kelvin's first draft

Topic: To what extent can the problems of urbanisation be met by a policy of sustainable development?
Sub-title: How the sustainable policies in Hong Kong can iron out the urban problem successfully? [is this a question?]

Introduction
More than half of the population of the world are living in the urban areas now (Ciok Ling Ooi, 2009). There is no surprise that it is the trend in the future of the world. From this point of view, urbanisation is used to describe the growth of the urban cities. Kam Wing Chan (2009) claimed that urbanisation is caused by the growth of population in the city. The migrants moving from rural areas to urban area and the sprawling of the urban area are the two main patterns of the urbanisation. At the very beginning, urbanisation can boost the economic growth thus leading to a higher living standard of the whole community. Government welcomed the urbanisation or even encourages and develops more urban areas. However, the reality is that urbanisation brought the economic growth to the community together with a handful of urban problems. The main underlying cause of the problem is the huge population in a tiny place. In this essay, Hong Kong is being used as a case in order to illustrate the urban problems in most of the cities in the World. Additionally, Asia is the home of the fastest growing urban population in the World. Therefore, the main cities in Asia such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo and Shanghai are suffering from the urban problems. Those problems are now the obstacles for the economic growth because of the poor transportation system and housing environment and heavy pollution in terms of air, water and solid wastes. With the aim to eliminate the negative effects of the urbanisation and continue the city development, sustainable development policy is the ultimate method. According to WCED report, “sustainable development refers to establish the fundamental needs of the current population without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”(WCED 1987, P.8). Based on this principle, the sustainable development policy does improvement on environmental and economic and quality of life for the people living (David L. Blumenthal, 2007). Definitely, it is not an easy task for the government to balance every aspect, therefore, there is a need to evaluate the policy regularly. In the case of Hong Kong, sustainable development policy had been carried out for a long time with the aim to iron out the two main urban problems, which are housing and transport problem. Indeed, to a fair extent the policy can meet the urban problem in Hong Kong. At the end of the essay, there is a comparison with Singapore in order to evaluate the sustainable development policy in Hong Kong and comes up with some recommendations eventually.


[did you say which problme you will be concentrating on?]


Housing problem in Hong Kong
To begin with the housing problem in Hong Kong, incredible population density should be highlighted. The land area of Hong Kong is about 1,100 square kilometres while the total population is around 7 million. The average population density is 6,181 persons per square kilometre compared with 4,483 persons pre square kilometre in London and 6,814 persons pre square kilometre in Singapore. However, this calculation includes the park and special areas, which accounted for almost 40% of land in Hong Kong (AFCD, 2005). Therefore, to be more precise, 80% of the population of Hong Kong are living in the built-up area thus the density can up to 82,107 persons per kilometres. Because of the geographic factor, Hong Kong has an uneven distribution of population over the territory. Therefore, the housing problems started from the old urban areas that located at north and south of the Victoria Harbour (figure 1). The two sides of Victoria Harbour are the heart of the development of Hong Kong historically; therefore, the land use is mixed and complex. Mixed and unplanned land use plus the unbelievable high population

Figure 1: The overview of the Victoria Harbour
Source:http://www.hongkonghousing.com/
density make the housing problem in Hong Kong unique and difficult to solve. In Hong Kong, flat land is scarce and population is high. The main housing problem features are small living space, insufficient open areas, shortage of housing supply and public services. The pictures below (figures 2, 3, 4, 5) show how bad the living condition is in Hong Kong. Obviously, there is no space between block and block or even home and home. People live in a house with one large window and two small windows. It is totally against the principle of sustainable development, which is linked with the concept of quality of life (Moore and Scott, 2005). Based on this concept, housing is not only providing a shelter but also quality living condition to the inhabitant.

Figure 2: The living condition in Hong Kong
Source:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/theweekinpictures/2690758/The-week-in-pictures-6-September-2008.html

Figure 3: The buildings are close to each other
Source: http://www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/money_politics_law/hong_kong_protest.htm

Figure 4: The old public house in Sham Shui Po
Source: http://www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/money_politics_law/hong_kong_protest.htm

Figure 5: The Unplanned Old Town
Source: http://www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/money_politics_law/hong_kong_protest.htm


Housing Policy in Hong Kong
With the aim to iron out the severe problem, Hong Kong really takes sustainable development policy in consideration. According to The Fact Sheet of Hong Kong, increase the flat land areas, redevelop the old urban areas and subsidies the low and middle classes improve the living condition are the main policies to tackle the problem (The Fact, 2009). The mission of those policies is in the line with the idea of “sustainable housing should cater for the housing needs of not only this generation but also those to come” (Rebecca L, 2000). It is easy to understand that Hong Kong government is trying to build up the future for the next generation and also those are coming.
Reclamation
The initial step is to increase the flat land area supply meeting the demand of land use re-planning. In Hong Kong, the problem is difficult because of limited area. The only way to increase the flat land is do reclamation. From 1898, after the government had finished the feasibility study of the reclamation project, the project was carrying out until now. There are three phases that planed to involve reclaiming 57 hectares of land. The project located at Central and Wan Cha and Kowloon Peninsula with the aims to release the stresses of the surrounding over-crowed districts and supply the land for the further transportation system development and also meet the future land demand. The remarkable reclamation in Hong Kong is that the land of the Hong Kong International Airport—Chek Lap Kok Airport was come from reclamation. Meanwhile, there is small size reclamations beyond the main project such as those near Tsing Yi and To Road Harbour. Indeed, reclamation helps to release the tension of inadequate land. However, due to the strong opposite voice form the public and the pressures group, the government made a promise that there will be no more reclamation with the Harbour in the future.
Renewal of old urban area and satellite town development
The follow up step after the reclamation is to redistribute the population and re-plan the land use. These two projects were parallel to each other. The problem of the old urban town in Hong Kong is the mixed land use whilst the population is uneven distributed. Seeing that, government tries to rehabilitate and re-plan the old town in order to separate the different land use. Urban Renewal Authority (URA) carried the project, which main target areas are Kwun Tong, Sham Shui Po, Tsuen Wan, Wan Chai, Yau Ma Tei and Mong Kok. Apart form redeveloping and rehabilitating, heritage preservation and is also the main concern for URA. 1) Redevelopment will target old and dilapidated building with poor condition. These sites will be re-planned and rebuilt to achieve clear environmental and social benefits. 2) Rehabilitation is to work with the owner to prevent the decay of the built environment and repair and maintenance of building. Under this program, government will provide professional advice and funding to the building owners. 3) Revitalisation is an idea to revive and strengthen the economic of different district. Based on the district history and features, government encourages and helps some “local” small business in order to improve the district economic and preserve the heritage.
Parallel to the old town renewal, government needs to redistribute the population. Satellite town is the way to achieve this aim. The main task of the establishment of satellite town is to solve over-crowded condition. There are nine new towns in Hong Kong to meet the increase in population (figure 6). The nine new towns are divided into three generations. The earliest one started at 1970s and the second one started at the late 1970s and the final one started at 1990s. the current population of the nine new towns is around 3.2 million and which is expected to reach 3.4 million in 2013. All the new towns are well design with good infrastructure and community facilities. Another main concept of new town development is self-sufficient community. A new town should include a well-developed transportation network, own commercial and Industrial centres and variety of governmental and recreational

