To What Extent Can Urban Areas Be Sustainable

Sustainable cities are an ecosystem with not many environmental issues. Some of the issues that are not present within a sustainable city are air pollution, mass population and excessive water and energy usage. A sustainable city does not have a negative impact on the environment. It has a small ecological footprint, which is the impact of a person or community on the environment. It would also have a lot of greenery, meaning a lot of vegetation and use renewable energy, solar panels and wind energy.

Rapid urbanisation has caused a variety of problems, including transport congestion, lack of sufficient homes and living conditions, sanitary and health care issues, and crime. For all these problems, city planners have attempted potential solutions, each with varying degrees of success. Cities including London, Manila and Mumbai have several of the aforementioned problems, and have each tried their own potential solutions. This essay will discuss how successful these schemes have been in resolving these issues.

While items such as paper, glass, metal cans, plastic and clothes can all be recycled. However the start up costs of recycling. A good example of an Urban area which has a high rate of waste management is Curitiba which recycles 70% of its waste. In the late 1980’s it was the first city to offer a wide variety of recycling services. Curitiba recycles 2/3 of its household waste this figure is one of the highest in the world. The recycling plants are made up of recycled material and employ people who find it hard to get jobs for example immigrants and disabled people, this makes the employees feel valued and it helps to improve the lives.

Recycling is presently one of the most controversial topics, considering that while most individuals put across their support regarding the act the number of individuals who actually do something in order to recycle is much smaller. Many people are currently unable or unwilling to recycle properly because the process often requires a series of changes in one's life. It is thus essential for the authorities to provide educational programs meant to assist individuals in understanding why recycling is important and in learning how to recycle effectively. People need to accept the fact that the benefits of recycling will reflect on the future and that conditions are currently critical as a result of the fact that the masses are generally unacquainted with the importance of this process.

The council has put in place the recycling program, to try reduce and improve human health. The programme has managed to tackle landfills from being full with rubbish that can cause the air to pollute, causing severe damage to human health. The recycling program has had a positive impact on human health, less pollution in the air means people get to live a longer and healthier life because , environmental factors such as pollution is not causing so much damage to the air and environment.

Making a sustainble city of tommorrow requires extensive city planning. Urban cities in Canada are making strides to create large metropolitan areas more environmentally friendly by using the latest green technologies and strategies. With comittment and time, all Canadian cities can implemet methods that will create livable cities for future generations.

Planning and management needs to happen in all countries over the world because no matter how different the level of development between countries the problems will be same in urban areas. These problems that need to be planned and managed in the urban areas of the city are becoming increasingly significant due to the fact that there has been a hug increase in the number of people living in cities worldwide, just over fifty percent of the world are now living in urban areas. The main reason for this is the huge increase in urbanisation which is defined as an increase in the proportion of

The city’s top three energy goals include increasing overall city energy efficiency by 5%, city building energy efficiency by 10%, and the renewable energy usage by 20 megawatts (City of Chicago, 2015a). Further, since 71% of carbon emissions come from the energy used by buildings in the city (City of Chicago, 2015a), it is unsurprising that government has taken notice. As stated by the City of Chicago (2015a), a goal has been set to increase renewable energy use 25% by the year 2026. Reductions in carbon emissions are not only beneficial in terms of energy efficiency, but they also reduce harm to the environment that can lead to climate change (City of Chicago, 2015a). It is also important to note that increasing energy efficiency can include building new, costly infrastructure that will pay off long-term, or can be as easy as replacing all street lights with energy efficient bulbs. In fact, updating street light energy efficiency is such a simple and cost-effective energy usage reduction tactic, it used in many of the cities we have studied this semester, such as Portland (Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, 2011). It is evident that the City of Chicago (2015a) believes that no sustainable effort is insignificant.

One of my highlights from the years was traveling to Jakarta for a conference and learning trip. I was one of few people who got to go to the trash-picker community. Jakarta doesn’t have a very good recycle or even trash system. Thus, people in the lowest class are given the job of sorting the trash to find something or even anything that might be valuable. The XS project has been working with that community, and buying trash from them to turn into recycled items; for example, SAS’s laptop bags are made from recycled banners and other ‘trash’, but the SAS laptop program considers the recycled bags to be functional and helpful.

Urban development is the social, cultural, economic and physical development of cities. The development of cities is the main topic of human geography. Urban development can be used in different ways by the researchers. It can cause the price of things to increase fast. Urban development occurs in major cities like New York City, Tokyo, Japan. Urban development started back in the earlier cities like Mesopotamia, Egypt. This spreads the culture that affect people which makes them want to go to the major cities. Over fifty percent of the earth’s population lives in urban areas. Studies show by 2045 that the number of people living in a urban area will increase.

Recycling has many benefits not only for the environment, but for the city as well. Financially, it will bring in millions for the city, as it did for Phoenix, Arizona. As the saying goes, "you have to spend money to make money." Everyone in the city does not have money to spend on recycling bins. In order to recycle properly, you must have the right bins for whatever it is you are recycling. Paper must go with paper in the blue bin, etc. If everything is not in order then you would be

This company has implemented so many different methods for going green, therefore I will be only discussing two as follows; the first strategy is a slogan that is being used by the organization on a regular basis called by the name; Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. All the stores that the company has have taken the initiative to reduce the impact we as human beings create on the earth by reducing paper by going paper less, composting, using vegetable based inks etc. Reuse- this is done by reusing materials whenever it becomes possible. The company provides the use of reusable grocery bags to its customers, new stores are constructed with reclaimed wood and bricks and also the installation of rain water collection systems to reuse rain water for non-consumable purposes is being practiced. Recycle- this is done through the utilization of the delivery trucks which backhauls waste to regional facilities where it is turned into compost and donated to community gardens or stores. Other methods of recycling is done by replacing disposable batteries with rechargeable ones, using recycled paper with a high percentage of post-consumer waste

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.

We, humans, are producing waste every day, polluting and destroying our planet. To save the world, many people believe recycling is the obvious solution. It is the process of converting certain waste into a reusable material. Therefore, the recycle motto is “Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle”. However, have you ever wondered why the word recycle is placed at the end? Well, it’s because it is not the only way to reduce waste and save the world from global warming. Recycling may have many advantages, but its disadvantages’ list is not a short one either. Recycling may look very simple and easy method, but when there is a need for a new unit of waste recycling, it takes up a lot of space. Not to mention the amount of money the building costs along with paying the staffs, buying new utility vehicles, upgrading the recycling unit and different types of chemical disposals. It is not only expensive but also, unhygienic, unsafe and unsightly with piles of waste materials on every location. These wastes spread infectious diseases putting human health at risk. Aside from recycling

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