1st Draft - Ahmed

To what extent can the problems of urbanization be met by a policy of sustainable development?

Sub-title

How can urban agriculture resolve problems such as: urban poverty, food security and the need for environmental conservation in Lagos, Nigeria?

Introduction

This essay discusses how some problems caused by urbanization can be alleviated by developing urban agriculture. In order to examine this issue properly this essay will begin by providing definitions of the terms ‘urbanization’ and ‘sustainable development’. Sustainable development has been defined as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED 1987, p.43). There are two concepts that constitute the idea of sustainable development. The first is the idea that limitations must exist upon technology and social organization in order to ensure that natural resources can meet present and future needs. The second concept integral to the idea of sustainable development is that of needs, especially the basic needs of the world’s poor (Ibid.). Urbanization refers to process that leads to the development of towns and cities (Giddens 2000, p.571). Over the last century urbanization has increasingly become a global process which has had significant ramifications on the developing world. Almost all growth prior to 1900 occurred in the West. There was some urban expansion in cities in the developing world over the following fifty years, but the majority of urbanization in these areas occurred in the last half-century (Ibid. p.572). Urban populations are growing at a faster rate than the world’s overall population. The United Nations (UN) has estimated that 63 per cent of the world’s population will live in urbanized areas by 2025 (Ibid. p.273). The rise of rapid urbanization leads to a variety of problems which are perpetuated as population increases. I have chosen to focus on the following problems caused by urbanization: urban poverty, food security and the need for environmental conservation. These issues will be examined in relation to the experiences of Lagos, Nigeria.

Rapid urbanization, which is often left unchecked, is common in major cities in the developing world, Lagos being no exception. This accelerated development has led to unplanned expansion, ill-ventilation and an essentially ‘unhealthy’ city (Adedej & Ademiluyi 2009, p.44). The Nigerian metropolis Lagos has become the economic centre for the country and has been classified as the sixth largest megacity in the world. However, the Lagos was also ranked last in terms of urban living standards among the 28 megacities ranked in 1991 (Ibid.). Despite being the Nigeria’s most populous state, Lagos is also its smallest in size (3577 km²). Lagos has been choked by hasty housing development resulting in ‘limited land’ (Abegunde et al 2009, p.1065). Furthermore, the megacity hosts many polluting industries and possesses the highest number of automobiles of any state in Nigeria (Ibid).

The unregulated urbanization that has occurred in Lagos had led to a multitude of problems. One of the key problems that requires urgent attention is that of urban poverty. A great deal of residents live in inadequate accommodation on land with short-term leases. Many others have similar housing on land that is not leased (i.e. squatting). The uncertain nature of tenancy in the city is a major obstacle to the development of areas occupied by the urban poor. The high levels of unemployment present in Lagos means that many residents live in poverty and struggle to support their families and satisfy their basic needs. In order to tackle poverty more job creation initiatives are required in order to provide greater employment and reduce the size of the poverty trap.

Another key issue facing the population of Lagos is food security. The ‘land ownership system makes it rather cumbersome for poor urban farmers to access land’ (Adedeji & Ademiluyi 2009, p.47). The lack of access to land makes it difficult for the urban poor to maintain any level of self-sufficiency. This makes it hard for the urban poor to grow their own food. This is one of the reasons why ‘the world’s poorest urban households spend between 50 to 90% of their income on food (Kerry 2004, cited in Adedeji & Ademiluyi 2009, p.47). Poor urban households become dependent on food that is transported into the city, which is then sold at higher prices due to transport costs. Population growth in Lagos ‘not only directly increases the demand for food, but also indirectly reduces its supply through building development, environmental degradation and the marginalization of food production’ (Adedeji & Ademiluyi 2009, p.45). As we can see from above, food security is a serious issue facing Lagos.

As mentioned above, it has been claimed that megacities that have experienced rapid urbanization can be regarded as ‘unhealthy’. The expanding population and under regulated polluting industries found in Lagos, have had negative effects upon “city ecology” (Ibid. p.47). The large number of automobiles and the severe lack of vegetation contributes to the reduction of air quality, which in turn has adverse effects on the health of Lagos resident’s. Rapid and unplanned urbanization has created an unnatural CO² balance in the city and has severely affected biodiversity (Ibid.).

In summary, we have identified three problems caused by urbanization which are adversely affecting the quality of life in the city of Lagos. The issues are: urban poverty, a lack of food security and the need for environmental conservation. In what way can these issues be met by a policy of sustainable development? It has been argued that all three of these problems can be addressed by implementing and promoting the use urban agriculture amongst the urban poor of Lagos.

Urban agriculture has been defined by Smit et al (1966) as:

“an industry located within (intra-urban) or on the fringe (peri-urban) of a town, a city or a metropolis, which grows or raises, processes and distributes a diversity of food and non-food products, using largely human and material resources, products and services found in and around the urban area” (Ibid. p.44).

The crops yielded or the products produced by this method are usually supplied to the surrounding urban area. Urban agriculture can be seen as beneficial in a variety of areas. Firstly, it can help improve issues surrounding food security. The promotion of urban agriculture increases the amount of fresh food available in the city. Moreover, research has shown improvements in nutrition once urban families have begun to farm (IFPRI 2002, p.281 cited in Adedeji & Ademiluyi 2009, p.47). This exemplifies the positive effects on health that urban agriculture can bring. Furthermore, the development of urban agriculture allows cities to become less reliant on food imports. This then reduces overall cost as transportation fees are not incurred.

Secondly, urban agriculture can give greater financial empowerment to the urban poor and thus can be seen as a mechanism to help combat the high levels of urban poverty present in Lagos. It has been argued that urban agriculture can provide ideal employment opportunities to the urban poor as it provides jobs ‘in a sector with low barriers to entry’ (Adedeji & Ademiluyi 2009, p.47). Horticultural production can be exercised in many areas of Lagos. Although it provides more employment in peri-urban areas, waste land found in inner city areas can also be utilised, as well as previously unused sites such as rooftops. Produce and products derived from urban agriculture can generate ‘reasonable income and returns’ (Ibid.) helping to reduce poverty. Moreover, the success of urban agricultural sites can help attract further investment into such areas of Lagos. It has been argued that ‘plants generally enhance the economic and social values of the community’ (Abegunde et al 2009, p.1065), which brings clear advantages to urban areas. The state of the local economy can be improved by changing the economic value of the land through urban agriculture. In turn this may attract the investment of businesses such as restaurants. This solution can also help create other indirect economic advantages for the local economy. For example, by making use of organic waste (e.g. solid waste and waste water) waste management costs can be reduced (Adedeji & Ademiluyi 2009, p.47).

Thirdly, urban agriculture can also be seen as beneficial in the realms of environmental conservation. Energy and resources can be saved simply through reducing the distance that food has to travel from production to consumption site. By increasing the amount of food grown in urban areas dependency on imported food will be reduced (Ibid.). Furthermore, the poor air quality that plagues densely urbanized areas such as Lagos can also be addressed through the promotion of urban agriculture. This is possible due to the fact that ‘carbon related gasses generated in cities are utilised during plants photosynthesis’ (Abegunde et al 2009, p.1065). The oxygen released and the carbon captured during photosynthesis helps purify the CO² heavy air that causes health problems. Planting on waste land can also help prevent erosion and flooding. If sloping waste land is utilised it can be advantageous in regard to disaster mitigation (Adedeji & Ademiluyi 2009, p.47).

