Cities have experienced an unprecedented rate of growth in the last decade. (2015), and Rosado et al. It is beyond the scope of this report to examine all available measures, and readers are directed to any of the numerous reviews that discuss their relative merits (see, for example, uek et al., 2012; EPA, 2014a; Janetos et al., 2012; Wiedmann and Barrett, 2010; Wilson et al., 2007; The World Bank, 2016; Yale University, 2016). Cities with a high number of these facilities are linked with poorer air quality, water contamination, and poor soil health. Big Ideas: Big Idea 1: PSO - How do physical geography and resources impact the presence and growth of cities? Understanding these interconnections within system boundaries, from urban to global, is essential to promote sustainability. Health impacts, such as asthma and lung disease. ), as discussed in Chapter 2. (2009), NRC (2004), Pina et al. Urban sustainability is the goal of using resources to plan and develop cities to improve the social, economic, and environmental conditions of a city to ensure the quality of life of current and future residents. Ultimately, given its U.S. focus and limited scope, this report does not fully address the notion of global flows. The results do show that humans global ecological footprint is already well beyond the area of productive land and water ecosystems available on Earth and that it has been expanding in the recent decades. This is because as cities grow, more resources are needed for maintaining economic conditions in a city. Making cities more resilient against these environmental threats is one of the biggest challenges faced by city authorities and requires urgent attention. . Generally, rural areas experience more levels of pollution than urban areas. If a city experiences overpopulation, it can lead to a high depletion of resources, lowering the quality of life for all. Best study tips and tricks for your exams. Because an increasing percentage of the worlds population and economic activities are concentrated in urban areas, cities are highly relevant, if not central, to any discussion of sustainable development. There are six main challenges to urban sustainability. when people exceed the resources provided by a location. A practitioner could complement the adopted standard(s) with additional indicators unique to the citys context as necessary. True or false? Sign up to highlight and take notes. Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Indeed, it is unrealisticand not necessarily desirableto require cities to be solely supported by resources produced within their administrative boundaries. It focuses on nine cities across the United States and Canada (Los Angeles, CA, New York City, NY, Philadelphia, PA, Pittsburgh, PA, Grand Rapids, MI, Flint, MI, Cedar Rapids, IA, Chattanooga, TN, and Vancouver, Canada), chosen to represent a variety of metropolitan regions, with consideration given to city size, proximity to coastal and other waterways, susceptibility to hazards, primary industry, and several other factors. However, many of these areas may be contaminated and polluted with former toxins and the costs of clean-up and redevelopment may be high. How can farmland protection policies respond tourban sustainability challenges? Urban areas and the activities within them use resources and produce byproducts such as waste and pollution that drive many types of global change, such as resource depletion, land-use change, loss of biodiversity, and high levels of energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. What sources of urbanization can create water pollution? Finally, the redevelopment of brownfields, former industrial areas that have been abandoned, can be an efficient way of re-purposing infrastructure. An important example is provided by climate change issues, as highlighted by Wilbanks and Kates (1999): Although climate change mainly takes place on the regional to global scale, the causes, impacts, and policy responses (mitigation and adaptation) tend to be local. These areas can both improve air quality, preserve natural habitats for animals, and allow for new recreational opportunities for residents. Introduction. This requirement applies to governance vertically at all levels of administration, from local to federal and international, and horizontally among various urban sectors and spaces. Inequitable environmental protection undermines procedural, geographic, and social equities (Anthony, 1990; Bullard, 1995). Second, cities exist as part of integrated regional and global systems that are not fully understood. Therefore, the elimination of these obstacles must start by clarifying the nature of the issue, identifying which among the obstacles are real and which can be handled by changing perceptions, concerns, and priorities at the city level. However, air quality and water resources can be protected through proper quality management and government policy. Activities that provide co-benefits that are small in magnitude, despite being efficient and co-occurring, should be eschewed unless they come at relatively small costs to the system. Conceptually, the idea that there is an ecological footprint, and that sustainable cities are places that seek to minimize this footprint, makes great sense (Portney, 2002). or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one. Here it is important to consider not only the impact on land-based resources but also water and energy that are embodied in products such as clothing and food. Urban Development Home. I have highlighted what I see as two of the most interesting and critical challenges in sustainable urban development: understanding the 'vision' (or visions) and developing a deeper understanding of the multi-faceted processes of change required to achieve more sustainable cities. Sustainability Challenges and Solutions - thestructuralengineer.info Often a constraint may result in