas increased from 2% to 52% and is likely to reach 67% by 2050, with most new urban
dwellers living in less-developed countries.

2. The numbers and sizes of urban areas are mushrooming. Today there are 26 megacities—cities
with 10 million or more people—19 of them in less-developed countries. Nine of these urban areas
are hypercities with more than 20 million people. The largest hypercity is Tokyo, Japan with 37.1
million—more than the entire population of Canada. By 2025, the number of megacities is expected
to reach 37 with 21 of them in Asia. Some of the world’s megacities and hypercities are merging into
vast urban megaregions, each with more than 100 million people. The largest megaregion is the
Hong Kong-Shenhzen-Guangzhou region in China with about 120 million people.

3. Poverty is becoming increasingly urbanized, mostly in less-developed countries. The United

Nations estimates that at least 1 billion people live in the slums and shantytowns of most of the major
cities in less- developed countries.
 FIGURE 2.20
Global
outlook:
Megacities,
or major
urban areas
with 10
million or
more
people, in
2012.

Urbanization Has Advantages

Urbanization has many benefits. From an economic standpoint, cities are centers of economic
development, innovation, education, technological advances, social and cultural diversity, and job markets.
Urban residents in many parts of the world tend to live longer than do rural residents and to have lower
infant mortality and fertility rates. They typically also have better access to medical care, family planning,
education, and social services than do their rural counterparts.
Urban areas also have some environmental advantages. Recycling is more economically
feasible because of the high concentrations of recyclable materials in urban areas. Concentrating people in
cities helps to preserve biodiversity by reducing the stress on wildlife habitats. Heating and cooling
multistory apartment and office buildings in central cities takes less energy per person than does heating and
cooling single-family homes and smaller office buildings, more common in the suburbs. Central-city
dwellers also tend to drive less and rely more on mass transportation, car-pooling, walking, and bicycling.

Urbanization Has Disadvantages

Most urban areas are unsustainable systems. Urban populations occupy only about 3% of the earth’s land
area, but they consume about 75% of its resources and produce about 75% of the world’s pollution and
wastes. Because of this high input of food, water, and other resources, and the resulting high waste output,
most of the world’s cities have huge ecological footprints that extend far beyond their boundaries, and they
typically are not self-sustaining systems, for a number of reasons.

1. Most Cities Lack Vegetation. In urban areas, most trees, shrubs, grasses, and other plants are
cleared to make way for buildings, roads, parking lots, and housing developments. Thus, most cities
do not benefit from the free ecosystem services provided by vegetation, including air purification,
generation of oxygen, removal of atmospheric CO2, control of soil erosion, and the provision of
habitat for wildlife.

2. Many Cities Have Water Problems. Often, as cities grow and their 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 it can deplete groundwater supplies. Flooding also tends to
be greater in cities that are built on floodplains near rivers or along low-lying coastlines. In most
cities, buildings and paved surfaces cause precipitation to run off quickly and overload storm drains.
Urban development has often destroyed or degraded large areas of wetlands that have served as
natural sponges to help absorb excess storm water.

3. Cities Tend to
Concentrate Pollution
and Health Problems.
Because of their high
population densities
and rates of resource
consumption, cities
produce most of the
world’s air pollution,
water pollution, and
solid and hazardous
wastes. Pollutant levels
are generally higher
FIGURE 2.21 Natural capital degradation: The typical city depends on nonurban areas for huge because the pollution
inputs of matter and energy resources, while it generates and concentrates large outputs of is produced in a
pollution, waste matter, and heat. confined area and
cannot be dispersed
and diluted as readily as pollution produced in rural areas can.

4. Cities Have Excessive Noise. Most urban dwellers are subjected to noise pollution: any unwanted,
disturbing, or harmful sound that damages, 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 (Figure 6.19). Sound pressure
becomes damaging at about 85 dbA and painful at around 120 dbA. At 180 dbA, sound can kill.
Prolonged exposure to sound levels above 85 dbA can cause permanent hearing damage. Noise
pollution can be reduced by modifying noisy activities, shielding noisy activities or processes,
shielding workers or other persons from the noise, moving noisy operations or machines away, and
using antinoise (various technologies that cancel or muffle one noise with another).

FIGURE 2.22 Noise levels (in decibel-A [dbA] sound pressure units) of some common sounds.

5. Cities Affect Local Climates. On average, cities tend to be warmer, rainier, foggier, and cloudier
than suburbs and nearby rural areas. In cities, the enormous amount of heat generated by cars,
factories, furnaces, lights, air conditioners, and heat-absorbing dark roofs and streets 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. The urban
 heat island effect can also greatly increase dependence on air conditioning. This in turn leads to
higher energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and other forms of air pollution.