Figure 6: The population growth from 1990 to 2008
Source: Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department

Pubic Housing Scheme
Hong Kong Housing Authority (HKHA) responsible for implementing the public housing programmes in Hong Kong. The mission of HKHA is to provide the public house for those who cannot afford the rental of private house. According to the statistic, there are 30% of the population living in the public house (HKHA report, 2007/2008). Additionally, HKHA is not only put an effort on providing housing to the low and middle class people, but also establish a harmony living environment. On the other hand, private property provider also plays a crucial role on providing harmony housing for Hong Kong. Therefore, another responsibility of HKHA is to monitor the private property provider and stabilize the land supply and the private property market. Generally, there are three types of house that provided by HKHA. Subsidised flat is suitable for middle-income group and Interim is designed for those are homeless with a special reason but not eligible for applying the public house. Moreover, HKHA takes consideration of the elders in Hong Kong who are not willing to live with their family or via versa.
Other Policies
A comprehensive and thoughtful policy should include the follow up and related issue. Actually, the design of the house, the location of the construction site and the waste form the new housing estate are the issue the government have to put an eye on. For instance, environmental friendly materials are being used during the construction. More important, government attempts to eliminate the disruption during and after the construction in terms of noise, dust and traffic. The noticeable one is to eliminate the light pollution by introducing low-energy light bulb and educating the citizens.
[this is the first time you have directly addressed sustainability]
The situation in Singapore
Singapore is the city similar to Hong Kong and both of them are facing the same housing problem. The total area of Singapore is around 700 square kilometres with 4.8 million population thus the density is around 6,814 persons per kilometre. The Housing and Development Board (HDB) was the largest housing provider in Singapore, which already satisfied over 85% housing needs (Lawrence C, 2004). Establish new town and develop super-high rise flat (figure 7) are the two main strategies to tackle the housing problem. Super-high rise flat is with the result in solving the housing shortage, over-crowding, dilapidation, poor sanitation and inadequate facilities. On the other hand, new town is used to deurbanise that is moving the dwellers to the residential zones and develop the self-sufficient community. The future plan of Singapore is focusing on “high density and high-rising housing” (Lawrence, 2004). Review the housing policy of Singapore, which gains the most successful result. Majority of the population are residing and with a quality living environment as well. Therefore, Singapore is going to focus on providing a way of life for the citizens in the future.

Figure 7: The super High-rise Flat in Singapore
Source: Strait Times

Comparison
The first criterion to evaluate the policy is based on the mission. Obviously, both Hong Kong and Singapore are following the mission and implement a series of plan to deal with the housing problem. It is important to follow the mission, which gives the correct direction and makes all the plans toward the target.
Secondly, sustainable development should balance different aspects at the same time. From this point of view, both governments did a lot to achieve this measurement. Housing is not only for the adult, but also the elderly; Housing is to provide a home to live with enough space and good condition; public services such as transportation network and community facilities should be well developed within the residential area; however, there is a failure example in Hong Kong. Tin Sheung Wai is one of the latest new towns with a lot of serious family problems due to insufficient community facilities and services such as social workers and family care centres. Since the problems are getting worse and the government is unable to find out any solution in a short time, the number of suicide is keep increasing. Therefore, the town is called “ pathetic city”.
Thirdly, the inborn factor makes Hong Kong facing more problem than Singapore. HDB is the housing department in Singapore and it had already satisfied over 85% of the housing need, which is a successful number. To contrast, there are 30% of population of Hong Kong are living in public houses that provided by government. The reason behind is that the private property providers are the main houses provider in Hong Kong. It is no surprise that profit oriented developers are hesitant to try out the affordable and environmental friendly houses unless the houses offer a better profit prospect. Meanwhile, Hong Kong citizens treat house as an investment tool thus leading to a very high property price. Therefore, government fails to control the private providers. In Singapore, HDB has an authority to acquire private land for public house building. The above factors make the situation more complex and difficult to deal with.
Finally, the most serious consequence is the environmental hazard in Hong Kong. Reclamation caused a huge environment problem to the Victoria Harbour. Because of the enormous reclamation, the size of the harbour is diminishing (figure 8 and 9 ) and harmful for the living environment of the Chinese White Dolphin. As mentions before, sustainable development should be balance social , economy, resource and environment ,therefore, Hong Kong’s housing policies cannot be considered as high achievement sustainable development policies although they did improve the living condition and sufficient houses to the citizens in Hong Kong.

Figure 8: The history of reclamation from 194501993 in Hong Kong
Source: http://www.harbourprotection.org/web_image/other/appendix09.jpg

Figure 9: Three Phases Reclamation
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_and_Wan_Chai_Reclamation
Conclusion
The main principle of sustainable development is to satisfy the current needs without affecting the coming generation. In order to evaluate the housing policies in Hong Kong, there is no single indicator to monitor the sustainability (Michalos, 1997). In fact, Hong Kong government is following the concept of sustainable development and implementing a set of policy to handle the housing difficulties. After the long time effort, the achievement cannot be neglect that tackles the core-housing problem successfully. Despite the achievement is obvious, the criticism is for the long-term problem. Environment hazard, family problem and high price of private house are the three main drawbacks of the housing policy. Compare with Singapore, the policy in Hong Kong meets the basic housing needs but there is a room for improvement to create a sustainable and liveable community.