Despite the clear benefits of implementing and promoting urban agriculture there are also risks that need to be taken into consideration (Ibid.). One of the major problems that needs to be overcome is access to land. Urban farming has not been fully embraced by the correct officials and relevant intuitions. Because of this urban agriculturalists often face uncertainty over the lease of land. The fear of eviction prevents real investment in urban spaces and often only quick-yielding crops are planted in order to mitigate against this (Ibid.) ‘Land redistribution is contentious and politically complex’ (Ibid. p.48). Furthermore, the use of waste matter and water can also be dangerous if not undertaken properly. Liquid waste, such as pig slurry and flush waters must be properly processed before use on farms. When these practises are managed correctly the risk is significantly reduced (Flynch 1999 cited in Adedeji & Ademiluyi 2009, p.48). The ‘major danger in utilizing waste waters is food contamination by pathogenic micro-organisms and outbreaks of water-borne diseases’ (Adedeji & Ademiluyi 2009, p.47). However, overall it has been argued that such dangers only occur when ‘poorly treated waste water is used for irrigation’ (Ibid.).[break this paragraph up]

Conclusion:

In summary, we have seen how rapid and unchecked urbanization in Lagos had led to many problems that need to be overcome. In this essay I have chosen to identify three issues that can be potentially overcome by implementing a policy of sustainable development. The problems are as follows: urban poverty, food security and the need for environmental conservation. The sustainable development policy examined has been urban agriculture. As we have seen, urban agriculture can help combat all three of these problems in different ways. The development of urban agriculture provides an opportunity to provide financial empowerment to the urban poor. By farming on waste land poorer sections of Lagos society are able to join a sector with low barriers and begin to generate their own income. In turn, we have seen how the development of green spaces can also attract further investment in these areas. Furthermore, I have outlined how by simply making use of waste land and resources the food security of Lagos can be greatly improved. A rise in urban agriculture will cause a growth in the amount of food available in Lagos. This also has health benefits. Lastly, I have attempted to show how the implementation of urban agriculture can help bring about cleaner air in Lagos, which is positive for all sections of Lagos society. The growth of green spaces can also help gentrify the city as a whole. The limitations touched upon show that urban agriculture as a solution is not simple. Uncertainty over how land-less households are able to acquire land is a definite problem. The re-use of waste resources also has to be done in rte correct fashion otherwise health risks can emerge. Waste resources must be properly processed to avoid the spread of disease. I would recommend that future research should concentrate on strengthening g the links between urban farmers and local government officials. There is a clear need to overcome the uncertainty surrounding the legality of urban land use and entrench the ideas into local government, as the benefits are not only enjoyed by the households that farm, but buy all sections of Lagos society. In conclusion, I argue that urban agriculture has a clearly positive part to play in overcoming issues of urbanization in Lagos. However, the correct infrastructure to support such schemes is required in order to ensure that risky farming methods are carried out properly. Moreover, clear regulation is required so that land can be fairly allocated to the households that want to support themselves through urban agriculture. When viewed in a holistic fashion, urban agriculture can provide great opportunity to confront issues that have arisen from urbanization.

Bibliography :

Abegunde et al (2009). ‘Commercial horticulture practise in Nigeria: Its socio-spatial effects in Lagos city’ African Journal of Agricultural Research. Vol. 4 (10), pp. 1064-1074, October

Adedeji, Oludare H. & Ademiluyi, I.A. (2009). ‘Urban agriculture and urban land use planning: Need for a synthesis in metropolitan Lagos, Nigeria’ Journal of Geography and Regional Planning, Vol 2 (3), pp. 43-50, March

Antai, D. & Moradi, T. (2010). ‘Urban Area Disadvantage and Under-5 Mortality in Nigeria: The effect of Rapid Urbanization’ Environmental Health Perspectives, Vol. 118 (6) pp. 887-883

Giddens, A (2001). Sociology, Oxford: Polity Press.

World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) (1987). Our common future. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 43.

Ibrahim's First draft
Title: to what extend can the problems of urbanization be met by a policy of sustainable development?
Subtitle: has the Saudi government taken the right steps for sustainable development in term of urbanization since, its unification, 8 decades ago and explored oil?

Introduction
As a result of being Makkah and Medina, the two holy cities for Muslims people around the world, inside the board of Saudi Arabia, it should represent the Islamic society and concepts perfectly. Therefore, Saudi government has imposed Shariah law as constitution of the country. So, any measure or action should attain approval from religious institution before impose by the government. It is important to confirm that the religious institution has a complete power to refuse any measure conflict with Shariah laws. Moreover, all the Saudi kings should attain approval from religious institution before assuming the reins of powers and also they have right and power to isolate them if they do not follow Shariah laws or national interest.

Shariah law is not [the] only influencing factor on policy makers in Saudi, there is also customary law which call in Saudi society URF, culture heritage from Arab tribes, the agreement among these tribes before Islam existing 14 centuries ago. This law responsible for arrange and organize the relationship among members of one tribe or among others tribes and each tribe has representative is elected by the members of tribe(Eben Saleh. 1999).

These two factors Shariah law and customary laws URF are highly considerable from policy makers in any aspect in Saudi society. That means any plan from the government for development the country should take approve from religious institution before it be applied on the ground. Religious institution calls for Islamic urbanization for sustainable development. Islamic urbanization is development of the society through concern for the individual and society both in terms of education, healthcare developing cities and country and all aspects of live and support freedom and equality in rights and meals within the framework of Islamic law and social customary if do not conflict with Shariah law.[unclear]

This essay will discuss what Saudi government has done for sustainable development in term of education, healthcare, cities, roads network and analysis the change in lifestyle and improve standard of living in urban and rural region in Saudi. After that it will evaluate the outcome of sustainable development plans with government expenditure on these plans. Finally, it will compare the development between Saudi and others countries in Gulf region. This essay conclusion is the shariah law has positive implication in plans of sustainable development but the problem might come from who apply these roles or lack of knowledge in new technology from Shariah scholars and what the Saudi government has to do to reduce the confliction between planners for sustainable development and Shariah scholars.

What [the] Saudi government has done for sustainable development?

before unification of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabian eight decades ago by King Abdul Aziz AL Saud , people in this region were living under line of poverty and there are not any kind of education such as school or universities except some teacher in mosques to teach the Quran and the basic requirement of the Islamic religion. Moreover, not everybody has opportunity to involve in these basic teaching. Since Saudi founded and explored oil, government has become surplus of oil revenue helped to build strategic plans to re-build the country as contemporary design. As a new government has less of experience of development plans project, Saudi invite international company for draw the plans and implement it. In the beginning, government started in temporary project without clear vision of the future just attempt to reaching developed countries .No one deny Saudi government has built enormous projects in infrastructure, healthcare, education and cities and roads development.

As a result of massive amount of petrodollar, Saudi government has been able to build the basic infrastructure in short time. Just before fifty years ago, there are no any kind of urban city in most of region of Saudi especially in middle country . Each village is independent on its resources and manage by oldest one who has the power and ability on influence on others. In around 1950 there are no central electricity services in most town and city in Saudi. Each place and community has to do their needs independently without any intervention or organize by the government. Most population in this period were living in houses built from mud and woods. These houses usually have less of facilities such water, electricity and sewage. In term of education most population do not have an opportunity to go to schools because there were no available schools near where they live and if it happen someone attained an opportunity to attend that usually just for primary or secondary school. Also, in this period no hospitals or even healthcare centers for treatment illness and diseases it was just limited on folk treatment without adequate of knowledge and equipment for diagnosis diseases accurately. Most people have died because of there are no qualifiers doctors and equipment and safe place at that time.

Nowadays, it is clear that Saudi Arabian has jumped from poor country and lack of basic needs for its population and number of them travel to neighbor countries to find a job to become one of countries who have developed rabidly. Saudi has built all cities with high standard of technology as a modern country. In short time, all population have all facilities and services for free such healthcare, schools and universities. Moreover, to encourage citizens to join schools, Saudi built schools in every where near housing with accessibility by provide students with transportation from and to schools for free. Also. Saudi subside students who went to continue studying in universities a free accommodation and payment for expense as a fixed amount payable monthly.

In spite of Saudi concerns about how to develop its region and its citizens but these plans same time encounter with religion institution. Religion scholars take long time of discussion to approve specific plan of development. That belong to less of experience of religion scholars in developing plans or they cannot apply Islamic concepts on these plans or even they thought these plans might conflict with Islamic concepts or destroy these concepts. Mix workers or students in the same place are forbidden in Islam that let government for each kind of project has to do it for two genders and that increased the expenses of development projects. In the other hand, religion institution concerns about protect and maintain Islamic concepts. That create a huge argue between government planners and developers with Islamic scholars in controversial issues such workplace and the way of woman education recruit them. Both government planners and Islamic concern about development the country and citizen but they argue about the way and measurement and implement of these plans (Doumato. 1999).

