If a city experiences overpopulation, it can lead to a high depletion of resources, lowering the quality of life for all. 4, Example of a greenbelt in Tehran, Iran. Furthermore, this studys findings cross-validate the findings of earlier work examining the recession-induced pollution reductions of the early 1980s. of the users don't pass the Challenges to Urban Sustainability quiz! Low density (suburban sprawl) is correlated with high car use. Thinking about cities as closed systems that require self-sustaining resource independence ignores the concepts of comparative advantage or the benefits of trade and economies of scale. Water conservation schemes can then be one way to ensure both the quantity and quality of water for residents. Earn points, unlock badges and level up while studying. Create flashcards in notes completely automatically. Turbidity is a measure of how ___ the water is. Thus, urban sustainability cannot be limited to what happens within a single place. Examples include smoke and dust. Healthy people, healthy biophysical environments, and healthy human-environment interactions are synergistic relationships that underpin the sustainability of cities (Liu et al., 2007). 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). Lack of regulation and illegal dumping are causes for concern and can lead to a greater dispersion of pollutants without oversight. The clean-up for these can be costly to cities and unsustainable in the long term. Nie wieder prokastinieren mit unseren Lernerinnerungen. The first is to consider the environmental impacts of urban-based production and consumption on the needs of all people, not just those within their jurisdiction. You're a city planner who has gotten all the support and funding for your sustainability projects. In order for urban places to be sustainable from economic, environmental, and equity perspectives, pathways to sustainability require a systemic approach around three considerations: scale, allocation, and distribution (Daly, 1992). Practitioners starting out in the field would be well served by adopting one or more of the best practice standards (e.g., United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, Urban Sustainability Directors Network Sustainability Tools for Assessing and Rating Communities, and International Organization for Standardization Sustainability Standards) rather than endeavoring to develop their own unique suite of metrics as their data would be more comparable between cities and would have some degree of external validity built in. This briefing provides an initial overview of how the . Urban Development Home. (2012) argued that the laws of thermodynamics and biophysical constraints place limitations on what is possible for all systems, including human systems such as cities. Sustaining natural resources in the face of climate change and anthropogenic pressures is increasingly becoming a challenge in Africa [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ]. Developing new signals of urban performance is a crucial step to help cities maintain Earths natural capital in the long term (Alberti, 1996). When cities build and expand, they can create greenbelts, areas of wild, undeveloped land in surrounding urban areas. Cities have captured more than 80 percent of the globes economic activity and offered social mobility and economic prosperity to millions by clustering creative, innovative, and educated individuals and organizations. The spatial and time scales of various subsystems are different, and the understanding of individual subsystems does not imply the global understanding of the full system. What are the 5 responses to urban sustainability challenges? The following discussion of research and development needs highlights just a few ways that science can contribute to urban sustainability. One challenge in the case of cities, however, is that many of these shared resources do not have definable boundaries such as land. Policies and cultural norms that support the outmigration, gentrification, and displacement of certain populations stymie economic and environmental progress and undermine urban sustainability (Fullilove and Wallace, 2011; Powell and Spencer, 2002; Williams, 2014). True or false? ), as discussed in Chapter 2. As discussed by Bai (2007), the fundamental point in the scale argument is that global environmental issues are simply beyond the reach and concern of city government, and therefore it is difficult to tackle these issues at the local level. Learn about and revise the challenges that some British cities face, including regeneration and urban sustainability, with GCSE Bitesize Geography (AQA). It will require recognition of the biophysical and thermodynamic aspects of sustainability. Commercial waste is generated by businesses, usually also in the form of an overabundance of packaged goods. 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. Fair Deal legislation and the creation of the GI Bill. 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). In other words, the needs call for the study of cities as complex systems, including the processes at different scales, determining factors, and tipping points to avoid adverse consequence. 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. 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). 