References:
• Ciok Ling Ooi 2009. Challenge of sustainability for Asian urbanisation. Current opinion in Environment Sustainability 2009, 1:187-191
• David L. Blumenthal and Edward J. Martain 2007. Urban Sustainable Development, Lower Income communities, and Transorganisation. Public Administration, 30: 95-107
• Hong Kong Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department
http://www.afcd.gov.hk/eindex.html
• Hong Kong Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department
http://www.afcd.gov.hk/eindex.html
• Hong Kong fact sheet: new town and new major urban development 2009 report. Available at:
www.gov.hk/en/about/abouthk/.../towns&urban_developments.pdf
• Hong Kong housing Authority
http://www.housingauthority.gov.hk/en
• Hong Kong 2009-2010 Policy Address full report, available at :
http://www.policyaddress.gov.hk/09-10/eng/index.html
• Hong Kong Sustainable Development Department
http://www.susdev.gov.hk/html/en/council/
• Kam Wing Chan and Ying Hu 2003. Urbanization in China in the 1990s: New definition, Different Series, and Revised Trends. The China Review, vol. 3 No, 2(Fall 2003), 49-71
• Lawrence C. 2004. Public Housing Governance in Singapore: Current Issues and Challenges
• Michalos, A. (1997). Combining social, economic and environmental indicators to measure sustainable human well-being. Social indicators research, 41, 1-4
• Moore, N., & Soott, M. (Eds). (2005). Renewing urban communities: Environment, citizenship and sustainability in Ireland. Aldershot: Ashgate
• Rebecca L. H. CHIU (2000). Environmental Sustainability of Hong Kong’s Housing System and Housing process model. International planning studies, Vol, 5, No. 1, 45-64
• Report of the the World Commission on Environment and Development. Our Common Future. Chapter 2: Towards Sustainable Development. Available at: http://habitat.igc.org/open-gates/ocf-02.htm#I

Whole essay(first draft)-Nero

Title:

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

-What are the problems of urbanisation in China and the existing solution and possible solution?

Introduction

“Urbanization is a historic transformation process by which the means of production and people’s lifestyles evolve from the country to the city. While this process is often characterized as farmers’ migration to cities and the continuing development of cities” (Wen, undated). It not only includes movement from rural area to urban area but also include the changes of migrants’ attitudes, habits, behavior and life style. In the present age, urbanization is playing a significant role in the development of society and economy. It can reflect the level of social development and civilization of a country as well (Zhao & Liu 2010). Urbanisation was caused by industrialisation and technological development in developed countries, such as in Europe and North America. The huge economic and social changes were happened gradually. From 19^th to early 20^th centuries, industrialisation and technology developed very fast in these countries or regions. A vast number of opportunities were created for workers who were from rural areas (Wang & Hu 1999). The process of urbanisation comes out rapidly all over the world. In the meantime, urbanisation has caused many problems, such as crimes, environmental pollution, overcrowded housing, high unemployment and traffic jam. Governments attempt to solve these problems. A serial of policies were introduced. Many policies solved these problems effectively, but some of them could affect our future lives. For instance, aim to solve the problem of overcrowded housing, some governments decided to destroy some traditional architecture or cut plenty of trees to build tall buildings. It could solve this problem at this moment, but in the long run it will cause many other serious problems. Therefore, the concept of ‘sustainable development’ was tabled. Sustainable development is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (wordIQ.com, undated). Sustainable development not only consider present but also consider the effects of the future. Increasing people suggest that sustainable development should be adopted to solve the problems of urbanisation. Personally, I agree with this opinion. Sustainable development can improve our living condition and environment.

China is a developing country. Urbanisation has encouraged both the development of economy and society hugely, but the situation of urbanisation in developing countries is different from developed countries. China has the largest number of population in our world. It brings more negative effects.

This essay will talk about the different problems which caused by urbanisation in China, it will focus on crimes, unemployment and overcrowded housing, I will analyse these three problems and give some existing policies of solving these problems and possible solutions, then will discuss whether they can effectively solve those problems and use some evidences to illustrate that sustainable development could be successful. Furthermore, some limitation will be given at the end of this essay.

Negative effects of urbanisation

During the past 2 decades, the economy is growing quite fast in China. After joining the World Trade Organisation(WTO), China becomes a significant role in the world economy. Considering the fast economic growth of China, some economists and experts assert that urbanisation starts in China quite later than developed countries and regions. The authority of China must adopt a series of policies to catch up with these developed countries. Indeed, the Chinese government permit rural people move to urban area in order to accelerate the process of urbanisation(Wen, undated). There are more than 1.3 billion people in China. With the huge amount of population, China has to be confronted with the unprecedented challenge of urbanisation.

Source: National Bureau of Statistics of China, China Statistical yearbook, various issues


The Chinese population growth rate in urban area is particularly high. It includes both natural increase and increasing farmer moving into cities. The increasing population needs more housing, facilities and space to live(Wang & Hu 1999). Over-crowded housing becomes a serious problem in many big cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Hongkong. It caused many problems:

Firstly, due to the huge amount of farmers migrating into big cities, lots of them cannot find any rooms to live. More and more homeless people appear. Secondly, many migrants have to live in one small room with the other people. Poor living condition caused many health issues and infectious disease.

After looking at over-crowded housing, we should now focus on another urbanisation problem – unemployment. Urbanisation of a city should provide more jobs to its residents, but in China, the situation is different. A vast number of people in Chinese cities need plenty of jobs while the narrow employment opportunities cannot meet residents’ needs. Furthermore, increasing migrations moving into cities caused high competitions. In 2002, the number of employees who work for state-owned firms fell from 75millions to 40 millions. More than 20millions people lost their jobs. Until June 2004, nearly 8.37millions urban residents were unemployed(Wen, undated). Otherwise, in China, the reason of many poor rural people moving into big cities is that they could not find any jobs in countries rather than they get a job in urban area. They just think that if they move into cities, they will have better lives (Wang & Hu 1999). In fact, when they move into cities, most of them cannot find a job because of both high competitions and less skills. That causes more and more unemployment.

In addition, urbanisation also could affect social stability. Chinese authority has emphasized many times that social stability is the most important task. Unfortunately, uncontrolled urbanisation makes lots of rural people moving into cities almost in same period, and it caused many potential social issues. Many people could not find any jobs. They cannot gain enough money to guarantee their basic lives, therefore, some of them decided to be criminals, such as thieves ,robbers or the others, who could get some money through using illegal methods(Wen, undated).

Considering the reasons of those three problems, we can understand that too many unemployed people in large cities is the main problem. If the governments want to solve these problems, they should first find a way to create more jobs to meet those unemployed people.

