URBANIZATION

Urbanization from an Environmental Perspective

Abstract

In this study, we try to explore the concept of “Urbanization” in a holistic context. The main focus of the research is on urbanization from an environmental perspective. Urbanization involves an ongoing process of social and economic transformation resulting in and maintaining high-density population concentrations. The research also analyzes many aspects of urbanization and tries to gauge its effect on environment. Finally, the research describes

Urbanization from an Environmental Perspective

Introduction

Day by day millions of people from all over the world continue on moving from rural areas into more urbanized areas, such as big cities. Most migrations take place in developing countries, possibly due to lower standards of living, lower wages and less job opportunities in rural areas. Though many still consider the effects of urbanization as negative, I personally believe that it has brought many advances and positive changes into the urbanized areas. This essay will specifically speak about the improvements of urbanization in the developing countries all over the world (Portney, 2003).

The U.S. Bureau of the Census defines an area with a population concentration of 2,500 as urban land. Early urban areas (predating 1850) were associated with centers of finance and modes of transportation such as ships and railroads. In the mid-western and northeastern United States, many urban centers expanded at the turn of the twentieth century when immigrant populations from Europe and migrant populations from more rural areas moved into the factory cities of the Northeast for economic opportunities in mass industry and commercial districts (Roper , 2005).

According to this concept, social and economic urban development is to be pursued in conjunction with the protection and preservation of the earth's resources for current and future generations; natural resources and the capacity of natural systems to respond and adjust to human-made changes is limited and must be acknowledged in growth plans (Marshall, 2004).

Another term for this is 'livable cities'. One of the key issues from the environmental perspective when applied to cities is to reduce the environmental impact of all urban activities to a minimum. This means that waste disposal and resource needs be minimized to the local area. This is called the ecological footprint. Other aspects of sustainability refer to social costs and economic choices within a given area, but the movement began with intense concern for the way our present pattern of urban development was threatening the environmental vitality of the globe everywhere (Steffen, 2005).

At first, the urban expansion of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century occurred in an unplanned manner. The industrialized American city of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries prompted economic growth, and the forces of trade and commerce created both advantages and disadvantages for the urban dwellers. Prior to mass industry and modern transportation systems, the maximum expansion of an urban population remained relatively small, around 30,000—enough to maintain a social cohesion within the urban geography. With the advent of industrialization, as cities expanded beyond former proportions with populations of various cultural and ethnic characteristics, ...