Chapter 22
Sustainable Cities
Summary
1.
Almost half of the world’s population lives in urban areas and half in rural areas. Government policies,
poverty, lack of land to grow food, declining agricultural jobs, famine, and war that force people out of rural
areas are all factors that determine how urban areas develop.
2.
Urban areas are rarely self-sustaining, threaten biodiversity, destroy and damage ecosystems, lack trees, grow
little of their own food, concentrate pollutants and noise, spread infectious disease, and are centers of poverty,
crimes, and terrorism.
3.
Urban areas relying on mass transportation spread vertically and urban areas relying on automobiles spread
horizontally. Advantages of automobiles include convenience, personal benefits, and boosted economies,
Disadvantages include air pollution, promotion of urban sprawl, increase in death rate, and time- and gaswasting traffic jams. Advantages of bicycles and motor scooters include low cost, little to no air or noise
pollution, require little space, and are energy efficient. Disadvantages include little accident protection,
impractical for long distances, can be tiring, little parking, and gas scooter engines emit high air pollution.
Mass transit rail systems are more energy efficient than cars, produce lower air pollution, require less land,
cause fewer injuries and deaths, and reduce car congestion. Disadvantages include high cost to build and
maintain, rigid schedules, noise pollution, and they are cost effective only in densely populated areas. Buses
are more flexible than rail systems, can easily be rerouted, cost less to develop, and can reduce car use.
Disadvantages include rigid schedules, noise pollution, and they are not always cost efficient. Rapid rail
systems can reduce car and plane travel, are ideal for long trips, and are more efficient than cars and planes.
Disadvantages include high operation and maintenance cost, noise pollution, and they are not always cost
efficient.
4.
Land-use planning, zoning, and smart growth can be used for planning and controlling urban growth.
5.
Cities can be made more sustainable and more desirable places to live by creating parks, greenbelts, urban
growth boundaries, cluster developments, mixed-use villages, greenways, and ecocities.
Key Questions and Concepts
22-1 What are the major population trends in urban areas?
CORE CASE STUDY: More environmentally sustainable cities are possible. Curitiba, Brazil, is one such
example. Beginning in 1969, planners began developing extensive public transit systems. They improved
their parks and natural drainages, and implemented comprehensive recycling programs. They have also
initiated many social programs. This city of 3.2 million people is proof that sustainable urban centers are a
possibility.
A. Urban populations are attracting more and more people throughout the world, developing into centers of
poverty.
1. About one half of the world’s people live in cities/densely populated urban areas.
2. Cities provide jobs, food, housing, a better life, entertainment, and freedom from religious, racial, and
political conflicts of village life.
3. People are pushed to cities by poverty, no land, declining work, famine, and war.
B. Urban trends that affect urban growth are:
1. The number/proportion of people living in urban areas is growing.
a. Most urban areas are along countries’ coastal areas.
b. Most huge urban areas are in developing countries.
2. The number of large cities (a million or more people) is increasing rapidly.
a. Megacities or megalopolises contain 10 million+ people.
Instructor's Manual: Chapter 22
197
b. Megalopolis is a merger of a city (cities) and adjacent urban areas.
3. Urban population is rapidly increasing in developing countries.
4. Urban growth is much more rapid in developing countries, but developed countries will be 84%
urbanized by 2030.
5. Poverty is becoming more common in urban areas, especially in developing countries.
CASE STUDY: The percentage of the U.S. population living in urban areas has increased from 5% in 1800
to 81% today. This transition occurred in four phases. First, people first migrated from rural areas to large
central cities, and then people migrated from large central cities to suburbs/smaller cities. Next, people
migrated from the North and East to the South and West, and finally some have migrated away from urban
areas back to rural areas. Older cities tend to have deteriorating services and aging infrastructures.
C. Urban areas tend to sprawl outward and eat up surrounding countryside—urban sprawl.
1. Several factors promoted urban sprawl in the U.S.
2. Undesirable consequences of urban sprawl are prevalent, although many people prefer living in
sprawling suburbs and exurbs.
3. As sprawl continues, metropolitan areas join one another to form a megalopolis.
22-2 What are the major urban resource and environmental problems?
