Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The nature of sustainable development
The nature of sustainable development
Advantages and disadvantages of sustainable development
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: The nature of sustainable development
Recently, there are growing debates over the sustainability and the liveability of our cities. Some argue that sustainable development is necessary if human want to stay alive, while some oppose to sustainable development as they placed sustainability in the opposite side of liveability and suspect that these practices may hinder their present luxurious lifestyle. However, it is a common fallacy in people’s mind. The concept of sustainability is compatible to liveability, instead of contradicting to each other. In the following essay, this argument will be justified.
Some people may concern that sustainable practices in urban content may obstruct the liveability of the city. In the year 2012, Hong Kong awarded as the most liveable city in the world by the Economist Intelligence Unit (Yoo, 2012) and also ranked third among Asia’s cities in the research done by the ECA international (ECA international, 2012). Hong Kong, with extremely bad air quality and income disparity ranked top in the liveability charts owing to its’ high global connectivity, extensive infrastructure and good transport connections. This reflects that some people assume a liveable city should have great connections, efficient and having extensive infrastructure that supporting the global business and trading. As they evaluate liveability from the economic point of view, no wonder they are being conservative towards sustainable measures which they believed will increase the cost of businesses and hinder the economic development of the city (Munier, 2006).However, they are having this view point due to their misunderstandings towards sustainability and liveability.
There are a lot of different definitions of “sustainability”.According to Collins Dictionary, it m...
... middle of paper ...
...://www.un.org/en/sustainablefuture/sustainability.shtml
World Footprint. (n.d.). Retrieved February 24, 2014, from Global Footprint Network: http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/gfn/page/world_footprint/
Roberto Camagni, Roberta Capello and Peter Nijkamp. (2001). Handbook of Urban Studies. London: SAGE Publications.
Shahriar Shafiee, Erkan Topal. (2009). When will fossil fuel reserves be diminished? Energy Policy, 181-189.
WONG, E. (2013, September 12). China’s Plan to Curb Air Pollution Sets Limits on Coal Use and Vehicles. Retrieved February 24, 2014, from The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/13/world/asia/china-releases-plan-to-reduce-air-pollution.html?_r=0
Yoo, A. (2012, July 09). And the Best City in the World Is…. Retrieved February 24, 2014, from Times NewsFeed: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/07/09/and-the-best-city-in-the-world-is/
Phillips, E. Barbara. City Lights: Urban-Suburban Life in the Global Society. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
From the home to factories, families and industries are reliant on the use of nonrenewable fossil fuels to feed the needs of the everyday human. Fossil fuels are the main source of energy over clean, renewable sources such as the use of wind, solar energy, and water to power our homes, schools, and industries. In fact, about 85% of energy use comes from fossils fuels. The main reason being that using fossil fuels is cheaper than wind and solar energy. “For nearly two centuries, fossil fuels have been the cheapest source of energy” and widely abundant (Marburger, A global framework: international aspects of climate change). However, overtime fossil fuels will disappear due to the lack of time to replenish itself with the human races rapid use of it. Despite its current status of availability, there are many controversial issue in using fossil fuels; the most prominent issue being that it is the cause of rapid climate
* Urban Professional^s recognition of the increased variability, robustness, and interest in both the urban area and their work. * Conservation Activist^s commendation of the lower consumption of resources, and reduced pressure on sensitive environment areas, suggestive of a reduction in urban sprawl. * The Development Industry^s equations of profit established through better and higher levels of land use. Essentially urban consolidation proposes an increase of either population or dwellings in an existing defined urban area (Roseth,1991). Furthermore, the suburban village seeks to establish this intensification within a more specific agenda, in which community is to be centred by public transport nodes, and housing choice is to be widened with increased diversity of housing type (Jackson,1998).
Again, this section will give a working definition of the “urban question’. To fully compare the political economy and ecological perspectives a description of the “urban question” allows the reader to better understand the divergent schools of thought. For Social Science scholars, from a variety of disciplines, the “urban question” asks how space and the urban or city are related (The City Reader, 2009). The perspective that guides the ecological and the social spatial-dialect schools of thought asks the “urban question” in separate distinct terminology. Respected scholars from the ecological mode of thinking, like Burgess, Wirth and others view society and space from the rationale that geographical scope determines society (The City Reader, 2009). The “urban question” that results from the ecological paradigm sees the relationship between the city (space) as influencing the behaviors of individuals or society in the city. On the other hand...
