Essay about Problems Due To Urbanization

From 1890 to 1920, cities in the United States experienced a rapid growth that was unprecedented in years previous. This growth was caused by a number of factors and resulted in both positive and negative consequences. Such factors included, industrialization, technological advances, migration and immigration. Although American cities greatly improved by the expeditious urbanization, these factors also developed numerous challenges including pollution, sanitation problems, a need for environmental reform, political corruption, overcrowding, high crime rates and segregation.

For a majority of Earth’s history, its populous has been free to roam and live off of the land, maintaining a balance between the habitat and its inhabitants. However, as technology develops the earth is placed at an even bigger disequilibrium. In the places where massive sequoias reigned, high-rise apartments now stand. Just as water rushed through rivers, cars drive down streets. The populants of Earth continue to innovate, industrialize,and urbanize, but at what cost?

As people have difficulties to reaching services and activities without having a car, owning a car has its disadvantages and problems also. The problem’s origin date back to the 1920s. While cities were being planned, overall design was based on car usage, but did not account for growth in that population. Urban sprawl added to increased car usage, which was not taken into account during the design phase, and improper

With a declining or no use of cars can result in the reduction of pollution quite tremendously. They can by reducing the greenhouse effect. As the author reports in the article, “In German Suburb Life Goes On Without Care” by Elisabeth Rosenthal, “Passenger cars are responsible for 12 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in Europe… and up to 50 percent in some car-intensive areas in the United States.” Therefore, with cars being a leading factor of greenhouse gas emissions, reducing their usage would have a positive effect on the environment. After days of near-record pollution,

As a result of an increased population inhabiting one area, traffic congestion is often a major issue resulting from urbanisation. In London, traffic is evidently a problem. As it would be expected from a capital city home to more

Automobiles play a major role in today's society. Almost every American owns at least one motorized transportation vehicle. Some say they make our lives better by reaching places faster than before. Others say they are a harmful to the environment. Have they made our society better or worse? They may be fast, but do we as humans want our environment to suffer because of time. Face it, cars pollute. And they release destructive chemicals into the air. Air pollution can threaten the health of many subjects in the environment including human beings.

Pollution has become a heated issue in recent years. The destruction of the environment along with serious health problems are the eventual effects. The extensive use and availability of automobiles, tremendous amounts of production in the booming economy and the constant increase in demand for energy, can be held responsible.

Urbanization and Industrialization brought millions of people to growing cities, these growing cities were ill equipped to deal with growing population rate. While some might argue that Industrialization had primarily positive consequences for society because of a surplus of job opportunities, faster production, and more amenities, it was actually a negative thing for society. Industrialization’s negative effects were angersome working conditions, poor quality of life, and child labor.

It also increases air pollution from vehicles and puts the public to a high risk of asthma, high blood pressure, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, aggravation, stress, and other diseases. The high level of urbanization and car ownership causes traffic congestion and this would worsen in the future as the pollution and car ownership grows. There are various ways to reduce congestion, one possible way is to create toll on the roadways so that the public has to pay a fee associated with the roadway depending on the road characteristics, demand and supply, peak time, and other various data taken into consideration. This encourages user to choose other mode of transport which could be walking, public transit and bus, or carpooling. The toll would depend on the traveler’s willingness to pay (WTP) as a function of trip characteristics including trip urgency, length, and travel speed, traveller’s income levels, and previous exposure to tolled roadway. Travelers characteristics are asses by travellers willingness to carpool or to use the transit. ( WE cant get there from

This pollution increases health risks by introducing people to harmful toxins released by cars, specifically in the asthmatic population. Hence, one can see the problems associated with traffic congestion and pollution. There are several ways to counteract the problem of traffic congestion and pollution. Firstly, the most practical solution to New York City’s congestion problem is to decrease the number of cars on the road. One plausible way would be to promote and offer alternative methods of transportation such as buses, subways, and taxis. If people used more public transportation there would be fewer cars on the road, less congestion, and less traffic pollution. Another alternative would be to increase toll prices. By increasing tolls on bridges and tunnels, people would be much less inclined to drive to the city and as a result there would be less traffic congestion and pollution. Gridlock is a major cause of traffic problems in Manhattan. If we were to implement more severe fines for blocking intersections, people would not try to “beat the light,” in effect decreasing overall congestion. A third approach to try and resolve this issue would be to change some one-way streets to two-way streets. Doing this would allow easier access to destinations and would eliminate indirect route taking. As a result, overall pollution would decrease. These are some of the methods that would be viable in decreasing

and lead to still greater uses of vehicles. This is tolerable where the population is

“Automobiles have a large impact on the quality of our environment and public health. Automobile use affects virtually every aspect of environmental quality - including noise levels, air quality, water pollution, and urban sprawl. Ninety percent of the environmental impact of automobiles occurs through the operation of the cars: about 10 percent from the production, raw materials and disposal of

A sustainable city is when harmony is reached between the environment, economy and society. Environmentally, sustainable cities are ecologically friendly by using alternative sources of energy such as solar or wind power. Economically, governments should share a similar decision-making process with institutions and with the public by having a common belief in what should be done by improving sustainability. Sorensen, Marcotullio, and Grant (2004), find that a good decision making process consists of planning and control at the municipal and national political levels which would allow local level functions to become reinforced. Socially, sustainable cities are classless, meaning that there are no social divisions which serve as limits; leading to a more equal society. One of the many ideas would be using mixed housing to remove the class divisions between people. Also, city streets would be walkable, with businesses and services located at close proximity to promote a healthier lifestyle and serve as an alternative to using cars for transportation. The writers differ in their analysis when examining the approaches to improving sustainability in cities. This section will analyze four important ideas on how cities can become more sustainable.

New Urbanism, a burgeoning genre of architecture and city planning, is a movement that has come about only in the past decade. This movement is a response to the proliferation of conventional suburban development (CSD), the most popular form of suburban expansion that has taken place since World War II. Wrote Robert Steuteville, "Lacking a town center or pedestrian scale, CSD spreads out to consume large areas of countryside even as population grows relatively slowly. Automobile use per capita has soared, because a motor vehicle is required for nearly all human transportation"1. New Urbanism, therefore, represents the converse of this planning ideology. It stresses traditional planning, including multi-purpose zoning,

Urbanization, which is becoming a buzzword during the last few decades, is enlarging at a booming speed. It is predicted that 93 percents urban growth will occur to the year 2020, in the developing world (Elliot J.A, 1999). Generally speaking, more than half of the people around the world have been moved to cities, which led to a series of “matters” connected with people’s life that changed in a dramatical way. In this period, sustainable development, another buzzword during the past few years, came into people’s view and gradually became the mainstream of society development. Its definition is to make the development continue in a long term, which means allowing appropriate economic growth and industrialization without