A. The advantages of urbanization:
1. Cities are centers of economic development, jobs, commerce, and transportation.
2. Urban populations are generally healthier, with better access to medical care, family planning
information, education, and social services.
3. Recycling is more feasible and environmental protection is better supported.
4. People concentrated in an area preserves biodiversity and wildlife habitats.
B. The disadvantages of urbanization:
1. They have huge ecological footprints.
2. They lack vegetation.
3. They have water problems.
4. The concentrate pollution and health problems.
5. They have excessive noise.
6. They have a different climate and experience light pollution.
C. The urban poor and the rural poor both live in unhealthy conditions.
1. Large cities have squatter settlements and shantytowns for the poor.
a. They often lack clean water, sewers, electricity, etc. There are often severe air, water, and hazardous
waste pollutants.
CASE STUDY: Mexico City is an urban area in crisis. It suffers from severe pollution, poverty,
overcrowding, and unemployment. Many people have no sewer facilities, and the city has one of the
world’s worst air pollution problems. The city’s air and water pollution causes 100,000 premature
deaths per year. Some progress has been made, however, in lowering the number of days each year in
which air pollution standards are violated.
22-3 How does transportation affect urban environmental impacts?
A. The amount of available land determines if a city grows outward or upward as well as the type of
transportation systems used.
1. Those in compact cities, those growing upward, use mass transit systems, walk, or ride bicycles.
2. Those people in sprawling cities use individual automobile transportation.
B. Cars rule in the United States because of large areas of relatively cheap land.
1. The U.S. is overrun with automobiles; with 4.6% of the world’s population, its has almost one-third of
the world’s 900 million motor vehicles
C. Cars have advantages and disadvantages.
1. Cars make people mobile and fuel the economy.
2. Cars kill people, pollute, and waste time when traffic jams occur.
D. To reduce automobile use, users could be required to pay for the car’s harm by paying greater gasoline
taxes, giving up the government subsidies for cars, subsidizing mass transit systems, and raising use fees.
E. There are several alternatives to motor vehicles, including bicycles, rail systems, buses, etc.
CASE STUDY: In the early 1900s, the U.S. had a highly successful streetcar system, but it was bought up
and destroyed by several large companies in order to sell cars and buses.
198
Sustainable Cities
22-4 How important is urban land use planning?
A. Most land-use planning in the United States is based on continued population growth and therefore leads to
urban sprawl and environmental degradation.
B. Zoning can be used to control growth and protect certain areas, but can also discourage innovative solutions
to environmental problems.
C. Smart growth discourages urban sprawl, protects ecologically sensitive land and water, and develops
environmentally sustainable urban areas.
D. Open space can be preserved by urban growth boundaries, greenbelts, small and large parks, and cluster
developments.
22-5 How can cities become more sustainable and livable?
A. Cluster development living units are clustered together and larger chunks of land are left for open space.
B. Some communities are embracing new urbanism, which is guided by principles of walkability, mixed use
and diversity, quality urban design, environmental sustainability, and smart transportation.
C. Ecocities go a step further, and are designed to allow people to walk, bike, or take mass transit for most of
their travel; ecocities recycle and reuse most of their wastes, grow their own food, and protect biodiversity
by preserving land.
SCIENCE FOCUS: There are several approaches to growing food sustainably in urban areas. Rooftop
gardens relying on greenhouses are already being implemented in some cities.Hydroponic indoor gardens
could share the spaces occupied by offices, and skyscraper farms could be built to provide multiple crops
and thoroughly recycle all nutrients and waste. Costs are high, but as water and energy become scarcer,
these options may provide solutions for the future.
CASE STUDY: China began construction of an ecocity, Dongtan, in 2008. It is near the massive city of
Shanghai and the aim is for this new settlement to be developed in an environmentally responsible way.
Dongtan will be carbon neutral, it will rely on clean renewable energy, and waste products will be recycled.
Dongtan is an urban laboratory for experimenting with more sustainable approaches to planning and
development.
D. Ecovillages and eco-hoods are small groups within urban and suburban areas that are designing and
implementing more sustainable approaches to urban living.
Teaching Tips
Large Lecture Courses:
Invite students to suggest ways in which their city or town might be improved in terms of sustainability. Why
has this not happened? Explore with them the many factors that tend to obstruct our path toward sustainability.
