Jackie's introduction

Introduction

Title: to what extend can the problems of urbanization be met by a policy of sustainable development?

Subtitle: challenges for sustainable development by rapid urbanisation in London.

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 [^], 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[v] in overcrowd population, busy transport, pollution in water and 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. To find the causes of all the problems and possible solutions for them become a significant important issue in modern time. London, as the second largest economic centre in the world, has also carried out some policy of sustainable development. So in this essay, I will take London as a specific case to figure out the causes of problems of urbanisation, the potential risk and consequences, how the policy face the problems and other possible solutions for these problems.

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/

Introduction-Renie

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

-to what degree can UK government policies improve present traffic situation and reduce the impact on the environment to achieve sustainable development.

Over last 2 decades, as the population increase rapidly, urban areas in many counties have witnessed a dramatic growth accordingly, at present, nearly half of the world’s population lives in cities, and it’s expected that over the next 3decades, most people that increase in global population will also live the urban areas. Many countries are towards the way towards urbanisation which means cities of which grow rapidly and massively, and large amount of migration pour into these areas. In Europe, the urban population was 51.2 million in 1950, it’s predicted by the year of 2030, and this figure will amount to 79.6 million in 2030(Cohen, 2006).

Urbanisation, it also stands for low average cost of providing infrastructure, education and health care, and other basic services (Cohen, 2006), however, it’s also attended by many serious problems that challenge the surrounding environment and society current situation such as: traffic congestion, pollution, over-crowd public places, high price houses and consumer goods, increased crime rate, fierce competition which are difficult to manage.

Facing the problems that become increasingly sticky, government carried out a rang of measures to improve the situation and hope to achieve sustainable development, the most widely used definition describes sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”( Brundtland, 1987,p43 ),as this essay will focus on the traffic problems and traffic pollution in UK, firstly, I will reveal the traffic problems of UK’s current situation, secondly, introducing the policies that the government adopted to tackle the problems, then move on to analysis how sustainable the solutions are.

Till now, a series of initiatives are implemented by UK Department for Transport to encourage sustainable travel, meanwhile to promote healthier lifestyle and to improve local environment. Great efforts have been made by the government, based on the statistic and research have done before, in my opinion, to a large extent the problems can be solved by the sustainable development policies in the long run.



Reference:

Cohen, B. (2006) Urbanization in developing countries: Current trends, future projections, and key challenges for sustainability, Technology in Society 28 (2006) 63-80

Brundtland, 1987, the Brundtland Report, Our Common Future

Department for Transport, 2009, Delivering Sustainable Low Carbon Travel: An Essential Guide for Local Authorities

The Introduction-Sophie

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

--- the health problems of urbanisation in developing countries

Introduction:

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 [does highlight]gr both adverse and advantage effects on the urban communities constantly. Alternatively, it may as well [attribute]v to the housing problem, social crime, traffic congestion or environmental contamination and so on. (Vlahov & Galea,2002) [The record]? 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)

Nevertheless, based on the published literature and evidence in the third world, this paper attempts to analyse and evaluate the dimensions of metropolises that affect physical health, mental problems as well as the relative sustainable policies [^] could be conducted by varies authorities. Initially, it reveals the potential causes of human chronic morbidity by virtue of the poor health services around expanded cities of developing nations. Secondly, the [part and parcel]? factors within both physical and psychological issues will be specifically discussed plus the case study. Then, it looks into the current policies have adopted of sustainable development to municipal cities; 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 whole study is [^] the more processes of urbanisation, the worse conditions of public well-being.

References:

Harpham,(1994) Urbanization and mental health in developing countries, Social Science Medicine, Vol.39, No.2, pp.233-245

United Nation (1990) Urbanization and the effects

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

Kamran's Essay Introduction

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 in reducing the pollution of urban areas and the roll of big industries.] - rewrite

Introduction:

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

Now a days we [who?] 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).

Thesis of my essay is “To what extent policies of UK government are helping in reducing the pollution of urban areas and the roll of big industries” [That's a question not a thesis]. 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. After that i will give some information about the role of big industries in sustainable development or whether their negative effects on environment. Finally, my focus will be on one vital problem of urbanization these days and closely related to sustainability as people are getting more and more health conscious that is ‘Pollution’.

References:


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

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

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

Introduction-annie

Topic: To what extent can the problems of urbanization be met a policy of sustainable development?
Subtitle: Are the policies successful [by sustainable development] for the process of urbanizaion in Beijing?

Today, urbanization is increasing in the developed and developing countires both. And it defined as "the shift from a rural to an urban society, and involves an increase in the number of people in urban areas during a particular year." It brought many problems and was challenged by many developing countries, such as unemployment rate growth, inadequate health and environment degradation. According statistics show that more than half of population of the world people (6.6 billion people) lived in urban areas (Gyabaah, K.). In China, in the past two decades, there is significant of economic growth in human history by a process of urbanization. The population has migrated from rural to urban in a massive scale with economic growth opportunities.

