IntroductionIntroduction
Urbanization is itself a process that may or may not be completely responsible for environmental degradation. Today many nations, especially those in the Third World, are trying to cope with the demands of a rapidly growing urban population. In many cases the growth of the urban center is not so much the result of high urban fertility rates, but is rather due to the tremendous influx of much of the rural population to these urban centers.
In order to examine the effects of urbanization on the environment it is necessary to define several elements present in this equation. First, what is urbanization and how do we define the rural-urban conflict that is present in so many countries? Second, in which places are the environments at greatest risk to environmental degradation? And third, what environments are in jeopardy? Does urbanization not only harm the physical environment, but the social and economic environment as well? These questions serve as a foundation for greater understanding into the issues confronting many Third World nations regarding urbanization and environmental degradation.
Urbanization as a social and geographic process can be quantified as the transformation of an area into a city or town via three social processes; migration, natural increase, and transition of rapidly developing areas into cities. Today 9/10 of the world’s urban growth will occur in the Third World which has an average growth rate of 3.5%. This is more than triple the current growth rates in the developed world. Urban areas have historically held political, economic, social, and religious value serving as hubs for human interaction. The significance of urban areas has not diminished over time, but, in certain regions, has gained in importance. Today urban areas are centers of production and communication in a world where interdependent global networks predominate. It is in these areas that future population pressures will be gauged.
Critical to the discussion of urban areas, is the concept of the environment. The environment can be thought of as the conditions that surround people and affect the way they live. Therefore when looking at one’s environment we can look at it from an economic, political, social, or physical standpoint. Each aspect serves to influence individual decision-making, and the quality of life in which people live.
Growth in Developing Countries
Developing countries have presented the biggest challenge to sustainable urban growth. Due to political and economic instability many Third world countries have found it difficult to maintain the kind of desirable growth that is needed in cities to foster comfortable living environments. In the study on urban poverty in developing regions by Brockerhoff and Brennan, they argued that the welfare of city residents in developing countries is dependent on the rate of growth and the size of these cities. In places such as Latin America, Northern Africa, and Asia cities with annual growth rates greater than 5% unfavorable effects on infant mortality can be seen.' The reason for this is that high rates of urban growth strain the capacity of the city to accommodate individuals. Breckenhoff’s and Brennan’s results also showed that advantages of big-city residents, present since the 1970’s, have steadily narrowed with smaller localities.³
Many of these cities have encountered numerous economic, and physical constraints to their growth due not to population pressure, but due to a lack of fundamentally sound growth and urban planning. A host of problems can be attributed to the inadequate responsiveness of the local political economies. These problems include; inadequate shelter, unemployment, environmental decay, as well as resource and service constraints. For example, in Manila in the Philippines, two-thirds of new housing being constructed is both illegal and uncontrolled. Inadequate housing results in a greater number of individuals living without proper plumbing facilities and electricity. In Alexandria, Egypt a lack of investment capital to upgrade waste treatment plants and drainage systems has left parts of the city literally swimming in its own sewage.³ It is this type of growth that degrades the urban environment at many levels. In Mexico City, attempts to thwart this type of uncontrolled, substandard growth through the formation of local community council groups has only met bureaucratic hurdle after hurdle, giving these communities little hope that their situation will improve.² Instead, political rivalry and corruption are rampant and thus city decision-making is undertaken at a level that serves to benefit only the wealthy minority rather than the poor, urban majority. However, to examine the degradation of the urban environment without examining the rural plight is deficient in many respects.
The rural-urban interaction is an extremely important and has historical roots. However, in recent times the rural-urban question has not been given a balanced approach with equal regard for each area, and as a result rural conditions and productivity have dropped off. Ultimately it is necessary to ask the question, why are people coming to the cities? This is a question with many answers. Over the past thirty years, with improved medicine and thus a decline in infant mortality rates, the rural population has boomed. As parents have resorted to their children to generate income for the family, more and more now flee to the cities. Meanwhile, in many rural sub-Saharan communities little has been done to promote the benefits of family planning and birth control.² One must also take into account the aggregation of land by wealthy agrarian landowners. This type of land hording has left many people in developing nations devoid of new agricultural lands on which they could expand. Thus finite land is also helping to kill prospects of an agrarian future for many in the rural population. Political economic policies, centered around the prosperity of the urban centers, have served to be just as devastating to the rural economy. In some developing countries political instability has increased in places where food demands of growing urban populations have outstripped domestic agricultural supplies. It is an impossible situation for the rural farmers since economic policies hold down food prices in order to deliver cheap food to the urban populations, and private investment in the rural sector is discouraged thus affecting rural employment. When food shortages do occur, many developing nations, instead of addressing existing agricultural production needs, import food from other countries thus infusing less capital back into the rural economy. Exchange rates are often set to promote imports and consumer goods bound for urban markets.² In examining this plethora of data on the rural-urban relationship, it seems reasonable to conclude that current urban growth is due more to rural poverty rather than urban prosperity, a result of governmental economic and population policies.