Life Is a Desperate Struggle for the Urban Poor in Less-Developed Countries

Poverty is a way of life for many urban dwellers in less developed countries. According to a UN study, the
number of urban residents living in poverty—now about 1 billion—could reach 1.4 billion by 2020.

Some of these people live in crowded slums—areas dominated by dilapidated tenements, or rooming houses
where several people might live in a single room (see chapter-opening photo). Other poor people live in
squatter settlements and shantytowns on the outskirts of cities. They build shacks from corrugated metal,
plastic sheets, scrap wood, and other scavenged building materials, or they live in rusted shipping containers
and junked cars.
Poor people living in shantytowns and squatter settlements, or on the streets, usually lack clean
water supplies, sewers, electricity, and roads, and are
subject to severe air and water pollution and hazardous
wastes from nearby factories. Many of these settlements
are in locations especially prone to landslides, flooding, or
earthquakes. Some city governments regularly bulldoze
squatter shacks and send police to drive illegal settlers
out. The people usually move back in within a few days or
weeks, or develop another shantytown elsewhere.
Some governments have addressed these
problems by legally recognizing slums and granting legal
titles to the land. They base this on evidence that poor
people usually improve their living conditions once they
know they have a permanent place to live.

HOW CAN CITIES BECOME MORE

SUSTAINABLE AND LIVABLE?

Smart Growth Can Promote Environmental

Sustainability

Smart growth is a set of policies and tools that allow and

encourage more environmentally sustainable urban
development with less dependence on cars. It uses zoning
laws and other tools to channel growth in order to reduce
its ecological footprint. Some critics contend that by
limiting urban expansion, smart growth can lead to higher
land and housing prices. Supporters counter that it controls FIGURE 2.23 Smart growth tools can be used to prevent
and directs sprawl, protects ecologically sensitive and or control urban growth and sprawl.
important lands and waterways, and results in neighborhoods
that are enjoyable places to live.

The Eco-City Concept: Cities for People, Not Cars

Many environmental scientists and urban planners call for us to make new and existing urban areas more
sustainable and enjoyable places to live through good ecological design—an important way to increase our
beneficial environmental impact.

An eco-city is a people-oriented city, not a car-oriented city. Its residents are able to walk, bike, or use low
polluting mass transit for most of their travel. Its buildings, vehicles, and appliances meet high energy-
efficiency standards. Trees and plants adapted to the local climate and soils are planted throughout the city
to provide shade, beauty, and wildlife habitats, and to reduce air pollution, noise, and soil erosion.

In an eco-city, abandoned lots and industrial sites are cleaned up and used. Nearby forests, grasslands,
wetlands, and farms are preserved. Much of the food that people eat comes from nearby organic farms, solar
greenhouses, community gardens, and small gardens on rooftops, in yards, and in window boxes. Parks are
easily available to everyone. People who design and live in eco-cities take seriously the advice that U.S.
urban planner Lewis Mumford gave more than 3 decades ago: “Forget the damned motor car and build cities
for lovers and friends.”

The eco-city model is not a futuristic dream, but a growing reality in a number of cities, including Portland,
Oregon, that are striving to become more environmentally sustainable and livable. Other examples are
Curitiba, Brazil, Bogotá, Colombia; Waitakere City, New Zealand; Stockholm, Sweden; Helsinki, Finland;
Copenhagen, Denmark; Melbourne, Australia; Vancouver, Canada; Leicester, England; Netherlands; and in
the United States, Davis, California; Olympia, Washington; and Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Assessment

Chapter Review

1. List two ways in which urban areas grow. List three trends in global urban growth. Describe the
three phases of urban growth in the United States.
2. What is urban sprawl? List five factors that have promoted urban sprawl in the United States. List
five undesirable effects of urban sprawl.
3. What are the major advantages and disadvantages of urbanization?
4. Explain why most urban areas are unsustainable systems.
5. Describe the major aspects of poverty in urban areas.
6. Define smart growth and explain its benefits.
7. Describe the eco-city model. Give five examples of how Curitiba, Brazil, has attempted to become
an eco-city.

Critical Thinking

1. Portland, Oregon has made significant progress in becoming a more environmentally sustainable and
desirable place to live. If you live in an urban area, what steps, if any, has your community taken
toward becoming more environmentally sustainable? What further steps could be taken?
2. If you own a car or hope to own one, what conditions, if any, would encourage you to rely less on
your car and to travel to school or work by bicycle, on foot, by mass transit, or by carpool?
3. Consider the characteristics of an eco-city, how close to this eco-city model is the city in which you
live or the city nearest to where you live? Pick what you think are the five most important
characteristics of an eco-city and, for each of these characteristics, describe a way in which your city
could attain it.