Lifestyle in Saudi Arabian has changed rabidly since it founded eight decades ago until now. My family lives in village in the middle of the Saudi Arabian, it just 10K.M. from fourth commercial city in Saudi, I remember, when I was in primary school 25 years ago, that there were no road from our home to school it just same path or dirt road unpaved. Also, there is no state electricity or water. Moreover, the first year for me in primary school I remember that there is no chair or table in classrooms but I think I am lucky because I had opportunity to enrolled in schools and universities which was not available for me father or previous generation. New both cities and villages have attained all government services and liking of roads networks.

In recent days people behavior and treatment has shifted some time in negative side. They lose some traditional feature at social and moral. People become unhelpful each other as a result each one keen to increase its wealth and their lifestyle individually. Accelerating in lifestyle in Saudi society led to disintegration in society and family. Also, that led to reduce the practice of Islamic concept as Saudi people are considered as conservative Muslim at Muslim people (Hijazi. Etc. 1998).

The things that might criticize Saudi government is they pay more attention and investment in development project in design and technology in asset such as building and roads and in the other side they pied less in investment in education for new generation as modern education (Algindan. 2000). Shariah law support justice and equality and fight against corruption and exploitation issues. Saudi government pretends as Islamic country enforces the shariah laws but that is not true in the ground.

Development cost in Saudi is very high by comparing with other countries in the same region and circumstances. For example, in the recent days, Saudi government has announced about plan to build new sports stadium in Jeddah that will cost the government budget $ 10 billions. Whilst in just four years ago Qatar has built enormous stadium in just about $1 billion. Saudi government has spent a huge amount of money for development projects comparing with other neighbors countries but unfortunately the outcome of those expenditure are very low in term of quality, technology and safety. That might due to corruption or less of knowledge and experience of dealing with foreign company. However, Saudi society still commitment on its traditional and religion concepts. Islamic practices are essential to apply in all aspect of life day in Saudi society such as markets and companies. So far Saudi government has been done plans for development but its might not for sustainable development because some of them have been protested by devout Muslim such as King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. This university led to aggressive controversial in Saudi society even if it will encourage the knowledge and technology research but they think it will destroy their concept and traditional of Islam because the system of education lead to workers and students work in one place and that against their believe.

To evaluate the development in Saudi Arabia whether achieve high level of sustainable development or not is essentially to compare its achievements with other countries have the same conditions and resources in the same region. For instance, any visitor to United Arab Emirates especially in Dubai and Abu Dhabi can observe that the level of development in all aspects such as education, healthcare, justice, modern cities, human right and safety on building and roads. However, that might belong to this country was colony and that help them to draw plans for development. Also, the size of Emirate is small and population is low by comparing with size and population in Saudi. Moreover, development projects in Emirates do not need approval from religion institution that lead to rapid implementation of these projects.

Conclusion:

Whereas reason for writing this essay is to analysis the impacts of Islamic laws (shariah) on sustainable development in Saudi Arabia. Shariah laws do not clash with sustainable development but planners and developers have to understand the theory and requirement of Islamic society. Shariah emphasizes of using resources fairly and distribute it equally that are essential in sustainable development. Also, shariah laws prohibited moral and financial corruption and they consider a big sin in Islamic religion. Moreover, the Islam encourages education and keen for new knowledge and build the society in high standard of living and fight against injustice and poverty. All these factors are essential for sustainable development which Saudi government should consider it whilst making any plans of developing country.

In recent years, Saudi government has launched new programs of education. There more than 50000 Saudi students around the world for studying high education. Also, they have plane to build more than 30 university in next five years in high standard of technology for meeting an increase of demand on high education in labor market (Ministry of High Education Saudi Arabia. 2010). These planes to reach their aims should attain the agreement from religion institution and suitable for Muslim society to avoid their protested.

Reference;

Al-Gindan. Yussuf. M. "Undergraduate curriculum reform in Saudi medical school". Saudi Medical Journal. Vol. 21(4).324-326. 2000
http://www.smj.org.sa/PDFFiles/Apr00/Undergraduate.pdf. (accessed 20/07/2010)

Alshuwaikat. Habib M, "GLS-based urban sustainability assessment: the case of Dammam city, Saudi Arabia" Local Environment, Vol 11, issue 2 April 2006.
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a743780101(Accessed 20/07/2010)

Doumato. Eleanor Abdella, " Women and work in Saudi Arabia: How flexible are Islamic Margins?, Middle East journal. Vol.53. No.4, Autumn 1999.
http://www.jstor.org/pss/4329391. (accessed 20/07/2010).

Eban Salah. Mohammad Abdullah, "The impact of Islamic and customary laws on urban form development in Southwestern in Saudi Arabia". Habitat International. Vol 22 Issue 4. 1998
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V9H-3VR0CNW-G&_user=10&_coverDate=12/31/1998&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1386112455&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=1e5d8eb02a013a737c0728966bc5ccbb. (Accessed 20/07/2010)

Hijazi. N, Abalkhail. B, Seaton. A, " Asthma and respiratory symptoms in urban and rural in Saudi Arabia". European respiratory Journal, 1998.
http://www.ersj.org.uk/content/12/1/41.full.pdf+html. (accessed 20/07/2010).

http://www.alarabiya.net. (Accessed 20/07/2010)

Interesting documentary series about China on BBC world service

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/documentaries/2010/05/100513_china_shaking_the_world_part_one.shtml

FIRST DRAFT ---Sophie

To what extent can be the problem of urbanization is met by a policy of sustainable development?

--- the health problems of urbanisation in the People's Republic of China
The majority of the dramatically urbanizing cities probably exists in the least developed countries which has historically originated from demographic and economic transformations over the past few decades. Such a typical phenomenon highlights both adverse and advantage effects on the urban communities constantly. Alternatively, it may as well lead to the housing problem, social crime, traffic congestion or environmental contamination and so on(Vlahov & Galea,2002). [^]A survey of the United Nation(1990), Urbanisation is the growth in the ratio of population migrating from rural areas into the cities and towns. That is, a sleepy city of thousands people has suddenly mushroomed to a swarming areas with millions of heads crowded in the street( Harpham,1994). On this account, sustainable development[,] which was defined as " an attempt to combine growing concerns about a range of environmental issues with socio-economic issues"[,] should be adopted( Hopwood,et al, 2005, p38).
Admittedly, based on the published literature and evidence in the third world, take China for instance, this paper attempts to analyse and evaluate the dimensions of metropolises that affect human health risks as well as the relative sustainable policies which could be conducted by the authorities. Initially, it reveals the potential causes of human chronic morbidity by virtue of the poor health services around expanded cities of China. Secondly, the essential factors will be specifically discussed in terms of communicable and non-communicable diseases, the undeveloped health care services and systems. Then, it looks into the current policies have adopted of sustainable development to municipal cities in China which compared with the U.S medi-care reform; Finally, the perspectives and recommendations for tackling the population diseases will be concluded as far as the cross-national research is concerned. The thesis of [the] whole study is that the more processes of urbanisation, the worse conditions of public well-being. [does that answer the question?]
The People's Republic of China boasts presumably 1.3 billion population, which has occupied the largest proportion of the global populace. Meanwhile, China is confronting the considerable pilgrimage of Urbanisation at present. The rate of urban inhabitants has expanded from 23% to 42% by 2006(UN, 2007). According to China's government survey (2006), it is not an exaggeration to say that this trend will increase further to more than 50% by 2020. In that sense, the Chinese mega-cities are suffering the human health crisis for chronic sickness in terms of environmental (physical and social environment)hazards, a multitude of people, lower income communities and poor national health care systems.

Nevertheless, the rapid scientific innovations in health-medical methods and facilities have significantly disunited the centralized population in urban areas from numerous original infectious diseases which had killed thousands and millions of citizens in historical periods also the industrialization of 18th century in European nations(Rosen, 1993).
-Communicable Diseases

Since the immigration of the demographic shifts from rural to urban regions decades ago, compared with other developing countries China has made vital accomplishment in both preventing and controlling communicable diseases by adopting multi-dimensional measures. Nonetheless, with the advancement of global economy, the rebirth of certain communicable morbid symptoms such as tuberculosis, and sexually transmitted diseases(STDs); acquired immune deficiency syndrome(AIDS) and emerging infectious diseases(EIDs) could probably increase the public concerns about the negative influences on human wholesome in PRC. Nowadays, among with the unmoral behaviours, the figure of citizens infected with STDs has transmitted the constant hazards for infectious communities. "In 2002, the total accumulated cases of 7 kinds of STDs(apart from HIV/AIDS) reported by 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the central government were 744,848. The incidence rate of reported STDs was 58.15/100,000(Lee,2004,p331)." [Do you need to quote this?] In addition, it is evaluated by NHO(National Health Organization) in 2002 that at least around 1.2million population have infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) spread magi-cities. Meanwhile, the pestilence of tuberculosis (TB) in China is distinguished by vital plague proportion, vital death rate and highly widespread regions in China(Lee,2004).