opportunities in other dimensions, with an example provided by Chay and Greenstone (2003) on the impact of the Clean Air Act amendments on polluting plants from 1972 and 1987. Where possible, activities that offer co-occurring, reasonably sized benefits in multiple dimensions of sustainability should be closely considered and pursued as primary choices while managing tradeoffs. Do you enjoy reading reports from the Academies online for free? In practice, simply trying to pin down the size of any specific citys ecological footprintin particular, the ecological footprint per capitamay contribute to the recognition of its relative impacts at a global scale. Nothing can go wrong! Firstly, we focused on the type of the policy instrument, the challenge it wants to address, as well as its time horizon. Healthy people, healthy biophysical environments, and healthy human-environment interactions are synergistic relationships that underpin the sustainability of cities (Liu et al., 2007). All rights reserved. Ultimately, the goal of urban sustainability is to promote and enable the long-term well-being of people and the planet, yet doing so requires recognition of the biophysical constraints on all human and natural systems, as well as the acknowledgment that urban sustainability is multiscale and multidimensional, both encompassing and transcending urban jurisdictions. The highest AQI range (at the level of concern of hazardous) means that air quality is extremely poor and poses dangerous health risks to all. 11: 6486 . Fossil fuel energy (coal, oil, and natural gas) currently supplies most of the world's energy, emitting carbon and other pollutants into the atmosphere that exacerbate climate change and reduce air quality. Complementary research showed that clean air regulations have reduced infant mortality and increased housing prices (Chay and Greenstone, 2005; EPA, 1999). Cities that want to manage the amount of resources they're consuming must also manage population increases. 2, River in Amazon Rainforest (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:River_RP.jpg), by Jlwad (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Jlwad&action=edit&redlink=1), licensed by CC-BY-SA-4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en), Fig. Lerne mit deinen Freunden und bleibe auf dem richtigen Kurs mit deinen persnlichen Lernstatistiken. This helps to facilitate the engagement, buy-in, and support needed to implement these strategies. Can a city planner prepare for everything that might go wrong, but still manage to plan cities sustainably? The challenges to urban sustainability are also what motivate cities to be more sustainable. Globally, over 50% of the population lives in urban areas today. The results imply that poor air quality had substantial effects on infant health at concentrations near the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencymandated air quality standard and that roughly 1,300 fewer infants died in 1972 than would have in the absence of the Act. Although cities concentrate people and resources, and this concentration can contribute to their sustainability, it is also clear that cities themselves are not sustainable without the support of ecosystem services, including products from ecosystems such as raw materials and food, from nonurban areas. It is crucial for city leaders to be aware of such perceptions, both true and artificial, and the many opportunities that may arise in directly addressing public concerns, as well as the risks and consequences of not doing so. doi: 10.17226/23551. Currently, urban governance is largely focused on single issues such as water. For instance, over the past 50 years, many U.S. cities experienced unprecedented reductions in population, prominently driven by highly publicized perceptions that city environments are somehow innately unsafe. Urban sustainability challenges 5. Regional planning can also help create urban growth boundaries, a limit that determines how far an urban area will develop spatially. More regulation and penalties can assist with waste management, but many countries, both developed and developing, struggle with this. A city or region cannot be sustainable if its principles and actions toward its own, local-level sustainability do not scale up to sustainability globally. I. Urban metabolism2 may be defined as the sum of the technical and socioeconomic processes that occur in cities, resulting in growth, production of energy, and elimination of waste (Kennedy et al., 2007). Some of the most prevailing indicators include footprinting (e.g., for water and land) and composite indices (e.g., well-being index and environmental sustainability index). However,. Cities have central roles in managing the planets resources sustainability (Seitzinger et al., 2012). 2. City leaders must move quickly to plan for growth and provide the basic services, infrastructure, and affordable housing their expanding populations need. The transition to sustainable urban development requires both appropriate city management and local authorities that are aware of the implications posed by new urban sustainability challenges. Launched at the ninth session of the World Urban Forum (WUF9 . The strategies employed should match the context. When cities build and expand, they can create greenbelts, areas of wild, undeveloped land in surrounding urban areas. In most political systems, national governments have the primary role in developing guidelines and supporting innovation allied to regional or global conventions or guidelines where international agreement is reached on setting such limits. Indeed, often multiple cities rely on the same regions for resources. In many ways, this is a tragedy of the commons issue, where individual cities act in their own self-interest at the peril of shared global resources. Not a MyNAP member yet? . These win-win efficiencies will often take advantage of