Chaffey, J. (1994). The challenge of urbanisation. In M. Naish & S. Warn (Eds.), Core geography (pp. 138-146). London: Longman.
Discuss the concept of sustainability. What ethical principles are parts of a sustainable lifestyle? Why should we consider sustainability as a guiding principle of our environmental philosophy?
Thomas Buttafarro, Jr. Joseph Deluca , Katelyn Gensler. (2009), London The World’s City. BDG Consulting, Inc. London.
Susan S. Fainstein, Scott Campbell. 2003. Readings in Urban Theory. Second Edition. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
As previously implied, cities are currently the antithesis of even the barest sense of sustainability. To succinctly define the term “sustainability” would be to say that it represents living within one’s needs. When it comes to the city, with almost zero local sources of food or goods, one’s means is pushed and twisted to include resources originating far beyond the boundaries of the urban landscape. Those within cities paradoxically have both minimal and vast options when it comes to continuing their existence, yet this blurred reality is entirely reliant on the resources that a city can pull in with its constantly active economy.
With the development of urbanization, an increasing number of social problems have emerged. These problems will decelerate the urban development, however, there are many ways in which sustainable development can reduce the impact of these urbanization problems. “Sustainable development seeks to improve the quality of human life without undermining the quality of our natural environment” (Adams, W.M. 1999). Actually, sustainable development can partly solve the urbanization problems, for it can reduce the impact of the problems such as traffic jam, housing shortage and severe pollution, but it is difficult to completely solve these problems in a short time.
In the following part, the essay is divided into three major parts of the sustainable ways in different aspects. Firstly, I will give you a brief insight in urban planning. Secondly, transportation policy and planning will be discussed. At last, I may analyze the design in sustainable housing. The highlights of these three aspects would build a better understanding in the possible effects of sustainable development and arouse public awareness on the natural environment. Before discuss how the sustainable development can be made, the definition should be emphasized first.
Fossil fuels are energy that is in the form of coal, oil, or natural gas that comes from organisms from millions of years ago. The cycle to create fossil fuels takes millions of years to form and is therefore considered a nonrenewable resource of energy. Fossil fuels have been the primary source of energy for man ever since the age of machines, but one of “the main problem[s] with fossil fuels is that there is a limited amount of them” (Problem with Fossil Fuel). As countries become more developed, like the United States, they too will become more thirsty and dependent for fossil fuels. “In 2004, America spent approximately $270 billion to fufill its oil need.” and “90% of all transportation is fueled by oil” (Nakaya 10). With the global rate of fossil fuels going up it is inevitable that they are going to run out, forcing countries to choose an alternative energy source. The other huge problem with dependence on fossil fuels is the effect that the emissions have on the climate. Fossil fuels are made of carbon chains and in order for the reaction...
A sustainable community resembles a living system in which human, natural and economic elements are interdependent and draw strength from each other.
Fuels like coal, and oil that once were a fine innovation in creating energy are now rapidly deleting and one day will be gone forever; energy that won’t last is often referred to as non-renewable energy. Besides being set up to fail and become inefficient in the future, fossil fuel energy is not clean to use and poses several environmental complications. Coal, for instance is “the dirtiest of all fossil fuels. Coal combustion not only produces sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides that contribute to acid rain and snow, it generates millions of tons of particulates that cause asthma and other respiratory diseases.” As with all usage of fossil fuels, it creates enormous amounts of carbon dioxide, which contributes to greenhouse gas. Not only are fossil fuels dirty, they also pose as a security risk and unforgiving on the American wallet. (Saini)
We all know the urbanization rate is an index to value the development of a country. However, though urbanization provides great convenience to some individuals, it also brings about negative effects. Problems such as pollution, overcrowded and the high unemployment appear during the process of urbanization and they are hard to cope with. In face of the sequence of problems, a new way of development ----sustainable development was put forward. Just like its literal meaning, the word sustainability has something to do with continuity. It was used since 1980s and first appeared in Britain law in 1993. Sustainable development can help solve parts of the problem caused by urbanization, including environmental damage, overuse of resources, and natural disasters.