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Policy of sustainable development

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Having introduced some urbanisation problems, we should now focus on some successful policies of sustainable development. Aim to solve those urbanisation problems, the Chinese government carries out a series of strategies to face these unprecedented challenges. First of all, after the economic reform, Chinese government revised its strategies. The authority has implemented a small town development policy to develop rural areas instead of engaging enormous workforce move into big cities. The authority encouraged rural farmers to do some non-farm activities, such as animal husbandry, fishery and handicrafts. In the mean time, the government encouraged farmers to transfer their jobs in local industry, construction, transportation and the other service(Wang & Hu 1999). In 1984, the Chinese government adopted new policy to liberalise rural trade. Farmers are allowed to engage selected goods between town and countries and to adopt household registration in small town to engage in commerce. They could be responsible for their own goods supplies (Wang & Hu 1999). In 1987, China adopted a strategy which is an export-oriented development. Many rural products closely link to the export sector (Wang & Hu 1999). These policies effectively created enormous job opportunities in rural areas. When big cities are too crowded and lacking job opportunities, those small towns can supply lots of job opportunities. Furthermore, to create more job opportunities, huge investments are needed. Facing to the challenges, China attempts to reproduce the rural urbanisation model on nationwide scale. If the government sent all of surplus workforce to towns, it would be more than 2 times of the current population. Therefore, a vast number of new towns will needed to be develop(Gale & Dai, 2002). Indeed, this kind of huge investment will spend plenty of money and resources to build housing, roads, water and sewer, electric and gas systems for new town, but in the mean time, it will create a vast number of jobs (Gale & Dai, 2002). The occurrence of these jobs could reduce unemployment. Since 1978, small towns have developed rapidly in main land of China. Many new towns were built in China. In 1979, almost 2400 small towns housed about 55.56millions people, but in 1995, according to China’s Ministry of Construction, more than 50,000 small towns occurred in China. Small town development was progressed rapidly in coastal cities. For instance, in Shanghai, the number of small towns had increased from 1070 to 2300 in 2 decades. In the Zhujiang Delta, the number increased from 21 to 188 form1982 to 1987. The increased small towns absorbed a vast number of rural surplus workforces (Wang & Hu 1999).

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Given two existing sustainable development police, let us look at another two possible solutions. Firstly, the west of China is an important investment area in China. In the western area, the urbanisation rate is still very low. In 2007, the urbanisation rate of the western China is only 37.83% while the rate in the east is 60.47%, and the average rate is 44.94%. Obviously, the low urbanisation rate prevents the improvement of national urbanisation rate. Only the urbanisation rate of Inner Mongolia and Chongqing are higher than the average rate of China (Zhao & Liu , 2010). If the government implemented a policy to send the huge number of surplus workforce to the western area, the west of China would be urbanized faster. In the mean time, the urbanisation of west of China would be able to create plenty of jobs as well. Secondly, finding approaches to send Chinese rural labour to work in the other countries is another good methods to solve unemployment problems. It is not only a good way to make the farmers getting rich but also a good way to improve farmers' views and their work skills. These benefits could equip them and make them have enough abilities and skills to find a job when then come back (Wen, undated).

After showing these existing policies of sustainable development and possible solutions, we can understand that in China, the key methods of solving those urbanisation problems, such as over-crowded housing, unemployment and crimes are jobs creation and encourage surplus workforce to develop those less developed area, such as rural area, small towns and western China. As a result, the two existing solution effectively reduce the negative effects of urbanisation. It can fully testify that a policy of sustainable development could effectively solve urbanisation problems. The investment of western China and accelerating the pace of international employment are good way to solve urbanisation problems as well, because they can also create plenty of jobs to absorb rural surplus workforces.However, these two methods both have some limitations. Not all of people are willing to or have enough ability to migrate to western China or go to the other countries. The weather of western China is not as pleasant as the east of China, and the desertification of some western area is quite serious. In addition, not all of rural farmers have enough money to go to the other countries to find a job without any economic aid.

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Conclusion

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To summarise, in China, urbanisation has caused many serious problems, including over-crowded housing, unemployment and increasing crime rate. Chinese government has reduced the effects of these urbanisation problems effectively through adopting some policies of sustainable development. It can illustrate that urbanisation problems could be solved by sustainable development. However, due to the largest number of population of the world in China, they are still big problems in the modern society. The Chinese government should carry out some new policies of sustainable development to further solve these problems. The investment of western China and accelerating the pace of international employment are two possible solutions, but they both have some limitation. The authority of main land of China should consider both the benefits and limitation of these two possible solutions. If the government can adopt some new policies to reduce these limitation, these two possible solutions will be good methods to solve urbanisation problems effectively.

Reference:

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Gale Fred & Dai Hongguo(2002) Small Town Development in China, A 21^st Century Challenge, Rural America, vol17, issue 1 pp.12-19.[online ] Available from:

http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/ruralamerica/ra171/ra171b.pdf

.

Wang Gabe T & Hu xiaobo (1999) Small town development and rural urbanization in China, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 29:1, pp.76-94. [online] Available from:

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a778632865

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Wen Guoming (undated) Cautions on China’s Urbanization. [online] Available from:

http://www.mansfieldfdn.org/pubs/pub_pdfs/wen0105_chinaurban.pdf

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WordIQ.com (undated) Sustainable development [online] Available from: http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Sustainable_development

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Zhao Bing & Liu jinpeng (2010) Research on Pushing Effect of Urbanization on China Western Investment. International Journal of Economics and Finance Vol.2 No.1 pp.182-185 [online] Available from: http://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ijef/article/viewFile/4961/4120

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Renie's whole essay(draft)

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.

Introduction

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.
[good]
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.


Main body

Traffic related problems

Transport, road transport in particular generates a huge amount of pollution and it is [well known and evident]hedge] that this is the major factor contributing to global warming, (Neale, 1997) .The impact that transport has on environment can be measured by estimating carbon dioxide emissions (Leith, 2007) In 2007, transport accounts for 24% all carbon dioxide emissions in the UK, rising from 20% (117 million tonnes) in 1990. Carbon dioxide emissions come from road transport increased by 11% between 1990 and 2007(Department for transport, 2007).

[The] UK Government pointed out in the White Paper on the Future of Transport: ‘‘Road traffic is a major contributor to air pollution. Up to 24,000 vulnerable people are estimated to die prematurely each year, and similar numbers are admitted to hospital, because of exposure to air pollution, much of which is due to road traffic’’ (DETR, 1998)[paraphrase this].

Another problem of transport is traffic congestion, new road building projects are planned to meet the traffic demand, but more often than not, are being neglected that they can bring more traffic problems and noise pollution; moreover, it has become a striking symbol of unsustainable development in UK and many other countries (Neale, 1997).

In order to find out the effects of traffic-related pollution in urban areas and come out with possible policy to deal with it, in 1999, a national survey was conducted and it indicated that 66.6% of 147 surveyed respondents regard the effects that road traffic has on the health in urban areas of UK as being serious or very serious, and (70.5%) view traffic exhaust pollution and 41.1% consider noise pollution as a serious or very serious issue (Ison, 2002)


Government solutions


In 1998, Transport White Paper as integrated transport strategy carried out with the aim to change the travel habits and arouse people’s the realisation to reduce car-based travel to order to lessen the traffic congestion caused pollution and to bring additional health benefits (Coleman, 2000), therefore, the adoption of Sustainable Travel Plans play an important role in this strategy to fulfill the goal that is to make the transport better for Everyone as the slogan of Transport White Paper suggests (Rye et al, 2000).