Smaller Lecture Courses:
Suppose that there is a measure to be voted on that would call for the creation of a greenbelt around your city or
town. Divide the class on the issue and then foster a debate over whether or not this measure should pass. What
would be the benefits? What would be the negative consequences?
Key Terms
land-use planning (p. 602)
urban growth (p. 589)
Instructor's Manual: Chapter 22
urban sprawl (p. 592)
urbanization (p. 589)
199
Term Paper Research Topics
1.
Environmental effects of urban areas: air pollution; land degradation from urban sprawl; noise pollution;
habitat preservation; recycling and birth rates in urban areas.
2.
Sustainable cities—transportation, and land-use planning: central city lifestyles; mass transit systems: BART,
METRO; case study in sustainable living: Davis, California; green spaces; building self-sufficient cities;
Tapiola, Finland; the multiple-nuclei model of urban spatial structure; compact cities; Curitiba, Brazil;
Chattanooga, TN.
3.
Case studies of particular urban areas and their problems: Mexico City, the Boston-Washington corridor.
4.
Migrations: rural-to-urban migration in the developing countries; the metropolitan-to-non-metropolitan shift;
the Sun Belt shift—social, economic, and political implications; ghetto expansion—growth by invasion and
succession; current immigration policy in the United States.
5.
Case studies on one of the attempts to create ecocities; see community list on p. 567.
6.
Individual: decisions individuals make about family size and urban conditions and ways individuals can
influence government agencies and nongovernmental institutions concerned with population.
7.
Urban area: discouraging the use of autos in crowded city centers; preserving small open spaces in cities;
HUD's new-towns program; the free enterprise zone concept: is it working?
8.
Regional: urban renewal programs; mass transit systems.
9.
National: U.S. aid programs for cities; national land-use planning in Japan.
Discussion Topics
1.
Do you think it's right for middle- and upper-class whites to displace urban blacks and renew cities? What's the
difference between urban renewal and black removal?
2.
Which cities do you think are most desirable in which to live? Why?
3.
Which patterns of urban development do you find most desirable? Why?
Activities and Projects
1.
Ask your students to share with the class poems, short stories, songs, paintings, collages, photographic
displays, slide talks, or other works expressing their feelings about urban life.
2.
As a class project, investigate the fate of agricultural land in your city's vicinity. Is anything being done to
prevent prime agricultural land from being overtaken by urban sprawl?
3.
Ask an urban planner to talk to your class about the various problems and opportunities related to land-use
planning in your locale.
4.
200
Have several students attend a zoning hearing (or other public forum for land-use planning and decision
making) in your locale and describe the proceedings to the class.
Sustainable Cities
5.
As a class, research the environmental impact of the growing populations of the developing countries and
developed countries. Find data comparing the impact of children from developing countries and developed
countries. Project the responsibilities for environmental degradation by future human populations from
developing countries and developed countries. Collect data on the birth control policies of representative
developing countries and developed countries. Hold a brainstorming session about strategies to control the
human population. See if a consensus can be formed about appropriate strategies for limiting the
environmental damage of human populations.
6.
Show your students some color slides or photographs of urban blight in your community. Ask them to identify
the causes of these problems and to suggest a variety of approaches to solving them.
7.
As a class project, analyze your local transportation network. Outline a socially and ecologically responsible
plan for an improved transportation network featuring a mix of individual and mass transit methods, and
paratransit methods. Investigate the extent to which bicycling has been or could be adopted as an integral part
of your community's transportation system. What specific policies and actions would promote commuter
bicycling in your city or town?
8.
Outline the principal elements of an ecological land-use plan for your community. Are there topographic or
other physical elements of your community's landscape that offer unusually good opportunities to "design with
nature"?
9.
As a class project, investigate the fate of agricultural land in your city's vicinity. Is anything being done to
prevent prime agricultural land from being gobbled up by urban sprawl?
10. What geographic patterns of land use are evident in your city? As a class exercise, have your students
determine the extent to which your city's spatial structure resembles that of the concentric-circle, sector, and
multiple-nuclei models.