[China Government] has proposed satellite city plan as a city outward expansion in Beijing. As well, Beijing as the economic and cultural centre, there are more than 3 million inhabitants be attracted to live in Beijing by 2020 (Applyyard, 2007；P3). Beijing is impressing by people with rapid changes, such as new skyscrapers construction, growing greenbelts and new transportation construction. In the meanwhile, the process of urbanization and massive population migration have brought many problems on environment and people's healthy. Such as traffic congestion, pollution, highly housing price and water crisis...Therefore, we have to consider that urban expanding whether match the needs for population growth with limited resources.

However, China governement aware that they can maintain development in the process of urbanization, that will make sure sustainable development. It defined as "development which meets the needs of the present without sacrificing the ablility of the future" (Hussen,2004;P269). Government planed the "smart growth" policies, it aims to resources used more efficient. Especially, before Olympic, some policies carried on very efficient, such as underground routes expended, low carbon technology development and continue to construct the satellite cities. For this essay, I will decribe the problems of population growth, then I will discuss the solution by sustainable development with some policies. Finally, I will give some recommendation and conclude my opinions.

reference:
1 Applyyard,B. Zheng,Y. Watson,R. Bruce,L. Sohmer,R. Li,X. Qian,J. (2007), Solutions for China's rapid urbanization. Natural resources defense council.
China.nrdc.org/files/china_nrde_org/smartcities.pdf
2Gyabaah,K. Urbanization processes-environmental and health effects in Africa. PERN steering committee member and principal. Available from:
www.populationenvironmentresearch.org/Nsiah-Gyaabah_contribution.pdf
3 Hussen,A. (2004), Principles of environment economics, Simultaneously published in USA, p269.

The introduction of essay---Eddie

Topic: To what extent can the problems of urbanisation be met a policy of sustainable development?
Subtitle: To compare [A comparison of] sustainable development policies of Vietnam and UK

At the present time, it is interesting that there are more and more people try [gr] to move to urban areas which then expand extremely quickly. It can be seen that this migration trend has taken place all over the world and the size and the number of the world’s largest cities have reached the highest level ever. (Cohen, 2006) Following this trend, academics have coined a new word – urbanisation, which is widely defined as a trend that people migrate from rural areas to urban areas.

It is an undeniable fact that people move to cities for a lot of factors, such as getting high salaries, better life conditions, and more opportunities. In addition, local governments welcome people moving to urban areas, since these additional labours can stimulate economic growth and local competitiveness. However, along with urbanisation development, not only have advantages, but also disadvantages been brought to the cities simultaneously. For instance, urbanisation might result in more serious pollution, traffic congestion, increased crime rates, energy deficiency, soaring housing price, and fierce competition in job hunting. All of these problems result in the decline of city competitiveness.

Encountering these serious problems, the UN and governments have paid attention to this issue. They try to solve this problem and commence implementing a variety of programmes, schemes and policies. These agendas are becoming the most urgent one to be implemented in many countries, especially Asian countries. Currently, most Asian countries are developing countries or undeveloped countries and suffer from serious urbanisation problems. In the recent twenty years, the UN and the governments have adopted sustainable development policies which are deemed as solution of urbanisation problems. Most governments have dedicated [^] to tailoring sustainability programmes or policies to reduce urbanisation problem and retain the original and potential benefits of urbanisation trend.

At the present time, there is still no specific definition of sustainable development. People with different backgrounds interpret this term in various ways (Van Pelt, 1994). On the other hand, sustainable development “has become widely used to stress the need for the simultaneous achievement of development and environment goals” (Pugh, 1996, P 23). Also, sustainable development is called eco-logical sustainability which can be divided five parts: economic sustainability, community sustainability, cultural sustainability and social sustainability. As a matter of fact, sustainable development is a long-termed programme which can improve environment, reduce the volume of resource used, and reduce waste (Mega, 1996a).

[It can be found that] Asian and Western countries have different cultures which may result in a variety of sustainable development patterns. Therefore, the essay will first describe urbanisation in Asian and Western countries, then examine sustainable developments of Vietnam and England before comparison. Finally, the extent to different sustainable development should be applied to cities with different cultures and situations

Reference:
Pugh, C. (1996) Earthscan Publications Limited, Sustainability the Environment and Urbanization, P23, Available from: http://www.google.com/books?hl=zh-TW&lr=&id=959YxxBRMpgC&oi=fnd&pg=PA23&dq=sustainable+development%3B+city%3B+urbanisation&ots=Ruqa4cf3gw&sig=MEZAakUO75Rq0Ra0rNrNsovrFEs#v=onepage&q&f=false [accessed 07. 08.10]

Van Pelt, M. Kuyvenhoven, A. and Nijkamp, P. (1995) Defining and measuring sustainability. Institutional Journal of Pollution 5 (2/3), p.p.204-223

Cohen, B. (2006) Urbanization in developing countries: Current trends, future projections, and key challenges for sustainability, Technology in Society 28 (2006) 63-80

Mega, V. (1996a) Our city, our future: Towards sustainable development in European cities, Environment and Urbanization, 8 (1), p.p. 133-154

Ahmed's outline

mains problems :




- crowded cities , waste of time

- traffic problems

- effects on environment

- accidents and safety





solutions :



- create areas with no cars circulations

- create paying areas for cars

- encourage people to use rental cars

- encourage people to use more bicycles to go to work/schools