Low Carbon Transport: A Greener Future(2009), a strategy designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport , which is coincide with Climate Change Act 2008 and enable UK to meet the requirements of the carbon budgets by 2022, calling for businesses and citizens to take collectively actions to reduce the impact of transport has on climate change and carbon emission by using green transport(Department for transport,2009) , the cycle to work scheme is encouraged greatly by the government by offering tax-free bikes to company to promote healthier travel to work and reduce environment pollution.


In recently years, UK government gives priority to cut down the transport problems and building a low carbon future, transport is recognaised as a major consumer of scarce resources and a significant contributor to environmental pollution (Banister et al, 2003),so develop low carbon travel with wide rang of options for citizen and businesses is essential (Department for Transport, 2009).
[last 3 paragraphs read like a 'soup' made from the referenced papers]

In responding to comply with policies and take actions, for both organisations and individuals make commitment to the environment, the implement of the Sustainable Travel Plans especially meaningful in reducing carbon dioxide emission and striving for a sustainable future, since walking and cycling cause no carbon dioxide emission and resource consumption, in addition, using public transport and car sharing such kind of environmentally-friendly alternatives exhausting much less carbon dioxide emission than driving alone, furthermore, it can improve the quality[of what?], alleviate national and global environmental problems, such as climate change, global warming.


“Sustainable Travel Plans(or Green Commute Plans) is a package of measures tailored to needs of individual and aimed at promoting greener, cleaner travel choices and reducing reliance on the car thus reduce the impact on the environment”(Department for Transport, 2009). It’s including: walking, cycling, public transport, car clubs, car sharing, eco-driving and low carbon vehicles (the Scottish Government, undated), table below are the measures of Sustainable Travel Plans:



(Source:The Scottish Executive Central Research Unit 2000, p18)


The first Green Commute Plan in UK was adopted in Nottingham in 1995, Nottinghamshire County Council and a number of local employers were intend to make a public commitment to encourage their staff to use sustainable transport to travel to work and to reduce the impact on environment (Emerson et al, 1999). Since then GCP is developed by the adoptions of a number of public and private organisations including Nat West and Hewlett Packard (Newson, 1997).At present, some big companies in UK such as: Pfizer, Stockley, Park, AstraZeneca and Boots also have their own Green Commuter Plans. Green Commute Plan has witnessed a steady increase since 1990 peeking at the implementation of reducing car-based travel by the department of environment (Coleman, 1999).



Evidence and statistic


In order to find out how feasible and sustainable policies are, numerous researches have been done, in The Effects of Smarter Choice Programs in the Sustainable Travel Towns: Full Report which was published by Department for Transport in 2010, this full independent report examined every aspect of traffic and served to evaluate the results of 3 'Sustainable Travel Towns'- Darlington, Peterborough and Worcester in which Sustainable Travel including cycling, walking, public transport, and decreases usage in cars is being adopted (Department for Transport, 2010).


The report indicate that the using of bus increased tremendously in Peterborough and Worcester, while Darlington showed a slight declining, but the growth in Worcester and Peterborough were dramatic: 760,000 extra trips p.a. and 2.6 million extra trips p.a. respectively Bus use grew substantially in Peterborough and Worcester during the period of the Sustainable Travel Town work, whereas it declined in Darlington (though the rate of decline slowed from 2006 onwards). The degree of growth in Peterborough and Worcester was dramatic: 760,000 extra trips p.a. in Worcester, and 2.6 million extra trips p.a. in Peterborough. The car driver trips of household travel in three cities reduced by 7% to 10% in three places based on that figures of 2004’s report, and this helps to lessen the traffic congestion to a great deal, moreover, the carbon saved from the decrease in car driver journeys that below 50km in the Sustainable Travel Towns achieved a percentage of 0.6% reduction in individual emission compared to the figure of 2004, and the carbon savings of an individual can amount to approximate 50kg CO2 across the three towns (Department for Transport, 2010).

The Department for Transport concluded that implement of Sustainable Travel in three towns is very successful in terms of carbon savings which is an important element of reducing carbon emission, and it also bring about additional substantial benefits, evident congestion relief, improved air quality, cost saving, the report also gives an example of two employees who use car sharing to commute, each of then can save £4,000 a year, furthermore, it can be of great assistance to fulfill government objectives.


In research: Mitigating Transport's Climate Change Impact in Scotland: Assessment of Policy Options, the finding suggested that the join force of the policy options in the Central Scenario would achieve a reduction of approximately 1.35 MtCO2 p.a. in 2022, while another project called Ambitious Scenario would achieve 2.15 Mt CO2 p.a. in 2022, an estimated reduction of 44% from 1990 total transport emissions.
(Scottish transport statistics, 2009), the above mentioned researches are region based, however, if the implement in small places can be successful, taking the country as a whole, to a large extend, sustainable transport can be achieved.


The annual publication Sustainable development indicators in your pocket 2008 which measured the UK progress in sustainable development, this research outlined 68 aspects together with the evidence which can examine the progress, the study associated with transport related data shows emissions of six greenhouse gases in 2007 were 639 million tonnes, 17% reduction compare with that of 1990, and this almost fulfill the goal of 18 reduction of Kyoto protocol. Emission of carbon dioxide was estimated to be 544 million tonnes, 8 per cent lower than in 1990, between 1990 and 2006, emissions of air pollutants were decreased: ammonia (NH3) by 18 per cent, nitrogen oxides (NOx) by 46 per cent, particulates (PM10) by 50 per cent and sulphur dioxide (SO2) by 82 per cent, during this period the GDP grew by 48 per cent.
[need some comment, analysis or evaluation with all this data]


Conclusion


As urbanisation becomes increasingly severe ,transport related problems become one of symbols of being unsustainable(Neale, 1997), and as transport plays an important role in meeting the challenges that the urbanisation bring about, sustainable transport initiatives which design to combat with traffic related problems make great contribution in minimising negative impact on environment, traffic stress and congestion, improving air quality, researches show that an increase percentage using of green transport methods instead of car-based travel can lessen the traffic caused environmental pollution and to bring additional health benefits, meanwhile can be supportive to economic growth, improve health and life quality( Department for Transport, 2009),

The data of researches also indicate that the resolutions are effective in achieving government’s goals, to a large extent the problems can be solved by the sustainable policies, despite huge amount of money need to be invested in infrastructures and results are not so obvious in the short run, the achievements are satisfactory, moreover, it’s predictable that the targets set in the initiatives are achievable if continuing efforts are being made, and most likely these areas are full of opportunities that researches can be carry forward to examine whether these targets are being fulfilled with reference to taking current statistics as the base year.[needs to be clearer]


Reference:


Leith A., 2007, Travel to Work in Nottingham: An Analysis of Environmental Impacts and Mitigating Policies, School of Geography, University of Leeds,

Chris B., Gallent N., Sustainable Commuting: A Contradiction In Terms?