11. Should "city troubles" or "civic nausea" be accepted as the price of enjoying the city's advantages? Ask your
students to suggest ways that urban life in your locale can be made simpler, quieter, slower, friendlier, and
closer to nature.
12. As a class exercise, try to identify open spaces in your city or town that should be preserved. What uses can be
made of these spaces? What methods can be used to preserve them?
Attitudes and Values
1.
How do you feel when you see skyscrapers? Clover-leaf highways? Parks? Green spaces?
2.
Are you familiar with mass transit possibilities in an urban center in your area?
3.
Are you familiar with zoning procedures in an urban center in your area?
4.
How do you feel toward urban sprawl? Urban renewal?
5.
Do you feel that some forms of urban growth are more desirable than others? Which ones?
6.
Are there any limits to urban growth? What are they?
7.
What efforts do you support to make cities more sustainable environments?
8.
“The responsible environmentalist should live in an urban area instead of rural locales or suburbs.” Comment.
Instructor's Manual: Chapter 22
201
Additional Video Resources
The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of The American Dream (Documentary, 2004)
http://www.endofsuburbia.com/
This is an interesting look at sprawl and dwindling oil resources.
Escape From Suburbia (Documentary, 2008)
http://www.escapefromsuburbia.com/
Explores the implications of declining oil production on the suburban model of habitation.
Making Sense of Place – Phoenix the Urban Desert (TV series, 2007)
http://www.makingsenseofplace.org/
Making Sense of Place, Cleveland: Confronting Decline in an American City (TV series, 2007)
http://www.makingsenseofplace.org/
Web Resources
New Urbanism
http://www.newurbanism.org/
A valuable resource on creating livable environments.
Suggested Answers to End of Chapter Questions
The following are examples of the material that should be contained in possible student answers to the end of
chapter Critical Thinking questions. They represent only a summary overview and serve to highlight the core
concepts that are addressed in the text. It should be anticipated that the students will provide more in-depth and
detailed responses to the questions depending on an individual instructor’s stated expectations.
1.
Curitiba, Brazil (Core Case Study), 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 along these lines?
In my town in New Hampshire there is a free bus service that runs every day and transports passengers to
drop off points in the town center, the shopping areas, the downtown area, and local major businesses such
as the hospital, the college, and several companies that are the major employers in the area. The bus service
has pick-up points that are near to housing developments so people can walk to the bus stop and then walk
to work from the drop-off stop. The cost to the public is free. The actual costs to run the service come from
the sponsorship of the local businesses themselves. This helps to keep cars off the road and gives access to
a means of public transport to lower income people who cannot afford cars. This works great in the area
that is covered by the service. People who live further out do not have such a transport system that
promotes a more sustainable use of energy in terms of moving people from one location to another.
2.
In Curitiba, Brazil (Core Case Study), recycling rates have fallen in recent years, even though they are still
among the highest in the world. Former Mayor Jaime Lerner attributes this decline to failure on the part of
the city’s leadership to encourage recycling. List five ways in which you think Curitiba, or any city, could
encourage residents to recycle.
The city could make it convenient for residents to recycle. They could instigate an advertising campaign
encouraging recycling. They could charge for the amount of trash that is thrown away, and they could place
convenient recycling receptacles in public areas. Additionally, they could provide educational materials and
advertise about the benefits of recycling.
202
Sustainable Cities
3.
Do you think that urban sprawl is a problem and something that should be controlled? Develop three
arguments to support your answer. Compare your arguments with those of your classmates.
Yes, urban sprawl is a problem that should be controlled because it destroys habitat, fragments the
landscape, and in the end is very energy consumptive because of the reliance on automobiles for
transportation.
4.
Write a brief essay that includes at least three reasons why you (a) enjoy living in a large city, (b) would
like to live in a large city, or (c) do not wish to live in a large city. Be specific in your reasoning. Compare
your essay with those of your classmates.
Responses will vary, though students will likely focus on aspects of big cities such as walkability, access to
multiple-use areas, public transportation, etc. Those who dislike cities may focus on the noise, crowding,
pollution, and lack of open space.
5.
One issue debated at a U.N. conference was the question of whether housing is a universal right (a position
supported by most developing countries) or just a need (supported by the United States and several other
developed countries). What is your position on this issue? Defend your choice.