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. Feedback mechanisms that enable the signals of system performance to generate behavioral responses from the urban community at both the individual and institutional levels. Climate change, pollution, inadequate housing, and unsustainable production and consumption are threatening environmental justice and health equity across generations, socioeconomic strata, and urban settings. European cities have been at the forefront of the crisis from the very beginning, not only bearing the worst impacts but also becoming key actors in advocating for a green and just recovery. Intensive urban growth can lead to greater poverty, with local governments unable to provide services for all people. Poor neighborhoods have felt the brunt of dumping, toxic waste, lack of services, and limited housing choices (Collin and Collin, 1997; Commission for Racial Justice, 1987). Finally, the redevelopment of brownfields, former industrial areas that have been abandoned, can be an efficient way of re-purposing infrastructure. Because urban systems connect distant places through the flows of people, economic goods and services, and resources, urban sustainability cannot be focused solely on cities themselves, but must also encompass places and land from which these resources originate (Seto et al., 2012). The other is associated to the impact of technology intensity that is assumed for characterizing productivity in terms of the global hectare. A suburban development is built across from a dense, urban neighborhood. Urban sustainability strategies and efforts must stay within planetary boundaries,1 particularly considering the urban metabolism, constituted by the material and energy flows that keep cities alive (see also Box 3-1) (Burger et al., 2012; Ferro and Fernndez, 2013). These areas can both improve air quality, preserve natural habitats for animals, and allow for new recreational opportunities for residents. Big Idea 2: IMP - How are the attitudes, values, and balance of power of a population reflected in the built landscape? 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. To improve the threshold knowledge of sustainability indicators and their utility in defining an action strategy, it is necessary to have empirical tests of the performance and redundancy of these indicators and indicator systems.3 This is of increasing importance to policy makers and the public as human production and consumption put increased stress on environmental, economic, and social systems. It is also important to limit the use of resources that are harmful to the environment. Examples of Urban Sustainability Challenges 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). In other words, the challenges are also the reasons for cities to invest in sustainable urban development. Such a framework of indicators constitutes a practical tool for policy making, as it provides actionable information that facilitates the understanding and the public perception of complex interactions between drivers, their actions and impacts, and the responses that may improve the urban sustainability, considering a global perspective. Non-point source pollution is when the exact location of pollution can be located. According to the definition by Gurr and King (1987), the first relates to vertical autonomy, which is a function of the citys relationship with senior-level government. 1, Smog over Almaty, Kazakhstan (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Smog_over_Almaty.jpg), by Igors Jefimovs (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Igor22121976), licensed by CC-BY-3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/), Fig. It focuses on real world examples within two key themes - smart cities and transportation - as a way to look at the challenges and practical responses related to urban sustainability. 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. The metric most often used is the total area of productive landscape and waterscape required to support that population (Rees, 1996; Wackernagel and Rees, 1996). Cities are not islands. StudySmarter is commited to creating, free, high quality explainations, opening education to all. Copyright 2023 National Academy of Sciences. What are the 5 indicators of water quality? Very little information on the phases of urban processes exists, be it problem identification or decision making. Chapter 4 explores the city profiles and the lessons they provide, and Chapter 5 provides a vision for improved responses to urban sustainability. The development of analysis to improve the sustainability of urbanization patterns, processes, and trends has been hindered by the lack of consistent data to enable the comparison of the evolution of different urban systems, their dynamics, and benchmarks. True or false? or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one. Indeed, often multiple cities rely on the same regions for resources. planetary boundaries do not place a cap on human development. 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. In particular, the institutional dimension plays an important role in how global issues are addressed, as discussed by Gurr and King (1987), who identified the need to coordinate two levels of action: the first relates to vertical autonomythe citys relationship with federal administrationand the second relates to the horizontal autonomya function of the citys relationship with local economic and social groups that the city depends on for its financial and political support. See the explanations on Suburbanization, Sprawl, and Decentralization to learn more! Fine material produced in air pollution that humans can breathe in. Sustainable development can be implemented in ways that can both mitigate the challenges of urban sustainability and address the goals. Community engagement will help inform a multiscale vision and strategy for improving human well-being through an environmental, economic, and social equity lens. You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. These can be sites where previous factories, landfills, or other facilities used to operate. Statement at NAS Exploratory Meeting, Washington, DC. Clustering populations, however, can compound both positive and negative conditions, with many modern urban areas experiencing growing inequality, debility, and environmental degradation. Introduction. What are some effects of air pollution on society. The use of a DPSIR model posits an explicit causality effect between different actors and consequences and ensures exhaustive coverage of the phenomena contained in the model (Ferro and Fernandez, 2013). Resources Cities need resources such as water, food and energy to be viable. The main five responses to urban sustainability challenges are regional planning efforts, urban growth boundaries, farmland protection policies, greenbelts, and redevelopment of brownfields. These policies can assist with a range of sustainability policies, from providing food for cities to maintaining air quality and providing flood control. 