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Environmental Science: A Global Concern 5/e Cunningham/Saigo | |||||
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Environmental Science: A Global Concern 5/e Cunningham/Saigo | |||||
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Chapter Summary |
Chapter 24: Urbanization and Substainable Cities |
A
rural area is one in which a majority of residents are supported by methods of harvesting natural resources. An urban area is one in which a majority of residents are supported by manufacturing, commerce, or services. A village is a rural community. A city is an urban community with sufficient size and complexity to support economic specialization and to require a higher level of organization and opportunity than is found in a village.Urbanization in the United States over the past two hundred years has caused a dramatic demographic change. A similar shift is occurring in most parts of the world. Only Africa and South Asia remain predominantly rural, and cities are growing rapidly there as well. By the end of this century, we expect that more than half the world’s people will live in urban areas. Most of that urban growth will be in the supercities of the Third World. A century ago only thirteen cities had populations above 1 million; now there are 235 such cities. In the next century, that number will probably double again, and three-fourths of those cities will be in the Third World.
Cities grow by natural increase (births) and migration. People move into the city because they are "pushed" out of rural areas or because they are "pulled" in by the advantages and opportunities of the city. Huge, rapidly growing cities in the developing world often have appalling environmental conditions. Among the worst problems faced in these cities are traffic congestion, air pollution, inadequate or nonexistent sewers and waste disposal systems, water pollution, and housing shortages. Millions of people live in
slums and shantytowns where conditions would crush any but the strongest spirit, yet these people raise families, educate their children, learn new jobs and new ways of living, and have hope for the future.The problems of developed world cities tend to be associated with decay and blight. Over the past fifty years, many in the urban middle and upper classes moved to the suburbs, leaving elderly, very poor, handicapped, or economically marginal people in the inner city. Increasing joblessness and poverty in the inner city create a cycle of poverty from which it is difficult to escape. Still, there are ways that we can improve cities in both the developed and the developing world to make them healthier, safer, and more environmentally sound, socially just, and culturally fulfilling than they are now.
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