economies of scale and adhere to basic ideas of robust urbanism, such as proximity and access (to minimize the time and costs of obtaining resources), density and form (to optimize the use of land, buildings, and infrastructure), and connectedness (to increase opportunities for efficient and diverse interactions). Urban sustainability is the practice of making cities more environmentally friendly and sustainable. How many goods are imported into and exported from a city is not known in practically any U.S. city. Further mapping of these processes, networks, and linkages is important in order to more fully understand the change required at the municipal level to support global sustainability. New sustainability indicators and metrics are continually being developed, in part because of the wide range of sustainability frameworks used as well as differences in spatial scales of interest and availability (or lack thereof) of data. This can include waste made by offices, schools, and shops. 3, Industrial Pollution in Russia (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Industry_in_Russia.jpg), by Alt-n-Anela (https://www.flickr.com/people/47539533@N05), licensed by CC-BY-2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en), Fig. The task is, however, not simple. Thus, some strategies to manage communal resources, such as community-based, bottom-up approaches examined by Ostrom (2009a), may be more difficult to obtain in urban settings. Meeting the challenges of planetary stewardship demands new governance solutions and systems that respond to the realities of interconnectedness. It will require recognition of the biophysical and thermodynamic aspects of sustainability. Its 100% free. Commitment to sustainable development by city or municipal authorities means adding new goals to those that are their traditional concerns (McGranahan and Satterthwaite, 2003). This will continue the cycle of suburban sprawl and car dependency. Providing the data necessary to analyze urban systems requires the integration of different economic, environmental, and social tools. What pollutants occur due to agricultural practices? In each parameter of sustainability, disruptions can only be withstood to a certain level without possible irreversible consequences. What are some effects of air pollution on society. Simply put, any sustainability plans, including those applied in urban areas, cannot violate the laws of nature if they are to achieve acceptable, long-term outcomes for human populations. Principle 3: Urban inequality undermines sustainability efforts. Clustering populations, however, can compound both positive and negative conditions, with many modern urban areas experiencing growing inequality, debility, and environmental degradation. The implementation of long-term institutional governance measures will further support urban sustainability strategies and initiatives. Examples of Urban Sustainability Challenges This is the first step to establish an urban sustainability framework consistent with the sustainability principles described before, which provide the fundamental elements to identify opportunities and constraints for different contexts found in a diversity of urban areas. These goals do not imply that city and municipal authorities need be major providers of housing and basic services, but they can act as supervisors and/or supporters of private or community provision. A multiscale governance system that explicitly addresses interconnected resource chains and interconnected places is necessary in order to transition toward urban sustainability (Box 3-4). Developing new signals of urban performance is a crucial step to help cities maintain Earths natural capital in the long term (Alberti, 1996). High amounts of nutrients that lead to an algal bloom and prevents oxygen and light from entering the water. These tools should provide a set of indicators whose political relevance refers both to its usefulness for securing the fulfillment of the vision established for the urban system and for providing a basis for national and international comparisons, and the metrics and indicators should be policy relevant and actionable. Name three countries with high air quality. ir quality and water resources can be protected through proper quality management and government policy. As such, there are many important opportunities for further research. How can suburban sprawl be a challenge to urban sustainability? Pollution includes greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming and climate change. Ready to take your reading offline? Together, cities can play important roles in the stewardship of the planet (Seitzinger et al., 2012). There are several responses to urban sustainability challenges that are also part of urban sustainable development strategies. What are the six main challenges to urban sustainability? Further, unpredictable timing and quantity of precipitation can both dry up growing crops or lead to flash floods. regional planning efforts, urban growth boundaries, farmland protection policies, greenbelts, and redevelopment of brownfields. Climate change overall threatens cities and their built infrastructure. For instance, with warmer recorded temperatures, glaciers melt faster. It must be recognized that ultimately all sustainability is limited by biophysical limits and finite resources at the global scale (e.g., Burger et al., 2012; Rees, 2012). Given the relevance and impact of these constraints to the discussion of various pathways to urban sustainability, a further examination of these issues and their associated challenges are described in Appendix C (as well as by Day et al., 2014; Seto and Ramankutty, 2016; UNEP, 2012). A comprehensive strategy in the form of a roadmap, which incorporates these principles while focusing on the interactions among urban and global systems, can provide a framework for all stakeholders engaged in metropolitan areas, including local and regional governments, the private sector, and nongovernmental organizations, to enable meaningful pathways to urban sustainability. Maintaining good air and water quality in urban areas is a challenge as these resources are not only used more but are also vulnerable to pollutants and contaminants. First, greater and greater numbers of people are living in urban areasand are projected to do so for the foreseeable future. Sustainable urban development has its own challenges ranging from urban growth to environmental problems caused by climate change. The ecological footprint of cities is measured by the number of people in a city and how much they're consuming. This is particularly relevant as places undergo different stages of urbanization and a consequent redrawing of borders and spheres of economic influence. 