20. SPSF 2022-11: Resilient Cities & the Urban Challenge

Book 1. Sachs, J.D. (2015).

The Age of Sustainable Development, Columbia Uni Pr  

Chap. 11: Resilient Cities

I. The Patterns of Urbanization Around the World

... factors that are distinctive about cities: 1) cities have high concentrations of the population; 2) industrial and services activities dominate city economies; 3) the average output per person in urban areas is often two or three times higher than in rural areas of the same country; 4) cities are the locus of tremendous amounts of innovative activities; 5) cities are trading centers; 6) major cities are generally coastal or at the estuaries of great rivers; 7) cities are places of rapid population growth; 8) cities are places of glaring inequality; 9) cities enjoy enormous advantages of economies of scope and scale; and finally 10) cities face major challenges of “urban externalities”–pollution of air and water, traffic congestion, the transmission of diseases, and crime and violence to name a few. Tokyo has a so large population that QOL is not always high.

The UN Population Division forecasts that by 2030, urban areas will be an estimated 60 % of the world's population (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (DESA Population Division). 2012. “World Urbanization Prospects: The 2011 Revision. p.3).

II. The Patterns of Urbanization Around the World

When most of us live in cities, we must make them sustainable. The answer is threefold: sus. cities are economically productive, socially (& politically) inclusive, and environmentally sustainable.

• Urban productivity: Cities must be places where individuals can find decent, productive work, and businesses can produce and trade efficiently. The basis for success is a productive infrastructure. 

• Social inclusion: Cities can be places that create high social mobility, or that widen the divides between the rich and the poor. Schools can unify them as a strong public system.

• Environmental sustainability: Cities are places of high population density and highly vulnerable to environmental ills. i) Mitigation to reduce their own "ecological footprint" and ii) adaptation as preparedness and resilience to changing environments.

V. Planning Sustainable Development

Sustainable cities are green and resilient. They are green in the sense that they have a low ecological impact, low GHG emissions per capita, and a pleasant and healthful environment for people to live and work in, including safe and clean air, accessible parks, and ways for people to remain active and healthy through walking...Sustainable cities are resilient because they recognize and plan ahead for the shocks they may experience in the future (p.387).

Additional Content: Covid-19 and urban life

What is your comment on this content from today's world? 

www.iied.org

Book 2. Mulligan, M. (2018).

An Introduction to Sustainability: Environmental, Social and Personal Perspectives, Routledge

Chap. 15: The urban challenge

- cities bring the environmental and social dimensions of sus. into sharp relief because social wellbeing is ultimately linked to environmental health.

- A range of debates continues to rage over the benefits and pitfalls of the urban form. One argument is that "economies of scale" come into play both in supplying city-dwellers with food, water, shelter, energy and other essentials and also in dealing with waste streams.

- Urbanization exceeds sus. in the world

- Peripheral Growth in Tokyo?

- Urban "Slums"

- Neglected Hinderlands (wasted wetlands)

Data Activity

The world's fastest-growing cities
Explore the table on the world’s fastest growing cities and urban areas from 2006 to 2020 on the following website: http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/urban_growth1.html
1) At what rate is the fastest city growing?
2) How many of the top 20 fastest growing cities are in high‐income countries?
3) Approximately, what proportion of the 20 fastest growing cities is in Africa? 

Japanese entry

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