Environmental Degradation in Urban Areas
Current environmental problems stemming from urbanization range from social stratification and the disintegration of the family to the maximization of city services, including access to adequate sanitation and water, in urban areas. While urbanization itself is not the cause and source of these problems, the urban area as a polluting geographic region cannot be ignored. Degradation of the environment can be broken down into three categories; degradation of the social, economic, and physical environment.
Environmental degradation of the social environment involves the polarization of peoples in a society, due in part, to differences in the economic welfare of the people. As people have continued to migrate to cities in search of jobs and prosperity certain social structures inherently break down. The movement of rural migrants to the cities lessens the amount of contact between the parents and the siblings. Ultimately making the next generation of progeny less likely to become involved in the agrarian sector. This movement also lessens the amount of support contact with informal support relationships to families, friends, and spouses. These types of relationships are important for they help by providing for those who cannot cope on their own economic resources.
Degradation of the economic environment relates to pressures in the economic realm that cause disparities within the urban and rural populations. The impacts of urbanization include the continued castigation of the rural economy, the economic consequences of rural-to-urban migration, and the budgetary constraints placed on cities due to poor planning and a rapidly growing population. The rapid growth of many cities in developing countries requires adequate amounts of food for the urban population. However, both a lack of cultivatable land and rural population growth have served to push future farmers out of the countryside and into the cities. Moreover, more people are flooding into major cities only to find that too few jobs actually exist to absorb the tremendous influx of new labor. This inevitably promotes poverty or below-poverty living standards. These new immigrants also present many problems for city government’s, which must hastily expand in order to meet the growing demand for increased sanitation, transportation, and power services. The end result is an urban population that finds itself paying more in city taxes that go to fund poorly-planned public works projects.
Physical environmental degradation is perhaps the most visible of the three types of degradation. It can be seen in the taxing of natural resources, the use/misuse of urban lands, the treatment of water and waste, and the emission of pollutants into the air/water/soil. In many cities throughout the developing world water is being fought over between cities (drinking, industrial uses) and the rural countryside (agriculture), while all the while the quantity and quality of the water continues to decrease. Water-short cities in arid regions are increasingly in stiff competition with agricultural interests. Transportation costs involved in moving water from one region to another are also astronomical. In Mexico City plans to pump in water from 200 km away would cost approximately $6 billion.³ Perhaps one of the greatest shortfalls in many urban areas is in the treatment and disposal of human and industrial waste. Every year the number and concentration of toxins leaching into soils and rivers increases from improperly buried/managed landfills and sanitation sites. Ultimately conditions such as these can contribute to poor health and outbreaks of disease. Urban pollutants are another source of concern. Nitrogen, sulfur oxides, ozone, carbon compounds, and other particulates constantly pollute the air around urban areas. In many cities automobile traffic is the single greatest source of pollution, such as in Sao Paulo where over 8,000 tons of pollutants are poured into the air on a daily basis.³ However certain cultural perceptions, such as the ownership of a car as a symbol of economic success, make the transition to cleaner technologies difficult.
Remedies to Environmental Degradation
The biggest steps that can be taken to offset current and future effects of urbanization on both the land and the people involve better city management and forward-looking urban planning. To do this a broader social cost-benefit analytical framework is needed to guide both planners and policymakers. The essence of urban planning in these cities must also begin to include and integrate principles of ecological and economic sustainability as well as the principal of financial viability. Whenever possible, the private sector should be brought in to provide services. This would (1) increase operational efficiency within the service itself, and (2) would save the city money due to competition brought about by contracts. The establishment green belts in and around the city can serve to safeguard and essentially increase local water supplies. The preservation of open spaces can aid in groundwater recharge and can help in the recycling of wastewater. These areas can also help mitigate pollution, trees and soil absorb many airborne wastes, and open areas help to enhance urban air flow. Creating cleaner cities must also begin with curbing automobile usage. In Europe many cities have embraced this trend, disallowing the use of automobiles within city limits during peak hours. The supplementation of a public transit system in place of automobiles helps reduce both pollution and urban energy costs. Bus service in many cities is the most effective and most widely available means of mass transit. Encouraging competition between bus companies can also free up city money and increase the number of choices available to consumers.
But perhaps one of the biggest remedies that should be considered is the diversification of the urban area itself. In many Third World countries there is an urgent need to reduce the country’s reliance on one city as the center for its economic and political life. Secondary cities can act as conduits for more geographically dispersed investment while at the same time offering an alternative outlet for migrants, as well as providing additional access to agricultural processing industries, farm inputs, and markets.
Conclusion
While urbanization is not in and of itself the cause of environmental degradation, it certainly influences decisions which lead to the degradation of social, economic, and physical environments. Today much of the urbanization that we can classify as ‘detrimental’ is seen in poverty-stricken regions such as the Third World where economic and political structures cannot support the massive influx of people from rural areas into the cities. To combat the harmful effects of urbanization political leaders must learn to balance the needs of both the rural and urban areas, without sacrificing one for the other. Better and more efficient urban planning must take place to predict and control growth over time. And capital investment in the cities must be tempered with a sense of responsibility and consideration for both the physical and human environment.