5. You're a city planner who has gotten all the support and funding for your sustainability projects. Proper land-use designation and infrastructure planning can remedy the effects of urban growth. Examples include smoke and dust. Discriminatory practices in the housing market over many decades have created racial segregation in central cities and suburbs. For the APHG Exam, remember these six main challenges! Therefore, urban sustainability will require making explicit and addressing the interconnections and impacts on the planet. Some of the challenges that cities and . Specific strategies can then be developed to achieve the goals and targets identified. Urban sustainability is therefore a multiscale and multidimensional issue that not only centers on but transcends urban jurisdictions and which can only be addressed by durable leadership, citizen involvement, and regional partnerships as well as vertical interactions among different governmental levels. Cities are not islands. In discussing sustainability from a global perspective, Burger et al. How can the redevelopment of brownfields respond tourban sustainability challenges? These same patterns of inequality also exist between regions and states with poor but resource-rich areas bearing the cost of the resource curse (see also Box 3-3). Create beautiful notes faster than ever before. Urban sustainability refers to the ability of a city or urban area to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. AQI ranged 51-100 means the air quality is considered good. What are the 5 responses to urban sustainability challenges? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available. Part of the solution lies in how cities are planned, governed, and provide services to their citizens. Particulate matter, lead, ground level ozone, nitrogen oxide, sulfur oxide, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide. Durable sustainability policies that transcend single leaders, no matter how influential, will also be necessary to foster reliable governance and interconnectedness over the long term for cities. In practice cities could, for example, quantify their sustainability impacts using a number of measures such as per capita ecological footprint and, making use of economies of scale, make efforts to reduce it below global levels of sustainability. For a pollutantthe sustainable rate of emission can be no greater than the rate at which that pollutant can be recycled, absorbed, or rendered harmless in its sink. The unrestricted growthoutside of major urban areas with separate designations for residential, commercial, entertainment, and other services, usually only accessible by car. October 15, 2015. Sustainable development can be implemented in ways that can both mitigate the challenges of urban sustainability and address the goals. Poor resource management can not only affect residents in cities but also people living in other parts of the world. Will you pass the quiz? How can sanitation be a challenge to urban sustainability? The majority of natural resources in the world are consumed in cities. UCLA will unveil plans on Nov. 15 designed to turn Los Angeles into a global model for urban sustainability. Thus, localities that develop an island or walled-city perspective, where sustainability is defined as only activities within the citys boundaries, are by definition not sustainable. See the explanations on Suburbanization, Sprawl, and Decentralization to learn more! The scientific study of environmental thresholds, their understanding, modeling, and prediction should also be integrated into early warning systems to enable policy makers to understand the challenges and impacts and respond effectively (Srebotnjak et al., 2010). Sustainable solutions are to be customized to each of the urban development stages balancing local constraints and opportunities, but all urban places should strive to articulate a multiscale and multipronged vision for improving human well-being. The roadmap is organized in three phases: (1) creating the basis for a sustainability roadmap, (2) design and implementation, and (3) outcomes and reassessment. Only about 2 hectares (4.94 acres) of such ecosystems are available, however, for each person on Earth (with no heed to the independent requirements of other consumer species). The six main challenges to urban sustainability include: Other urban sustainability challenges include industrial pollution, waste management, and overpopulation. What are five responses to urban sustainability challenges? Restrictive housing covenants, exclusionary zoning, financing, and racism have placed minorities and low-income people in disadvantaged positions to seek housing and neighborhoods that promote health, economic prosperity, and human well-being (Denton, 2006; Rabin, 1989; Ritzdorf, 1997; Sampson, 2012; Tilley, 2006). Copyright 2023 National Academy of Sciences. Urban sustainability has been defined in various ways with different criteria and emphases, but its goal should be to promote and enable the long-term well-being of people