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 project is the first of six in the UCLA Grand Challenge initiative that will unite the university's resources to tackle some of society's most pressing issues.. Climate, precipitation, soil and sediments, vegetation, and human activities are all factors of declining water quality. The future of urban sustainability will therefore focus on win-win opportunities that improve both human and natural ecosystem health in cities. At its core, the concept of sustainable development is about reconciling development and environment (McGranahan and Satterthwaite, 2003). Healthy human and natural ecosystems require that a multidimensional set of a communitys interests be expressed and actions are intentional to mediate those interests (see also Box 3-2). Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Challenges and Opportunities for the United States. More regulation and penalties can assist with waste management, but many countries, both developed and developing, struggle with this. We argue that much of the associated challenges, and opportunities, are found in the global . Nothing can go wrong! Have all your study materials in one place. Let's take a look at how the challenges of sustainable urban development may not be challenges at allit all depends on perspective! Science can also contribute to these pathways by further research and development of several key facets of urban areas including urban metabolism, threshold detection of indicators, comprehension of different data sets, and further exploration of decision-making processes linked across scales. This means the air quality is at the level of concern of ____. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. How can suburban sprawl be a challenge to urban sustainability? Here we use the concept of ecological footprint, which has been proposed as an analytic tool to estimate the load imposed on the ecosphere by any specified human population (Berkowitz and Rees, 2003). These strategies should not be developed in isolation, but rather in collaboration with, or ideally, developed by, the practitioners responsible for achieving the goals and targets. Cities in developed countries may create more waste due to consuming and discarding a greater amount of packaging. Extra-urban impacts of urban activities such as ecological . However,. Dissolved oxygen, pH, turbidity, nitrates, and bioindicators. Some of the major advantages of cities as identified by Rees (1996) include (1) lower costs per capita of providing piped treated water, sewer systems, waste collection, and most other forms of infrastructure and public amenities; (2) greater possibilities for, and a greater range of options for, material recycling, reuse, remanufacturing, and the specialized skills and enterprises needed to make these things happen; (3) high population density, which reduces the per capita demand for occupied land; (4) great potential through economies of scale, co-generation, and the use of waste process heat from industry or power plants, to reduce the per capita use of fossil fuel for space heating; and (5) great potential for reducing (mostly fossil) energy consumption by motor vehicles through walking. limate, precipitation, soil and sediments, vegetation, and human activities are all factors of declining water quality. Its 100% free. urban sustainability in the long run. over time to produce the resources that the population consumes, and to assimilate the wastes that the population produces, wherever on Earth the relevant land and/or water is located. 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. Finally, the greater challenge of overpopulation from urban growth must be addressed and responded to through sustainable urban development. In a kickoff event at UCLA's Royce Hall (see event video), Chancellor Gene Block will describe the ambitious project . 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). Climate change overall threatens cities and their built infrastructure. The challenges to urban sustainability are also what motivate cities to be more sustainable. Nongovernmental organizations and private actors such as individuals and the private sector play important roles in shaping urban activities and public perception. Further, sprawling urban development and high car dependency are linked with greater energy use and waste. Two trends come together in the world's cities to make urban sustainability a critical issue today. Furthermore, the development of indicators should be supported with research that expresses the impact of the indicator. 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. Without paying heed to finite resources, urban sustainability may be increasingly difficult to attain depending on the availability and cost of key natural resources and energy as the 21st century progresses (Day et al., 2014, 2016; McDonnell and MacGregor-Fors, 2016; Ramaswami et al., 2016). Institutional scale plays an important role in how global issues can be addressed. October 15, 2015. First, greater and greater numbers of people are living in urban areasand are projected to do so for the foreseeable future. The sustainability of a city cannot be considered in isolation from the planets finite resources, especially given the aggregate impact of all cities. 