In fact of that, there seems to be inevitably to avoid the expansion of communicable or non-communicable diseases in the world, yet the prevention and methods of those diseases are by no means appeared so complex in such process of globalization and urbanization, which could embody the Chinese fighting campaign of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003.





Figure 0: Diabetes in China -National Well-Being Hazards
''a: Urban diabetic prevalence rates in 2007. b: If all patients diagnosed with diabetes had access to a treatment costing 50 cents a day (with a patient compliance of 60%) the market value would increase from US$1.1billion to $1.7 billion by 2017''(Ward, 2008)
-Non-communicable Diseases
Owing to the industrialization, enlarged aging procedures and conduction of the morbid lifestyles, the metropolitan cities have been suffering such the noncommunicable diseases as diabetes, mental problems, cardiovascular illness, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). It is the most distinct public health issues that can affect the destroyed human health-systems and the considerable medical expenditures(Lee,2004).

According to a National Survey of 2002, approximately 20 million diabetes and 17.7 million people are diagnosed with COPD; the number of the people with high blood pressure is over 100 million in Chinese cities. In that sense, the dramatically growing non-communicable diseases could pose the great threat to the health of inhabitants especially the young working communities within varies urban areas, not to mention about the exceedingly high medical fees for such epidemic in the People's Republic of China(Lee,2004).
Indeed, the mental well-being is regarded as an essential issue of human health. Paradoxically, the majority of adolescents and youngsters are endangering the mental problems subconsciously in China currently. "Bad familial environment and social ethos, improper education style, unhealthy media function, and increasingly greater scholastic pressures have made them become the 'psychologically fragile generation(Lee,2004,p332)'. The Chinese youth mental research of recent years indicated that the number of Chinese young mental patients was 24%. Furthermore, the proportion of students with such diseases in universities was 29%; while the rate of younger people in high schools was 36% (China Internet Inf. Cent. 2003). [I don't believe it can be that high.]

-Undeveloped health care services and systems
Perhaps it is also worth pointing out that the unbalanced distributions of national health care services and systems in different cities, particularly, the divergence of medical-care levels and organizations in China. When it mentioned about the health resources issues, we can not ignore the fact that the most population are living in China, the least insufficient health resources to be allocated in an equal way. Although a few of urban areas have seen the unprecedented changes of public health systems and technologies which could attain such levels of developed countries as Beijing, Shanghai and other coastal cities; On the contrary, certain inland or western areas are apparently lack of advanced medical equipments even or the professional doctors in order to meet the patients satisfactions(Lee, 2004).

Among with these problems, in some degree, the Chinese policies and regulations of health subsidies or welfares seem unreasonable. Government can provide some free and excellent health services, nevertheless, owing to the scarce of medical funding, most of people should pay for high prices but primary health services or basic social welfares within the back grounds of excessively huge health demands of the urban citizens. Thus, Lee.L (2004) have claimed that "China was ranked 188th out of 191 member states in terms of 'fairness of financial contribution' and was regarded as one of the most unfair countries on the 'financial burden' of health systems in the World Health Report 2000."


-Approaches to Tackle the Health Jeopardy in Mega-cities

-Existing Chinese Policies

The well-being of the mankind is currently a crucial concern for Chinese governments, which have already implemented three holistic strategies and perspectives on health(Corvalán et al,1999).

The first round of Chinese urban health insurance policy can be traced back to 1960s when co-existed the Labour Insurance Schemes(LIS), and the Government Insurance Schemes (GIS). LIS applied for the enterprises' staffs while GIS just for the employees of the official establishments or governments. Whenever those people were injured or infected diseases, they can obtain 75%-95% subsidies from the government without any contributions to the public health system(Zheng,Jong, et al,2010). Moreover, the Chinese authorities have funded the stated-owned medical care systems controlled by the Ministry of Central Health. But the biggest obstacle to doing service is the heave burden of national medical costs.

With the improvement of medical systems and the growth of employees, the central government can not afford the huge expenditures of public health any more. Mainly, majority of urban residents did not have the chances of medical aids or the health insurances during 1951-1978(Zheng&Jong,et al, 2010).
-The Second Round Reform
Accordingly, as the opening reform policy and market-oriented system have conducted, the state government adopted the second reform of ill-functional plan since the 1980s forwards. The amendment of urban health documents described that both employees and employers should pay the health insurance fees in order to transform the collective responsibility into individual protection. "In January 1997, the Central Committee and the State Council opened the start of proceedings on health reform by claiming they would reform the health insurance system, the health service system, and the production and circulation of drugs. In 1998, this reform on urban employee basic health insurance system was implemented over the entire country(Zheng&Jong,et al, 2010, p405)." [paraphrase this] Indeed, such a new cohesive reform strategy as "the urban employee basic health insurance scheme(BHIS)" has provided the well-around services for civilians(Xu&Wang, et al, 2007).
-The new wave health reform is an ongoing process

On April 2009, the People's Republic of China has funded $124 billion to the new round health reform plan for the next 3 years. It aimed at overhauling the national medi-care systems, lower costs but higher quality sevices as well as covering the universal wholesome. Meanwhile, the principles of such a new reform were concerned about "Cost, Quality, Efficiency, and Equity(Lawrence, 2009). "The National State Council claimed that the government would do its utmost to guarantee the weaken community which refers to the poor patients, infants, women and seniors could receive the priority of medical aids and services as soon as possible all around the country. Although flooding migrants rushed into cities nowadays, the gap of health-care systems between urban and rural regions can not be disregarded.


Figure 1: Medical Insurance Coverage in China from 2003 to 2008
(International Social Security Association ISSA, 2009)
-Compared with U.S. Reform Policy
The recent history of the American healthcare system which has undergone the fundamental changes and challenges over the last seven decades may provide a good example for China and other developing countries. Especially, a prominent event of medicare services is the delivery shift the patient-centered medical home(PCMH) in 2007(Diane & Stephen, 2009). "Crafted by the primary care professional organizations in 2007, the model has been endorsed by a broad coalition of health care stakeholders, including all of the major national health plans, most of the Fortune 500 companies, consumer organizations and labor unions, the American Medical Association, and a total of 17 specialty societies. Currently, 22 multistakeholder demonstration pilot projects are under way in 14 states, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will conduct Medicare demonstration pilot projects in 400 practices in 8 regional sites in 2009. Twenty bills promoting the PCMH concept have been introduced in 10 states(Diane & Stephen, 2009, p2038-2039)." [too much quotation]

While the election of American president Barack Obama consented the new health reform bills in 2009. Since the big failure of the medi-care reform in 1993, this plan has gradually from some degrees, resolved "3 persistent problems: the uninsured, the high and rapidly increasing cost of care, and significant lapses in quality(Victor& Fuchs, 2009, p963)."

-How can we evaluate the policies of Chinese health hazards? Can those existed measures be sustainable?

Therefore, the more development of urbanisation, the worse environment of human wholesome in the year to come .

China's urban resolutions which can tackle the short-run human health hazards. Apart from them, the negative effects may be probably exposed in the future subsequently, for instance, unsufficient provision of urgent medical reserves; lack of supervision and laboratory ability; changeable series of workforces; deficiency of competent environment; morbid reporting scheme, which can cause a retardation in news transmission; plus shortage of health funds(Lee, 2004).
-Urbanization & Humanization

Notwithstanding, as the improvement of urbanization and industralization, the health crisis which human have to deal with seems to be practical complicated than ever. China's public well-being may as well meet the excessive human requests for medical services which should combine the powerful administration and efficient health services distributed equally in varies provinces of PRC.

Hence, the health institutions or charitable organizations could provide comprehensive health (mental&physical) education and consultation. if the National Health System can directly or indirectly embody the features of 'information, technification, globalization and humanization', our people will likely live in a harmonious circumstances whenever social-environment or physical-environment with sustainable development universally(Lee, 2004). [was this his conlusion or yours?]