In order for everyone to live in a fair and equitable society, it is necessary for each family to have access to
the basics elements that are needed to function—namely, food, clothes, and shelter. Additionally, clean
water and sanitary conditions, health care and education, employment opportunities, and female
empowerment all play their part in alleviating poverty for the global population. I agree that housing is a
right and not just a need, as the U.S. delegation stated. Many countries have governments that provide low
cost subsidized housing for its people. That does occur in some parts of the U.S. but the push here is for
everyone to own their own homes, which is nice if you can afford it. With minimum wages that are barely
sufficient for a family to live on, this is out of the reach for much of the population. With the recent crisis in
the housing market, where even people with what used to be a sufficient income cannot afford the rising
mortgage payments and are losing their homes, some are becoming homeless. It is amazing to me that tent
cities are springing up outside of Los Angeles that are inhabited not by what most people would regard as
the “homeless” section of society, but by people who have lost their homes in this mortgage crisis. Are we
not the wealthiest country in the world? How can this be happening? Maybe if more people in the
government began to consider housing as a right and not simply a need, perhaps these problems might not
occur. Maybe if some of these state and national officials had to spend a while in such a “tent city” they
might change their tune pretty quickly and think of housing as a right.
6.
If you own a car or hope to own one, what conditions, if any, would encourage you to rely less on the
automobile and to travel to school or work by bicycle, on foot, by mass transit, or by carpool?
Living close to school, as I did in the city, enabled me to walk to school. Some days I would ride my bike.
Now that I live in the country, I have to go by bus to school as it is too far to walk and would take me a
long time to ride my bike there. At least the students are not all using individual cars. I do now have a car
and use it mainly on the weekend. Because the distances I have to travel to the movies, stores, etc. are
much longer than when I was in the city, I am conscious of how much gasoline I am using. Whenever I
can, I plan ahead and take turns with some other students by carpooling. It is sometimes difficult and not
ideally convenient, but we all feel that it is the right thing to do, especially with the rising price of gasoline
and our concern for the environment.
7.
Do you believe the United States or the country where you live should develop a comprehensive and
integrated mass transit system over the next 20 years, including an efficient rapid-rail network for travel
within and between its major cities? How would you pay for such a system?
Wherever possible, the U.S. should provide integrated mass transport systems that would move people
efficiently. This can be established in the cities and the outlying areas. London and Paris have had these for
a long time. Boston and New York City also have long-established systems. Washington D. C. has a really
good, new, modern transport system. The rail line from Boston to New Hampshire and Maine is being
Instructor's Manual: Chapter 22
203
resurrected to provide a fast method for those people who work in the city but live far away, making a long
daily commute by train a feasible alternate to the car. This is also true for those people who live in
Connecticut and commute daily to New York City. The introduction of such transportation systems may
not be an easy option for the rural areas around the country, as the populations are lower and introducing
such mass transit systems may not be cost-effective. Such options for the cities and surrounding areas could
be subsidized by the local government and businesses. Keeping the ticket costs down will be important to
attract people to use mass transit options. This is a national issue and we need the government to begin
spending money on helping the infrastructure of this country rather than on other expenditures that do not
benefit Americans at home.
8.
Consider the goals listed on p. 606 as part of the Ecocity concept. How close to reaching each of these
goals is the city where you live or the city nearest to where you live? Pick what you think are the five most
important of these goals and describe a way in which that city could meet each of those five goals.
Answers will vary geographically.
9.
Congratulations! You are in charge of the world. List the three most important components of your strategy
for dealing with urban growth and sustainability in (a) developed countries and (b) developing countries.
The three most important features of my strategy for developed countries would be reclamation and
redevelopment of abandoned city centers to focus on walkability and mixed-use, implementation of
recycling programs, and development of sustainable agriculture systems in the urban centers. The three
most important features of my strategy for developing countries would be the development of infrastructure
that relies on public transportation, design of buildings that are carbon neutral, and conservation of
biodiversity beginning at the urban edge.
10. List two questions that you would like to have answered as a result of reading this chapter.
Student answers will vary and provide a good starting point for class discussion.
204
Sustainable Cities