and the planet, through efficient use of natural resources and production of wastes within a city region while simultaneously improving its livability, through social amenities, economic opportunity, and health, so that it can better fit within the capacities of local, regional, and global ecosystems, as discussed by Newman (1999). These opportunities can be loosely placed in three categories: first, filling quantitative data gaps; second, mapping qualitative factors and processes; and third, identifying and scaling successful financing models to ensure rapid adoption. So Paulo Statement on Urban Sustainability: A Call to Integrate Our Responses to Climate Change, Biodiversity Loss, and Social Inequality . For instance, domestic waste is household trash, usually generate from packaged goods. In recent years, city-level sustainability indicators have become more popular in the literature (e.g., Mori and Christodoulou, 2012). When poorly managed, urbanization can be detrimental to sustainable development. The continuous reassessment of the impact of the strategy implemented requires the use of metrics, and a DPSIR framework will be particularly useful to assess the progress of urban sustainability. Test your knowledge with gamified quizzes. Dissolved oxygen, pH, turbidity, nitrates, and bioindicators. Factories and power plants, forestry and agriculture, mining and municipal wastewater treatment plants. Bai (2007) points to threethe spatial, temporal, and institutional dimensionsand in each of these dimensions, three elements exist: scale of issues, scale of concerns, and scale of actions and responses. Big Idea 2: IMP - How are the attitudes, values, and balance of power of a population reflected in the built landscape? This course is an introduction to various innovators and initiatives at the bleeding edge of urban sustainability and connected technology. Consequently, what may appear to be sustainable locally, at the urban or metropolitan scale, belies the total planetary-level environmental or social consequences. Set individual study goals and earn points reaching them. A large suburban development is built out in the countryside. Sustainable management of resources and limiting the impact on the environment are important goals for cities. Climate change, pollution, inadequate housing, and unsustainable production and consumption are threatening environmental justice and health equity across generations, socioeconomic strata, and urban settings. How can climate change be a challenge to urban sustainability? Transportation, industrial facilities, fossil fuels, and agriculture. It must be recognized that ultimately all sustainability is limited by biophysical limits and finite resources at the global scale (e.g., Burger et al., 2012; Rees, 2012).A city or region cannot be sustainable if its principles and actions toward its own, local-level sustainability do not scale up to sustainability globally. Currently, many cities have sustainability strategies that do not explicitly account for the indirect, distant, or long-lived impacts of environmental consumption throughout the supply and product chains. and the second relates to horizontal autonomy, which is a function of the citys relationship with local economic and social groups that the city depends on for its financial and political support. Fair Deal legislation and the creation of the GI Bill. Characterizing the urban metabolism constitutes a priority research agenda and includes quantification of the inputs, outputs, and storage of energy, water, nutrients, products, and wastes, at an urban scale. Institutional scale plays an important role in how global issues can be addressed. Free and expert-verified textbook solutions. 4, Example of a greenbelt in Tehran, Iran. Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name. How can greenbelts respond tourban sustainability challenges? 1 Planetary boundaries define, as it were, the boundaries of the planetary playing field for humanity if we want to be sure of avoiding major human-induced environmental change on a global scale (Rockstrm et al., 2009). Two trends come together in the world's cities to make urban sustainability a critical issue today. Getting an accurate picture of the environmental impacts of all human activity, including that of people working in the private sector, is almost impossible. Ultimately, all the resources that form the base on which urban populations subsist come from someplace on the planet, most often outside the cities themselves, and often outside of the countries where the cities exist. Proper disposal, recycling, and waste management are critical for cities. Key variables to describe urban and environmental systems and their interrelationships; Measurable objectives and criteria that enable the assessment of these interrelationships; and. Since materials and energy come from long distances around the world to support urban areas, it is critical for cities to recognize how activities and consumption within their boundaries affect places and people outside their boundaries. A holistic view, focused on understanding system structure and behavior, will require building and managing transdisciplinary tools and metrics. Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email. 2Abel Wolman (1965) developed the urban metabolism concept as a method of analyzing cities and communities through the quantification of inputswater, food, and fueland outputssewage, solid refuse, and air pollutantsand tracking their respective transformations and flows. This briefing provides an initial overview of how the . Ultimately, the laws of thermodynamics limit the amount of useful recycling. What are six challenges to urban sustainability? Finally, the greater challenge of overpopulation from urban growth must be addressed and responded to through sustainable urban development.
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