Bibliography:

China Internet Inf. Cent. (2003). '30 million adolescents in China were in mental health.' Accessed in: [http://www.china.com.cn/chinese/kuaixun/261608.htm ]

Diane & Stephen, (2009) 'The Patient-Centered Medical Home: Will It Stand the Test of Health Reform?' The Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol.301, No. 19

Harpham,(1994) 'Urbanization and mental health in developing countries', Social Science Medicine, Vol.39, No.2, pp.233-245
Hopwood, Mellor, O'Brien (2005) 'Sustainable Development: Mapping Different Approaches', Wiley Inter Science Sust.Dev. 13, pp38-52

ISSA, (2005) Chines health-care reforms move toward universal coverage
Lanrence O, Gostin, Christina S, et al. (2009) 'The Social Face of Economic Growth', The Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol.301, No.17

Lee.L, (2004) 'The Current State of Public Health in China', Annual Review of Public Health,Vol.25:327-339
Rosen G, (1993) 'A History of Public Health', Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD

Xu L, Wang Y, Collins C, Tang (2007) 'Urban Health Insurance Reform and Coverage in China Using Data from National Health Services Surveys in 1998 and 2003', BMC Health Services, Vol.7, 472

United Nation (1990) 'Urbanization and the effects'

Victor R& Fuchs (2009) 'Reforming US Health Care: Key Considerations for the New Administration', The Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 301, No. 9

Vlahov & Galea,(2002) 'Urbanization, Urbanicity and Health', The New York Academy of Medicine, Vol.79, No.4, Supplement 1

Ward, (2008) 'Diabetes in China: prevalence, market value and affordability of treatment', Nature Review Drug Discovery 7, 383

Zheng H, Jong M, Koppenjan J, (2010) 'Applying Policy Network Theory to Policy-Making China: The Case of Urban Health Insurance Reform', Public Administration, Vol.88, No.2, pp398-417

Lucas's First draft

What extent can the problems of urbanization are met by a policy of sustainable development

Subtitle: What are the problems in the process of China’s urbanization? How to resolve these problems?

Introduction
Urbanization can be defined in four views of demography, geography, sociology and economics. For demography, urbanization is the process of change from rural population into urban population. For geography, urbanization is the process of relative centralization of population in an area of the towns and cities. For sociology, urbanization is the process of rural lifestyle transformed into the city lifestyle. For economics, urbanization is the process of the change from traditional rural economy into the modern market economy. Sustainable development can also be defined in following four views: ecological sustainability, sociological sustainability, economical sustainability and technological sustainability. For ecological sustainability, sustainable development is the objectives of protecting and enhancing the capacity of production and updates in environment system. For sociological sustainability, sustainable development is the conception of improving the human life quality under the capacity of biological system. For economical sustainability, sustainable development is the conception of increasing profit without abusing nature resource. For technological sustainable, sustainable development is the conception of steering cleaner and more efficient technology and reducing the waste of energy and other natural resources. After the reform and market open in the year of 1995, China had gradually loosened original restriction of population migration, a large number of workers migrated from the western poor area to the eastern cities, which help the rapid development of urbanization in China. But because of the large quantity of population and the speed of development of economic and social insurance can not catch the step of urbanization, there are so many serious problems reveal in the process of urbanization. Firstly, pollution is extending in the cities that make the decrease of the quality of city life. Secondly, the lack of urban space leads to the high price and high pressure in the cities. Thirdly, the large increase of population makes traffic jam and high crime rate in China. So in this essay, I will focus on these problems which occur in urbanization process of China, then give my suggestions for how to resolve these problems base on the analysis of why these problems happen.


Education problem in process of urbanization
It is obvious that the development of education can not adapt to the process of urbanization in China. There are so many educational problems come with the urbanization. Firstly, the urbanization extends the paradox about the demands and the supply of education. Because of the urbanization brings a large number of labors from the rural area, their young children also come with their parents and gather in the cities. So the booms of the number of children who need education become the reason why leads to the lack of education resources like book, facilities and teachers. In addition, with the further development of urbanization, more and more surplus rural labor force will gradually migrate to urban, which may aggravate the competition in the cities. How a people can compete with others is relevant for their education level sometimes, people who get the better degree usually have the more competitiveness. So the demands of education increase a lot immediately. However, because of the original education resource is limited and it is difficult for local government to provide much more education resource for them in short time, so a lot of new citizens can not get well education in cities. Secondly, rural education problem also become more serious in the process of urbanization in China. There have so many young labors move to urban area to find more widen opportunities for work, whilst the rapid decrease of rural population. So there are fewer students to enter the rural schools. To avoid waste, government usually reduces investment on rural education. Teacher can not get enough reward as before, so more and more good rural teacher drop their teaching work that weaken the rural educational quality. The worse thing is rural education content also difficult to adapt to the need of urbanization and modernization. Some schools use old textbooks which were used in thirty years before to teach. Every aspect of life in a modern society of tremendous changes can not reflected in the courses, so these students formed the knowledge and ability structure which has been far away from social development of modern science and technology, production and the actual needs. Not only wastes a lot of learning resources, but also make lots of non-agricultural population in the labor market is smooth. Some of the local education content emphasizes the rural education, with the rural course to replace for academic urbanization education and spread a considerable range of knowledge of agricultural production. Result further widened the distance between the quality of rural education and quality of city education. This obviously is not fair for people and could cause rural countryside youth can reach fewer opportunities to accept higher levels education than urban youth.


Solutions for education problems
Face to these serious educational problems in the process of urbanization in China, Chinese government should use sustainable development knowledge and policy to promote the benign interaction in the urbanization process and education of the healthy development. Specifically, mainly in the following aspects:
(a) Increasing government investment in education and promoting diversification of educational investment pattern to release contradictions of the demands and needs of education. The educational investment of China’s government account for 3% of GDP for some years, which far below than India which are at the same level of development. For the average education investment, China also below than most developing countries With the rapid development of China’s economy, the ability of government investment is more and more strong, so we must try best to ensure "three growth" goal in order to adapt to the dramatically increase in the educational contradictions in the process of urbanization. What is more, when government increases their spending in education, they also actively encourage individuals, groups, and fund involvement to promote the healthy development of private education organisation and achieve the task of educational investment diversification.

(b) Give the policy to cut the relation between household registration system and education system. China's household registration system has played a positive role in the era of planned economy, but now already can not adapt to the socialist market economy and urbanization development needs, conversely it becomes the biggest obstacle of equal education right by migrant population. Therefore, for promoting the development of education in the process of urbanization, Government have to cancel household system and stop the Labour market segmentation break, then establish a unified labor market and allow the rural labor migration to town.[unclear - unsupported?] After that, rural people can enjoy the treatment as same as citizens in urban public school.

(c) Increase government transfer payment for rural education. In the vast rural areas in China, people live with backward economy, productivity, but most of the school-age children distributed in rural areas, and actually, it is difficult for them to resolve their problems of rural basic education under these conditions in the countryside. Therefore, for the development of rural education, rise the government financial transfer has vital significance in improving teachers' treatment and stable.

Transportation problems in process of urbanization
The statistics (reference 1) show us there are more than 32,001,477 cars drive on England road, and more than two thirds cars drive on city’s road. So you can imagine how busy the road is. Particularly London, drivers may cost two or more hours a day on waiting in the traffic jams. So compare with the British transportation problems, China has much more serious problems on the road. First of all, the original transport infrastructure can not stand the rapid expansion of urban area. Take the Ning Bo city as my case study, which is located in the east of China and a port city in China. At present, Ning Bo’s urban area has transformed 100, 000 squares km and the urban population increased to 10 million, urban per capita travel times also increasing. Along with the expanding urban construction, urban area becomes the center of city. So floating population growing year by year and the expansion of the city production and life, it makes the city road unbearable heavy traffic pressure. Although in recent years the city road network construction more and faster than before, but there is still not reach the speed of growth rate of city traffic. At the same time, the urban road construction mainly distributed in the new area of city but less in old area, that is why the old city roads area of city can not meet the growing needs for increasing cars. Traffic jam in the old area is common phenomenon these years. Secondly, urban traffic construction is lack of scientific strategy plan. The road system is transformed the traditional theory of traffic planning under the guidance of scientific and reasonable construction, lack of planning. The road without a rational function of network and the roads are not fully used will lead to traffic jams. Thirdly, Traffic management science and technology is in place at a lower level. Because of the lack of sensor technology, electronic control information, network technology and modern technology, traffic management mostly relies on human management, Due to insufficient funds in daily management, police and less often attend in management gap time driving order is confusion.