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). Poor waste management can lead to direct or indirect pollution of water, air, and other resources. How can farmland protection policies respond tourban sustainability challenges? Many of these class and cultural inequalities are the products of centuries of discrimination, including instances of officially sanctioned discrimination at the hands of residents and elected leaders (Fullilove and Wallance, 2011; Powell and Spencer, 2002). Urban Development. 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). Fig. Factories and power plants, forestry and agriculture, mining and municipal wastewater treatment plants. when only one kind of use or purpose can be built. As such, there are many important opportunities for further research. 2 Urban Sustainability Indicators and Metrics, The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Challenges and Opportunities for the United States. Poor resource management can not only affect residents in cities but also people living in other parts of the world. doi: 10.17226/23551. Meeting development goals has long been among the main responsibilities of urban leaders. 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. Cities have central roles in managing the planets resources sustainability (Seitzinger et al., 2012). What are some obstacles that a sustainable city faces? However, some cities are making a much more concerted effort to understand the full range of the negative environmental impacts they produce, and working toward reducing those impacts even when impacts are external to the city itself. The six main challenges to urban sustainability include: suburban sprawl, sanitation, air and water quality, climate change, energy use, and the ecological footprint of cities. Instead they provide a safe space for innovation, growth, and development in the pursuit of human prosperity in an increasingly populated and wealthy world (Rockstrm et al., 2013). But city authorities need national guidelines and often national policies. 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. Ultimately, given its U.S. focus and limited scope, this report does not fully address the notion of global flows. A set of standards that are required of water in order for its quality to be considered high. Proper disposal, recycling, and waste management are critical for cities. Intended as a comparative illustration of the types of urban sustainability pathways and subsequent lessons learned existing in urban areas, this study examines specific examples that cut across geographies and scales and that feature a range of urban sustainability challenges and opportunities for collaborative learning across metropolitan regions. How can energy use be a challenge to urban sustainability? A concern for sustainable development retains these conventional concerns and adds two more. Specific strategies can then be developed to achieve the goals and targets identified. 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. How can a city's ecological footprint be a challenge to urban sustainability? Ready to take your reading offline? Discussions should generate targets and benchmarks but also well-researched choices that drive community decision making. outside of major urban areas with separate designations for residential, commercial, entertainment, and other services, usually only accessible by car. 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. Power plants, chemical facilities, and manufacturing companies emit a lot of pollutants into the atmosphere. While urban areas can be centers for social and economic mobility, they can also be places with significant inequality, debility, and environmental degradation: A large proportion of the worlds population with unmet needs lives in urban areas. suburban sprawl, sanitation, air and water quality, climate change, energy use, and the ecological footprint of cities. Therefore, urban sustainability will require making explicit and addressing the interconnections and impacts on the planet. This is a target that leading cities have begun to adopt, but one that no U.S. city has developed a sound strategy to attain. 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). This discussion focuses on promoting a systems approachconnections, processes, and linkagesthat requires data, benchmarks, and guidance on what variables are relevant and what processes are most critical to understanding the relationships among the parts of the system. Indicates air quality to levels to members of the public. The spread and continued growth of urban areas presents a number of concerns for a sustainable future, particularly if cities cannot adequately address the rise of poverty, hunger, resource consumption, and biodiversity loss in their borders. A large suburban development is built out in the countryside. 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. 2. Some of the challenges that cities and . Fertilizers, pesticides, and insecticides. This is because as cities grow, more resources are needed for maintaining economic conditions in a city. Register for a free account to start saving and receiving special member only perks. City-regional environmental problems such as ambient air pollution, inadequate waste management and pollution of rivers, lakes and coastal areas. There are different kinds of waste emitted in urban areas. There are several responses to urban sustainability challenges that are also part of urban sustainable development strategies. The effort of promoting sustainable development strategies requires a greater level of interaction between different systems and their boundaries as the impacts of urban-based consumption and pollution affect global resource management and, for example, global climate change problems; therefore, pursuing sustainability calls for unprecedented system boundaries extensions, which are increasingly determined by actions at the urban level.