Department for transport, 2009, low carbon transport, a greener future, A Carbon Reduction Strategy for Transport

Coleman, C. 2000, Green commuter plans and the small employer: an investigation into the attitudes and policy of the small employer towards staff travel and green commuter plans, Transport Policy 7 (2000) 139–148

David B., Kenneth J. B., 2003, Transport, the environment and sustainable development, charter2 PP19-52, Regional Studies, 33: 3, 274 — 280,

Neale, A. (1997) Extending the scope of environmental management: the case of company-assisted travel in Britain, Business Strategy and the Environment, volume 6, pp9–17,

Tony E. and Romney T., 1999, GREEN COMMUTER PLANNING:
A ROLE FOR BUSINESS, Business Strategy and the Environment, volume8, pp82-87,

Tom R. and David M., 2000, Green Commuter Plans, Do They Work? The Scottish Executive Central Research Unit 2000,

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

Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR),1998. A new deal for transport: better for everyone, Cm3950. The Government’s White Paper on the Future of Transport, The Stationery Office, London.

Department for Transport, 2010, The Effects of Smarter Choice Programmes in the Sustainable Travel Towns: Full Report

Stephen Ison a,*, Stuart Wall b,2002 Attitudes to traffic-related issues in urban areas of the UK and the role of workplace parking charges, Journal of Transport Geography 10 (2002) 21–28

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 2008, Sustainable development indicators in your pocket 2008

Scottish Transport Statistics,2009, Mitigating Transport's Climate Change Impact in Scotland:Assessment of Policy
[put in alphabetical order; use inverted commas and italics to separate titles and publications]

Iris --Introduction

Topic: To what extent can the problems of urbanization be met by a policy of sustainable development?
Sub topic: Evaluate approaches for protect urban forest systems for city development in china

Introduction:

As far as we know [?], urbanization has been taking place rapidly in developing countries over the last five decades. An important feature of urbanization in the developing countries is the fact that the rate of growth of large cities has been greater than that of small cities. (Mathur , 1982).
Therefore, we can describe urbanization as the rapid growth of the city, in term of physical expansion of the urban area with high increase of the population. The high population is the significant feature of urbanization, which was the outcome of high levels of rural-to-urban migration in combination with the high rates of natural increase of population. As well, more and more new cities were appeared in china like Shenzhen, Haikou. As we know, city play a vital role in National economic growth, especially in developing counties because of the main business activities were happened in cities. Due to the well established business network, cities create most of the national output by performing crucial service and production functions.

Thus, at the beginning, urbanization is making huge contributions to city development. However, rapid urbanization in developing countries also bring negative consequences: high intense population with inadequate accessing to housing , pollutions, always overcrowded transportation, low employment , slums and squatter settlements , basic urban services like education, medical insurance , primary healthy care , water supply and so on.. These drawbacks now are the obstacles for economic development. As well, more and more people who live in the city suffer from depression due to the high stress and pressure. In order to eliminate the negatives of urbanization and make the city continue development in a right direction which is not scarify environment as price for economic development.

From this point of view, Sustain development could be a feasibility method. According to Brundtland report, Sustain development which means “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Brundtland, 1987,p43). Thus, cities can be design and managed in a way that resource use and pollution are reduced, devote to the harmonious development between man and natural.

In this essay, I will take China’s city as case, first,give a short introduction of china's urbanization, and compare with the European's urbanization, show the main difference of china’s urbanization which is the high intense between man and land, then give a solution to eliminate the drawbacks of urbanization which we called urban forest system to reduce the contradictions of man and natural, and refer to the successful cases which were in Japan, Canada, and European cities evaluate the feasibility in China, then estimate the potential challenges of using this solution as well. Finally, the essay is drawn together and related to a wide context in a brief conclusion. [Last sentence doesn't say anything]


References:
1.Sandra , N. & Maria ,D.(2010) Estimating the economic benefits of the landscape function of ornamental trees in a sub-Mediterranean area. International Journal of Urban Forestry &Urban Greening Vol 9 (2) PP71-81 [online].
Available from: http://www.elsevier.de/ufug
[accessed 27June 2010]

2. Wendy,M. &Paul,E, Mar,s. Robert,B(2010)The housing-forest interface:Testing structural approaches for protecting suburban natural systems following development. International Journal of Urban Forestry &Urban Greening Vol 9 (2) pp149-159 [online].
Available from: http://www.elsevier.de/ufug
[accessed 27June 2010 ]

3. Alex Y ,LO & C.Y Jim (2010) Willingness of residents to pay and motives for conservation of urban green spaces in the compact city of Hong Kong International Journal of Urban Forestry &Urban Greening Vol 9 (2)pp113-120
Available from: http://www.elsevier.de/ufug
[accessed 27June 2010 ]
[All from the same volume? Doesn't show wide research reading. Use inverted commas and italics to separate title from publication.]

Whole Essay (Reza)

Introduction:
This essay attempts to describe the effects of sustainable development on the problems of urbanisation and bring about a solution to different aspects of it. It also focuses on noise pollution and the measurement[v] taken against it.
Since human beings life changes constantly, they commence to think of the better ways of moving around rather than on foot. People transformed from ‘hunt gathering’ to agriculture which was still before the industrial revolutions (the 18th) which spread out from England to the world and developed rapidly after the invention of steam powered machines. Nowadays people are moving to the huge cities mostly because of jobs opportunities and of course making more money in the capitals rather than their perhaps small hometowns or let’s say rural areas.
Urbanisation refers to the process of increasing population in the cities and physical growth of a city in general. Most of people are immigrating from rural to urban areas because of facing to economic difficulties in small towns in terms of job opportunities and markets. Obviously, depending of limited capacity of cities this may cause problems such as housing, traffic jams, parking spaces, jobs, pollutions and etc. Also it is widening the gap between poor and rich and at the end of day it will increase crimes. Additionally with the high speed growth in urbanisation and industrialisation all the natural resources are in danger of extinction which is a very important case. The extender[?] of civilisation means replacing the nature with buildings and roads as well and still the traffic jams are one of the biggest problems of capital and big cities. In simple terms the process of manufacturing cars is much faster than building roads and motorways.
Sustainable development refers to the proportional amount of consumption of resources available to an extent in which it meets the human needs and at the same time preserves the environment so our generation and the future one can have their fair share out of it. In 2009 DEFRA(Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) mentioned that over the past 20 years it has been clear that the growth of development has been unsustainable and the negative effect of our consumption pattern has had damaged the environment and also climate.
Sustainable development attempts to keep up the way of natural systems through the social challenges concerning the humanity, giving no less value to the environmental concerns as well. It is clear that development in the present should not compromise the future life. That is why the concept of needs and the idea of limitations are introduced; so that it doesn’t harm the system which is the world that we are living in.
Sustainable development is a global term which began in Europe and it includes all aspects of better standards of life, environment and economy. This study argues the advantages and disadvantages of [sustainable mobility of traffic jams problems]? and whether it is a way forward for providing better lifestyle or not.