Resolutions to transportation problems
Firstly, make a reasonable plan for urban road traffic development. Practice and experience tells us that development and management of urban roads must be based on the city economy, population and the present conditions of the actual construction of tourist city, so we have to focus on the grand goal of promoting urban status of urban traffic management committee and responsible for urban road traffic development planning. For instance, Ning Bo as a most richest city in China, it should have more cars and buses on the roads than other cities, government can not use the average standard to evaluate Ning Bo’s transport. We must make the plans and strategy according to local economy situation like constructing more roads for more cars. Secondly, increase the awareness of public traffic safety education and enhance the consciousness of the urban traffic, every citizen plays a important role in the good management of city traffic. First is planned to use newspapers, TV, radio and other media to advertise the social realize about strengthen urban traffic management and keep traffic in orders. To achieving the objectives of promoting the standard management of urban traffic, we may clear the responsibility of management on the road. All the road management divided by traffic policeman and other relevant sector of government through the implementation of standardized management, so we have to strength cooperation between them and gives them clear responsibilities. Lastly, increase the investment of traffic management department. We may increase traffic intelligent management of modern equipment, such as "electronic police" to improve traffic management science and technology. Intelligent transportation is an inevitable trend in the development of intelligent transportation management, by using advanced information technology, computer technology and sensor technology, automatic control theory, the artificial intelligence effectively applied to the comprehensive transportation service, management and control, to establish the integrated management system, traffic transportation management day. With intelligent management of city traffic equipment mainly intersection and sections of the reasonable traffic and transportation organization, highly channelizing driveway and orientation, light guide lane "two phase control" as a "heterogeneous", greatly improve the city intersection and road capacity and safety.

Conclusion
In conclusion, my entire essay summarizes the main two problems which are faced by China in the process of urbanization. One is educational problems, which related to the sustainable development of talent even the development of China in future. The other is traffic jam on the road, which is relative to individual every day. Because we all the members on the road, traffic jam may restrict the development of urban economy. We must make the modernization of transport first before urbanization. If we can not realize how serious they are, we may lose more than we can benefit from urbanization in long term, which just is what we can learn from sustainable development. With the help of fast urbanization in China, I think Chinese may enjoy their lives, everyone have fair education rights and enjoy their weekend with family though the broad road in the future. However, with the deeper of urbanization, more and more problems may occur like marriage. We can not stop the step to do further research on sustainable development in the process of urbanization in China.






Reference
1. http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_transstats/documents/page/dft_transstats_031690.pdf),
2. Fei Yan,2005, Education problems with urban migratory children in China, journal of sociology and social welfare, from the internet :http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0CYZ/is_3_32/ai_n15397207/
3. Kenneth.A,2008,Chinese urban development, Guest Editor, University of California, from the internet: http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~ksmall/chineseurban.pdf
4. Kojima,R,1995,urbanization in China http://www.ide.go.jp/English/Publish/Periodicals/De/pdf/95_02_01.pdf
5. Shahid Yusuf and Anthony Saich, 2008, Key challenges facing China derive from urbanization, on the internet : http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTRESEARCH/EXTEAECOPRO/0,,contentMDK:21699103~pagePK:64168445~piPK:64168309~theSitePK:3087705,00.html
6. Alex .P,2008.China’s innovation traffic lights, from the internet: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/10/how-china-is-innovating-faster-than-the-west.php

Jackie's essay draft

Title: to what extend can the problems of urbanization be met by a policy of sustainable development?
Subtitle: the policy for sustainable use of land in China /make a statement or a question/
Introduction
As a global change, urbanisation has become very much mainstream and a certain trend of most countries in the world. At the end of 2008, the UN reported that almost half of the world’s population live in the urban areas. The world is urbanising. For instance, in the United States, 5% of the population live in urban area, 50% by 1920 and eventually about 80% of the population live in the cities and suburbs today. In fact, urbanisation has two parts of meaning: the physical expansion of the urban areas and the movement of population from rural to urban also know n as urban migration. It is a complex process and as the result of many variables: economic, technological, environmental, political and demographic, it brings huge benefits to some aspects of a city. The organized communities become larger, more specialized and more interdependent, which can boost the economic growth, the industries and businesses will both develop rapidly in the trend of urbanisation.Besides the benefits of urbanisation, however, it brings a lot of drawbacks and problems as well, mainly appeals in overcrowd population, busy transport, pollution in water and overuse of land, workforce and unemployment, high stress and pressure. These drawbacks will do huge harm to both city and people and some can bring serious consequences. It can be taken as a challenge for sustainable development which is also a new trend coming up in 1970s. How to solve these problems become a very important issue all over the world. Land, the base of human existence, is affected by urbanisation deeply. Thus in this essay I focus on a particular aspect of sustainable development----the sustainable use of land in urbanisation. The research between land and urbanisation will help to achieve the sustainable use of land. China, as the largest developing country and economic centre in the world, has also carried out some policy of sustainable development. Therefore I choose China as a specific case to figure out the situation of land using in urbanisation, the problems, how the policy face the problems and other possible solutions to meet sustainable use of land.

/Good. But what's your thesis?/


Problems of land using in urbanisation
1. Overuse of land
/The/ Quick expansion of urban area in China makes a huge amount of land, especially farmland was used for urbanising. According to the data from satellites, between 1986 and 1996, the average use of land in urban area has increased by 50% and during that decade the area of urban has a expansion of 60% as well. As a prediction, the urban population of China will reach to 60% by the end of 2010 which is indubitably a big challenge to sustainable development in current land using situation. The growth of urban population is about 2.2 times the growth of urban land. All the figures report a serious problem of land overusing.

2. Structure imbalance

The structure imbalance exists mainly in the allocation of the land resource. Influenced by the long-run aim of developing manufacturing industry, quite a high percentage of land using is for industry and most of it is normally in the centre of city. In addition, statistics in 1996 showed that industrial land takes 24.2% of China’s urban area, which only takes less than 10% in developed countries. Furthermore, the imbalance also appears in the chaotic space structure system. Without an overall control of whole city, every urban area has its own system to manage the land. The lack of reasonable management has not only limited the function of ‘big modern city’, but also wasted the valuable land resources. Especially, China’s government always take the busy section of the city centre, the urban organization does not have the intended instructive and restrictive effect.

3. Deteriorated ecological environment

Any ecological environment has its own recovery ability. Once overuse is much greater than the ability, there will lead to a destruction of environment, no exception for land-ecological environment. Urban, as an assembly place of large population and industries, the environment is even more vulnerable. So far, serious environmental problems like land subsidence by overexploiting, pollution of both land and air…are all caused by the very much overusing of land in urbanisation. In addition of budget limitation, the deteriorated environment can’t be under effective control immediately, which makes the land-ecological system getting worse and worse.

Issues and policies on sustainable use of land during the process of urbanisation
Concerned about the problems in the use of land, how the government might do and what policy can meet these problems become a significant importance of sustainable development in urbanisation. From the common understanding of sustainable utilization of land, combining the certain research background of the process of urbanisation, we can divided the goals of study on the sustainable earth utilization into the following three aspects: protection of arable land, structure optimization and environmental optimization. These three principles come from urbanisation and consist of the three key element of sustainable land utilisation.
1. Protection of farm Land
The concern about protection of arable land mainly comes from the concern about food safety issue resulted from the non agricultural use of earth. ‘Food Safety’ originates from the 70s food crisis of last century. Proposed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, its definition is that everyone can get the necessary food for his survival and health anytime. It has three meanings: first, make sure there is enough food; second, stabilize the food support as much as possible; third, make sure that people in need of food can get the food.

In developed countries, that high speed urbanization stage has passed. During the time of 1851 and 1950, the world was going through a localized urbanisation process. Urban came out and was fully developed in European developed countries. For those developed countries, the sustainable usage of earth means more attention on the environmental protection. From this point some Asian and South American countries have a close resembling of our situation. For these countries there are strong conflictions between the people and area of arable land.

