I think that many of us think of cities as being polluted, carbon consuming areas, I certainly have spent most of my life so far with this way of thinking. Growing up living in the countryside surrounded by farm land and then in the the suburbs, I remember thinking of cities as cramped and somewhat unpleasant places to live. This was probably reinforced by History and Geography classes in school where we were taught about industrialisation in Britain in the late 1800s with visions of factories surrounded by rows and rows of small houses each the same as the one beside it where quality of life was really poor.

Having moved to Glasgow for university, my somewhat ignorant view on urban living has been challenged and you could say completely changed.  To me, urban living now means being within walking distance of all my friends, services and university buildings that I need.  Something else that I was interested to learn, which now seems obvious, is that living in a high density urban area actually means that my carbon footprint is a fraction of that of someone living out of town.  I use less energy on transportation, my food and other things that I buy don’t need to travel as far and I use less energy on heating by living in a smaller, shared space.   A report by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) looked at 11 major cities on four continents and found that, per capita, greenhouse gas emissions for a Londoner in 2004 were the equivalent of 6.2 tonnes of CO2 compared to 11.9 tonnes for the UK average.

Despite some advantages in urban living, I am under no illusion that we cannot do better to make our cities better places.  This is becoming increasingly important as it is estimated that by 2050 70% of the global population, or an extra 2.5 billion people, will be living in an urban environment.  There are many social, political, environmental and cultural problems that we face today with urban environments that are all very much intertwined and connected.  For example, gentrification is a social issue but also brings about huge issues will loss of culture and identity in cities.

Something that I find particularly interesting within the issue of urban environments is how cities that have mostly been built up in the 20th century are unrecognisable from each other across the globe. Cities with charm and individuality such as Venice, Jaipur and the favelas of Rio de Janeiro would never be built in today’s world.

This problem stems from a number of reasons; firstly, the mass production of everything, including building materials, means that the same steel, concrete and glass is being used everywhere rather than the building materials that can be found nearby.  On top of this, the invention of the car means, because of regulation, planners now must comply with specifications on space for cars and people. This is particularly noticeable in the USA where newer cities are hugely sprawling and residents have to drive everywhere to get around.  Other restrictions on planning include wide enough roads for fire engines and shallow enough slopes for wheelchair users but can these restrictions changed based on developments in technology? For example, could we use drones and robots to fight fires and therefore allow us to have narrower streets that use space more efficiently?

I think that something we do really well in the UK is restricting development in the green belt around cities. However, this isn’t the case in many cities around the world and means that nature is being increasingly encroached upon, further damaging our environment.  Is there a way to build up cities that are already low level sprawling areas or should we focus efforts on cities that are yet to be built?

 

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/mar/23/city-dwellers-smaller-carbon-footprints
https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/2018-revision-of-world-urbanization-prospects.html

[featured image] https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/industrial-revolution-damaging-psychological-imprint-persists-in-todays-populations