[Intro too long, and doesn't focus the esay on noise pollution as you said it would.]

Main body:
One of the most focused areas in sustainable development is traffic congestion especially on the roads in busy areas. It has partly solved with brilliant ideas [eg?] and projects of public transportation. It is also clear that it helps people to save time and energy and it is a lot greener than using private vehicles but is it necessarily good for the health of human beings.[Is this a question?]

The growth in transportation and the rise in the number of people moving to the cities have increased the amount of the air pollution dramatically. To solve these problems, sustainable mobility through the way of public transportations tends to be off a cure to it. “During the last decade, air pollution in relation to respiratory health has again become an important issue. In addition to indoor sources, automobile traffic has been recognized as a major source of air pollution exposure” Say Rijnders et al (2001). Therefore the sustainable mobility by the means of public transportation takes actions to overcome this. As it is known; spatial mobility is at the heart of human activity. Even though, it doesn’t qualify the abuse of transportation. This is why public transport is becoming an important matter as a way of solving the problems and also continuing the traditional desire of mankind over exhaustion. In order to achieve a sustainable transport system new technology is the most significant option which again deals with the matter of developing new means of transport that use alternative and eco-friendly fuels which are non-emission. According to Munasinghe (1997), one of the most important targets of sustainable development is the economic efficiency subject. They have to use the scarce resources in the best possible way to avoid wasting and emissions. Also it is considering the danger of climate change and global warming.” Public transportation saves more than 855 million gallons of gasoline a year, or 45 million barrels of oil. These savings equal about one month’s oil imports from Saudi Arabia and three months of the energy that Americans use to heat, cool and operate their homes, or half the energy used to manufacture all computers and electronic equipment in America.”(Shapiro, 2002)[need direct quote?]
As it shown sustainable mobility succeed to reduce some fuel consumption and air pollution. “Intelligent transportation system is a global phenomenon, attracting worldwide interest from transportation professionals, automotive industry and political decision makers. ITS apply advance communication, information and electronics technology to solve transportation problems such as traffic congestion, safety, transport efficiency and environmental conservation.” (Figueiredo et al, 2005) [paraphrase -too much lengthy quoting - put citation in same sentence as quote] in other words, by the increase in the number of automotive products, the number of accidents or problems caused due to these vehicles increases and hence there should be an advance technology to decrease these inefficiencies and provide the services expected. Therefore the advance technology can bring about the sustainability of transportation. Even though industrialization means more [number of] people and though the jobs are becoming automatic and done by machines every day, but it also can be said that the increase in the number of citizens can mean; more number of fresh workers eager to find a job, in which, if it is put in to the right direction can make the development easier and better as well.[unclear]
On the other hand sticking in the traffic jams means wasting the time of human resources. Therefore Good transportation system for a city saves its people time which is a vital element of developing a country and it can make a significant change for its economy. For instance if someone wants to drive from east to west in a huge capital, he can use the underground instead of driving in the busy roads in rush hours for [quiet] long time.
It is shown that sustainable mobility meets a lot of needs in huge cities and it is more efficient but it is not always good and it claimed other issues at the same time such as noise pollution, busy stations and etc. “The state of the environment is a major worldwide concern today. Pollution in particular is perceived as a serious threat in the industrialized countries, where the quality of life had hitherto been measured mainly in terms of growth in material output. Meanwhile, environmental degradation has become a serious impediment to economic development and easing of poverty in the developing world.”(Munasinghe, 1997) [paraphrase]
The negative points of transportation are cause by the increase in the usage of different means of mobility. Rienstra et al. (1995) claims that: “Over the past few decades, the volume of passenger kilometers by car, trains and bus in Western-Europe has increased by 246% between 1965 and 1989. The number of airplane kilometers flown by the main Western-Europe companies has at the same time increased by more than 700%.” [paraphrase] Increase in population due to the urbanisation, means the increase in the demands for more and more mobility services, which eventually results in consumption of more fuel that ultimately causes more pollution. These fuels other than not being renewable, causes severe problems for the environment, problems such as the greenhouse gasses like CO2. Therefore there were rules and regulations which has been declared to avoid this problem, like bringing congestion charge into capital and important cities all over the world, or trying to change the fuels to alternate and safer ones and encouraging people to use public transportation. Air pollution problems are most intense where the traffic is most dense, around city centres and airports, for example. Over the years, as transport has been used more widely, legislation has been introduced to reduce the amounts of pollutants released, and in modern society vehicles are becoming increasingly environmentally friendly. However, this positive effect is offset by the increasing number of vehicles. For example, in the UK, experts predict that car traffic will grow by at least 50% over the next 25 years. [Is this a new point? - reads like space filler - repetitive.]
Most of public transits are not sustainable because of either being over crowded in peak hours which is not convenience for people or not being used by passengers in off-peak hours which is not efficient. Apart of this, noise pollution is one of the most significant consequences of all kinds of transportations such as airplanes, trains and buses. “Noise pollution is a major problem in urban environments, affecting human behaviour, well-being, productivity and health.”(Environmental-protection) [weak connection to first part of essay]
Sound is essential in our life, but noise is not. Everyone who lives in big cities is forced to hear the harsh noises of trains and airplanes every single day. The people who live close to the airports sometimes are hearing the landing and taking off the hundreds of planes every day. The noise pollution can increase the depression among the urban residents. The effects of depression are referring to problems such as appetite disorders, giving up the old hobbies, lack of concentration and short memory, feeling hopeless and/or having suicidal thoughts, misuse alcoholic drinks or consuming drugs. Even crimes and mindless vandalisms can be the consequence of noise pollutions because it raises significantly aggressive behaviour and sleep disorders. [ref?] “Human beings will spend approximately one third of their lives in a sleep state, and sleep has been shown to be essential for the maintenance of mental health.”(Jenson, 2003)
It is hard to define certainly the influence of noise on bodies and/or behaviours. Noise can affect human body in many ways depending on its loudness and type. For example, recently experts carry out that the noise of airplanes around airports is at the same decibel of the traffic jam but it is more bothersome in people’s opinion. So it is not just about the loudness, but it is about the sort of the noise as well. Maybe the noises in the undergrounds are not that loud but everyone agrees how annoying they are. Problems caused by noise could divide in four main categories:
• Physical effects. For example the noise affects the cellular structures of inner ear and may cause deaf or serious hearing defects. Women’s hearing is more sensitive than men’s; consequently it is more dangerous for them.
• Physiological effects. For instance ascending blood pressure and heart rhythm or even worse; if the noise is becoming more than the standard rate at the nights it may result a heart attack according to British Medical Bulletin.
• Psychological effects. It includes the appetite disorders, sleeplessness, going late to bed or early morning wakening, stress and irritability.Work performance, such as reduction of productivity or misunderstanding of what is heard. [That's 3]
Unfortunately most of people especially in Europe suffer from noise pollution unintentionally. It is becoming clear when they are more likely to live in a country-sides rather than centres of cities. But usually due to their job locations, most of them have to stay and live in the crowded areas. Still they prefer flats located in quiet avenues with double glazing windows to avoid the noise at least in their home.
According to TFL (Transport for London),” final design for new bus is confirmed.” Johnson [who?] also claimed that the design of new buses is similar to the old London buses but with the 15% more fuel efficient and “eco-friendly hybrid technology” system. It is lighter than the older ones and quieter. As it illustrated in this example, the technology innovations can play an important role in becoming more efficient and sustainable in various fields in the world.