From the trend of the recent food demand of China, we can see that the future Chinese food demand is determined by the amount of people and the average consumption of per person. If birth control is strictly executed in China, they are able to control the population under 14billion in 2010 and the peak population would come as 16billion in 2030. China needs to decide for their food consumption pattern according to their resources and economy development. If the estimated average need for food is 385 kilograms in 2010 and 400 kilograms in 2030, the total would be 5billion tons in 2010 and 6.4 billion in 2030.

Ensure the food supply based on the domestic resources should always be the goal for China. The features of Chinese arable land are that the amount area is large while the average for a person is small, the mountain area is large the flat area is small, the area of earth not suitable for agriculture is large and the percentage of agriculture land is small, especially for arable land, the quality of arable land is poor. Huger pressure is loaded on the shoulders of Chinese people.

Theoretically speaking, when the urbanisation comes to a point that the price for food is expensive and the price of arable land is expensive enough that the laws of economy would protect the land. Two assumptions are made for this conclusion. First is that there is no export or import. If there is import there is the price of land for other commercial product would go down. Second is that people should realize the non economical value of land. As for China, the area of arable land plays an important role in the relationship between food supply and the potential increase.

2. Structure Optimization
Theoretically speaking, spatial structure's benefit originates may divide into two kinds approximately: One kind is the structure coordinative benefit; the other kind is the structure layered benefit. Strengthens to the land utilization structure research, is helpful in the understanding the social and economic mechanisms during land utilization.

Structuring the use of Land is complicated in urbanization. They can be divided into two levels. The first is the city system structure and the other is the land utilization structure within city. The urban system is a spatial system that consists of many related urban of different scale and different characteristics centring on a core city area. The spatial structure of cities and towns means the spatial combinations of towns and cities in the certain geographical area; the city size distribution structure means a country or a region within the hierarchy of the urban population distribution; urban functions is the labour role that the city in the country or region. The urbanisation process could be recognized as a process of the formation of urban system. The reasonable organization and utilization of spatial structure, city size and urban functions would be of high influence to the land utilization.
/This paragraph a bit unclear./

The land distribution within the urban contains two aspects: the quantity of land for different departments and the spatial realization of these departments. How quantity of land for different departments being determined is is of high interest under research right now. Population based distribution may not be a good idea. Urban has a close relation with industry. So the problem might be solved from the industrial point of view. As different industry department would cost different area of land for the same value. The urbanization is a process of gathering of different industry. For the second aspect, we should stick to the rules of Pareto Optimization /needs explaining/. Studying the rent distribution of land and combining it with the non industry value of land would be a good way. The goal is to make great usage of great land, make possible usage of bad land, and make intensive use of land. As for China, although since 1988 the government has started a series revolution for urban land, people need to pay to use, the spatial structure utilization of urban is still an issue.

3. Environment Optimization
Environment Optimization is different from environment protection. Environment protection is negative while environment optimization is positive. Environment optimization seeks the way to change the bad environment into good, improving the land quality instead of preventing it from going bad, as in environment protection.

Environment optimization is an important issue. There are positive and negative effects on the environment as the urban forms. Though the positive part is that as urban forms economy goes up and the environment would recover or become better as the result. The environment pollution should not be forgotten.

Environment system is divided into two parts: natural environment system and human environment system. Human Environment system consists of the urban system and arable land system. Natural Environment system consists of the forest, prairie, and lake and sea environment systems. Two sub systems in the Human Environment system: arable land system and urban land system are the mainly focused two during the urbanisation, as they are close to people. The effect is direct to them. These two systems would communicate with other Environment system through the circulation of matter and energy. Thus solving the problems within these two systems would solve problems in other systems.

ConclusionTo sum up, land, as the base for human living and developing, has met a big challenge by urbanisation. So the research of figuring out the solution for land using problems in urban area become of great importance. In order to meet the principle of sustainable development, which is to satisfy the current needs of people without affecting the next generation, the China’s government has carried out some policies to settle the solutions. However, that is far from enough. They do need to realise the important relationship between land and urbanisation and consider the key elements of sustainable use of land mentioned. A new and useful policy should be carried out to improve the current situation of land utilisation. /For example?/

References:
JSTOR_ The Town Planning Review, Vol. 45, No. 2 (Apr., 1974), pp. 216-218

C.G. Bentham Which Areas Have the Worst Urban Problems? Urban Stud 1985 22: 119

Rachel Ramsey 2006 The language of urbanization in John Stow's: survey of London

Rui Wang Sustainable Urban Development in China A Literature Review on Issues, Policies, Practices, and Effects,2009

http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/9290/

Lwgates R t.Stout F (1996)The City Reader

Heineke J. etal (1998) Developments for planningthe sustainable use of landresources

Li,Xiao xia(2007). Our country countryside urbanization existence's question and development countermeasure.Exchanges the field, 132, 30-33.Wang,Jian fen(2007). Our country countryside urbanization development's basic mentality searches analyze . Anhuiagricultural science, 120, 54-57.
Wu,Shu lian(2007). Brief analysis countryside urbanization sustainable development Anhui agricultural science, 120,22-24.
/Sort the bibliography./

Kamran's Essay Draft

To what extent can be the problem of urbanization is met by a policy of sustainable development?

Sub Title:

To what extent policies of UK government are helping to reduce housing problems caused by overcrowding in urban areas to achieve sustainable life

Introduction:

Now a days we have noticed a huge change in the trend of people moving from villages to cities with many reasons, we define this trend in one world as “Urbanization”. Urbanization is attached to industrialization and can be described as a process of declining in the amount of population in rural areas due to the advancement and economic forces attracting a huge proportion of people towards urban area making ideal place to live. In detail, some writer defines urbanization as a process of complexity because it is related to the introduction of new methods within existing system in different aspects of our lives, such as transportation. Antrop (2004) studied (Champion, 2001; Pacione, 2001; Antrop, 2000; Bryant et al., 1982) and stated that “Urbanization is a complex process of change of rural lifestyles into urban ones. It showed an almost exponential growth since the end of the 19th century”. This was not end, we found this trend continuously increasing in 20th century, according to The United Nations Urbanization Report (2005) states that the twentieth century has experienced the most urbanization. ­­­

As a fact that urbanization is increasing day by day, cities are becoming more wider, industrialised, advanced and creating opportunities for better lifestyle, but on the other hand it is giving birth to many different issues and one of them is ‘Sustainability’. There is an environmental issue these days related to sustainable development concerning worldwide authorities. Firstly, we have to understand what is sustainability? If we look into literature we will find different meaning of sustainability but i found one easy and simple which is defined by US Environmental Protection Agency (2010) says that, “Sustainability is social and environmental practices that protect and enhance the human and natural resources needed by future generations to enjoy a quality of life equal to or greater than our own”. Additionally, if we talk about development we might think about sustainable development and it is founded as a need of current situation. Karshenas (2008) studied Brundtland Report (1987) to define sustainable development which state that, “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”, he adds more “a process of change in which exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the reorientation of technology development, and institutional change are all in harmony and enhance both current and future potential to meet human needs and aspirations”. WCED (1987).

However, in this essay i will discuss problems related to urbanization such as overcrowding and its consequences that is lack of enough resources, health problems; crucial competition for limited jobs which will lead to increase in crimes; and housing problems. This essay also talks about roll of UK government and policies adopted toward sustainable development; Policies are often defined as a plan, guiding principle or some sort of action designed by political party, business or by government to influence their practical matter to get expected results. Finally, my focus will be on one vital problem of urbanization these days i.e. overcrowding and to narrow the scope in that i will discuss ‘Adequate Housing System, a necessity for sustainability’ as people are getting more and more health conscious.

MAIN BODY

It is noticed that urbanisation is all about getting industrialized, creating and providing more facilities and making life easier than before but on the other hand as people are getting more aware and conscious about many things e.g. Health: it is founded that the whole entire trend of moving towards cities are giving birth to different serious problems, for instance ‘Overcrowding’, at this stage, United Nations Urbanization Report (2005) stated that, The global proportion of urban population increased from a mere 13 per cent in 1900 to 29 per cent in 1950 and, according to the 2005 Revision of World Urbanization Prospects, reached 49 per cent in 2005. Since the world is projected to continue to urbanize, 60 per cent of the global population is expected to live in cities by 2030. The rising numbers of urban dwellers give the best indication of the scale of these unprecedented trends: the urban population increased from 220 million in 1900 to 732 million in 1950. According to the latest United Nations population projections, 4.9 billion people are expected to be urban dwellers in 2030, shown in figure 1.

Figure 1. Urban and rural population of the world 1950-2030

Urban Population ––– Rural Population ----

(source: World Urbanization Prospects: The 2005 Revision)

Above all scenario is effecting badly to the resources available in the cities and as a consequences causing several problem for the people as well as governments. One result of overcrowding is increasing crime rate in many mega cities of the world. A number of studies included the crime level as an explanatory variable in determining city population (e.g., Frey, 1979; Grubb, 1982; Katzman, 1980; Sampson & Wooldredge,1986 in Cullen and levitt 1999). Crimes not only effect the population living in cities but creating stress and tension for prisoners because of less resources and increasing number of offenders. One example of this is founded in the article “Overcrowding created stress and tension” published online by THE INDEPENDENT (2002) which defines the internal condition of the women prisoner cells in the UK, that there was no sufficient facility of toilets, food and no privacy at all, which was resulting a lot of stress, mentally torture and making life difficult for both police authorities and prisoners. Additionally crimes also increase expenses on security issues, like (Cullen and levitt 1999) said, “The level of crime in large cities is even more remarkable when one considers that both per capita expenditures on police and the level of victim precaution (e.g., locked doors, private security guards, alarm systems) are much greater in large cities”.[quote nec?]

HOUSING AND HEALTH ISSUE

Moreover, there is a vital issue of housing in big cities whether it is related to prices or living conditions because of increasing population and lack of enough area to build proper house which automatically than give birth to health issues. For instance inadequate ventilation can cause asthma problem, fire injuries, mental health problems because of overcrowding in small houses and many other diseases. In support of my argument, according to Krieger and Higgins 2002, “Each year in the United States, 13.5 million nonfatal injuries occur in and around the home, 2900 people die in house fires, and 2 million people make emergency room visits for asthma. One million young children in the United States have blood lead levels high enough to adversely affect their intelligence, behaviour, and development. Two million Americans occupy homes with severe physical problems, and an additional 4.8 million live in homes with moderate problems”. Here is another good example, a study done in west Scotland by (Macintyre et al., 2003) on health issues caused by overcrowding and inadequate housing system, they found that the different distribution between tenure categories of housing stressors [plagiarism!] (for example, overcrowding, dampness, health hazards, difficulty with heating the home) helped to explain the association between tenure and depression, and that aspects of the perceived local environment (for example, crime, neighbourliness, area reputation, amenities) helped to explain the association between tenure and anxiety.

In addition, while looking overcrowding in London census data shows that, “the percentage of overcrowded households in each ethnic group is much higher amongst black and minority ethnic (BME) groups than the white British group”, as shown in the graph 1.

Graph 1. % of overcrowded households in each ethnic group (all tenures)

(source: Overcrowded housing and the effects on London’s communities)

Moreover, number of studies found that one reason for poor educational attainment in children is housing in which they live. Overcrowding also resulted increasing rate of tuberculosis infection in one of the big city of England, and that mean financial burden for London health authorities. In past, according to Overcrowded housing and the effects on London’s communities, the government released T.B action plan ‘Stopping Tuberculosis in England’, it stated that the rise in tuberculosis infections since the early 1990s was “mainly as a result of increased migration from areas of the world where tuberculosis is more prevalent”, as u found in graph 1 that in England as a whole BME household groups are on average seven times more likely to live in overcrowded conditions than white households. There are few reasons behind overcrowding but the main is inappropriate supply of new social housing. Beside this, ‘hidden homelessness’ people sleeping in their friends or relatives homes. Another reason is higher housing prices that is effecting low income families they cannot afford and again as a result increasing pressure on social housing sector.

GOVERNMENT ROLE

Finally, if we look the role of government for the sustainable development in UK we found a strategy of ‘Securing the future states’ which says that The goal of sustainable development is to enable all people throughout the world to satisfy their basic needs and enjoy a better quality of life without compromising the quality of life of future generations’. Additionally, Government also encourage greener market using taxes, incentives and better information and technological innovation to improve resources effeiceincy through its strategy for sustainable production and consumption (e.g resource efficiency or 60% carbon emissions reductions). (HM Government and DEFRA, in Seyfang and Smith 2007). However, UK government also emphasis the contribution made by local activities and tried to pursue sustainable development at all scales. Another initiative, ‘Community Action 2020’, which promotes community energy efficiency schemes, recycling projects and Fairtrade activities, local food initiatives, plus participation in decision-making, volunteering, capacity-building, information-sharing and community-mentoring. In addition, the environment ministry has its own strategy to support social enterprise because of the ways the sector combines social, economic and, increasingly, environmental objectives (DEFRA in Seyfang and Smith 2007).

CONCLUSION

This is fact which cannot be denied that the trend of urbanization is continually increasing in all over the world as there are many reasons behind this such as easy accessibility of different resources, well paid jobs, higher earnings and many more. This trend is often described as inevitable because of its rapid increase in last few decades. Where this world is getting more industrialized and moving forward in technological advancement on the other hand creates some vital problems for the city dwellers as well as for governments and making urban life more crucial. At this stage, world is seeking for sustainable development which can be describe as a better place of living for both present and future generation. These days an important question arises that how far UK government has gone through and can meet the problems of sustainable development? As discussed above the role of government and the different strategies to cope with the problem of sustainable development, however what can be done further for the overcrowding and housing problem? According to ‘Overcrowded housing and the effects on London’s communities’ only in London 70% of overcrowded households in the social rented sector need three or more bedrooms. However in recent years only around 30% of new homes developed through the Housing Corporation ADP programme have been larger homes. For the 2004-06 programme, this falls to 26%. At least twice as many more homes with three or more bedrooms should be built through the ADP programme to cater for larger families living in overcrowded and temporary accommodation. Additionally larger properties should be encouraged to build for larger families which may also help in reducing health issues. Government also consider co housing model, “It is a model of community structure whereby residents live in houses around a ‘common house’” (Seyfang and Smith 2007). The idea of common house is bringing people together and sharing all available resources such as meals, electronic equipment and cars which may help in reducing overall consumption.

To sum up, initiative taken by government and the vision with little more concentration on urbanization and housing problems will lead our future generation to sustainable development as well as healthier and longer life expectancy resulting good economical conditions for the country.

References:

Anonymous (2002) “Overcrowding created stress and tension”, the independent UK, Online article last accessed on 22/07/2010 Url: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/overcrowding-created-stress-and-tension-654508.html

Antrop. M (2004) “Landscape change and the urbanization process in Europe” Landscape and Urban Planning 67 pg 9–26 University of Ghent, Geography Department, Krijgslaan 281 S8, B9000 Gent, Belgium

Cullen. J. B and Levitt .S .D (1999) “Crime, Urban Flight, and the Consequences for Cities”, The review of economics and statistics 81(2): 159–169 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Karshenas. M (2008) “Environment, Technology and Employment: Towards a New Definition of Sustainable Development” Development and Change Volume 25 Issue 4, pg 723 – 756 Published by International Institute of Social Studies

Krieger .J and Higgins .D .L (2002) “Housing and Health: Time Again for Public Health Action” American Journal of Public Health 758-768 Vol 92, No. 5
Macintyre .S, Ellaway .A, Hiscock .R, Kearns .A, Der .G and McKay .L (2003) “What features of the home and the area might help to explain observed relationships between housing tenure and health? Evidence from the west of Scotland”, Health & Place Vol 9, issue 3, pg 207-218

NHS Ealing (2010) “Overcrowded housing and the effects on London’s communities” Online report article Url: ealingpct.nhs.uk [PDF]

Seyfang, G and Smith, A (2007) “Grassroots innovations for sustainable development: Towards a new research and policy agenda”, Environmental Politics, 16: 4, 584 — 603

US Environmental Protection Agency (2010) “Wastes - Educational Materials” Last accessed on 11/07/2010 Url: http://www.epa.gov/waste/education/quest/gloss1a.htm#s
World Urbanization Prospects ‘The 2005 Revision’ (2006) Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, Last accessed on 10/07/2010 Url: http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/WUP2005/2005wup.htm