Conclusion
Sustainable development is essential for urbanisation in the way that living in the busy cities without it becomes impossible. The demand for transportation is increasing continuously and it needs new policies and thoughts to be able to meet them adequately. Sustainable development provides the better lifestyle and in terms of mobility, despite of saving fuel and time, it is greener as well. It should reduce the traffic jams with the high taxes and congestion charges for private vehicles.
New technology innovations would be a great remedy for unwanted noises and public transportation capability. In the future it may come up with less noisy trains, planes or quieter motorways. The government should promote strategies for encouraging people to use public transportation more and to drive smoothly. Sustainable mobility helps the governments and people in many problems of civilisation such as saving scarce resources like time and oil but it has its own problems as well.

There is no doubt that Sustainable development is improving the human’s health and life but it may raise other issues at the same time such as increasing noise pollutions or accelerating global warming by too many flights all around the world. The effects of noise pollution are very dangerous and eventually can cause deaf in personal perspective and increase illegal acts from social point of view.
On balance, the governments should provide huge cities with new ideas and technologies to improve the sustainable development with considering the environment and society. The transportation means should consume alternative fuels rather than petrol to become greener and more efficient. Taking the best care of the pollutions and resources is our first responsibility to next generations.










Bibliography:
Figueiredo L. et al. (2005). ‘Towards the Development of Intelligent Transportation System’, available on line www.ave.dee.isep.ipp.pt [accessed 05/07/2010]
Jenson & Dallas R. (2003). ‘Understanding sleep disorders in student population’ available on line from http//www.highbeam.com [accessed 05/07/2010]
McCormack, J. &  Slaght, J. (2009). Extended Writing & Research skills. Published in UK by Garnet Publishing, 4th edition www.environmental-protection.org.uk [accessed 06/07/2010]
Munasinghe M. (1997). ‘Environmental economics and sustainable development’ published in Washington D.C. by The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, third edition.
Pearce, D. and Barbier E. & Markandya A, (1997). ‘sustainable development economics and environment in the third world’, published in London by Eathscan Publications Ltd.

Rijnders, E. & Janssen, N. & Van Vliet, P. & Brunekreef, B.(2001). ‘Personal and outdoor Nitrogen Dioxide Concentrations in relation to degree of urbanization and traffic density’. Environmental Health Perspective. Vol. 109. Available on line at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov [accessed 03/07/2010]
Rienstra S. & Vluegel J. & Niikamp P. (1995). ‘options for Sustainable Passenger Transport; An Assessment of Policy Chioces’, available online at www.dspace.ubvu.vu.nl [accessed 03/07/2010]
Singh, N. (2004). ‘Noise Pollution- Sources, Effects and Control’ pp. 181-187 available online at http://www.krepublishers.com [accessed 05/07/2010]
Shapiro, R. & Hassett, K. & Arnold F (2002). ‘Conserving Energy and Preserving
The Environment: The Role of Public Transportation’ available online at www.archives.eesi.org [accessed 04/07/2010]

The 2 parts of the essay are not really connected - focus on one or the other. The 1st part has no counter argumetns, but the same argumetns repeated. Only use quotations when necessary. 

introduction-Nero

Title:

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

Sub title:

What are the problems of urbanisation in China and the existing solution and possible solution?

Introduction:

“Urbanization is a historic transformation process by which the means of production and people’s lifestyles evolve from the country to the city. While [?] this process is often characterized as farmers’ migration to cities and the continuing development of cities” (Guoming Wen, undated). It also has another definition which is “Urbanization is the movement of population from rural to urban areas and the resulting increasing proportion of population that resides in urban rather than rural places”(Sociology guide, undated). Sustainable development is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (wordIQ.com, undated). In the present age, urbanization is playing a significant role in the development of society and economy. It can reflect the level of social development and civilization of a country as well (Zhao & Liu 2010). Urbanisation was caused by industrialisation and technological development in developed countries, such as in Europe and North America. The huge economic and social changes was happened gradually. From 19^th to early 20^th centuries, industrialisation and technology developed very fast in these countries or regions. A vast number of opportunities were created for workers who were from rural areas(Wang & Hu 1999). In the meantime, urbanisation has caused many problems, such as environmental pollution, overcrowded housing, high unemployment and traffic jam. China is a developing country. Urbanisation has encouraged both the development of economy and society hugely, but the situation of urbanisation in developing countries is different. It brings more negative effects. This essay will talk about the different problems which caused by urbanisation in China and give some existing policies of solving these problems and possible solutions, then will discuss whether they can effectively solve those problems and give individual opinion.

Reference:

Sociology Guide (undated) Urban Growth And Urbanization. [online] Available from:

http://www.sociologyguide.com/industrial-and-urban-society/Urban-growth-and-urbanization.php

Wang Gabe T & Hu xiaobo (1999) Small town development and rural urbanization in China, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 29:1, pp.76-94. [online] Available from:

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a778632865

Wen Guoming (undated) Cautions on China’s Urbanization. [online] Available from:

http://www.mansfieldfdn.org/pubs/pub_pdfs/wen0105_chinaurban.pdf

WordIQ.com (undated) Sustainable development [online] Available from: http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Sustainable_development

Zhao Bing & Liu jinpeng (2010) Research on Pushing Effect of Urbanization on China Western Investment. International Journal of Economics and Finance Vol.2 No.1 pp.182-185 [online] Available from: http://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ijef/article/viewFile/4961/4120

Lucas's Introduction

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. [ref?] 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.

Reference

1. 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
2. Reeitsu KOJIMA, 1995, Urbanization in China. the developing of economics. On the internet:http://www.ide.go.jp/English/Publish/Periodicals/De/pdf/95_02_01.pdf\