PDS AP Environmental Science 5th Period 2010-11

Here is the slideshow of our scavenger hunt for good and bad urban/suburban design in the Charlotte-Metro area:

So, this is a nice 3 minute video by National Geographic that ties together ideas from Unit 6 and 7. Lots of humans on the this planet, and they are migrating to urban areas…

You worried yet?

We’ve been identifying some urban and suburban areas in Charlotte and surrounding towns that are poorly laid out or show a lack of planning in our flickr group pool. What can cities do when there is a need to redo such areas? Here is neat 20-minute TEDTalk on the subject if you have time to give it a look:

On Friday (1/7/11), we looked back on a week of learning about urban planning.  We spent most of the period discussing lessons from playing Urban Plan 2001.  First of all, we honored the grand champion of both classes, AlanM.  Here is a screenshot of Alan’s city of 2 million plus people:

"Alan-Town"

Alan described some of the secrets of his success.  He said by adding buffers of trees between different land use areas, creating mixed use centers, and providing lots of government services that he kept pollution low, land values high, and crime low.  In other words, he created conditions that attracted citizens to the community.  When cities create such conditions they attract more and more people (positive feedback loop) and become great places to live.  But sometimes, when there are too many people (we saw this in the game) then pollution, unemployment, and crime rise which then start driving people away (negative feedback loop).  City mayors, councilmen, managers, and planners must constantly balance these factors which could lead to unsustainable growth (population outgrows services) or mass desertion to the suburbs (loss of tax base to support services).  I hope the game and the speaker got you all thinking about our own city of Charlotte. We’ve been growing exponentially the last 20 years because Charlotte is such a wonderful place to live.  Might headlines like these may indicate that we are due for a change?

Charlotte-area unemployment rises to 10.8% (Jan. 4, 2011)

Charlotte 10th-Worst in Ozone Pollution (Sep. 30, 2011)

When things do get bad, what can be done? The US has seen major cities deteriorate and citizens take flight to the suburbs. If city leaders want to keep inhabitants from leaving, then often have to invest in urban renewal.  Here is a fast-paced and edgy TEDTalk by Majora Carter about a grass-roots urban renewal project in NYC (18 minutes):

Can you think of any urban renewal projects you’ve seen in Uptown Charlotte?

AP Environmental Science classes this past Thursday were able to have the privileged opportunity to listen to guest speaker, Garet Johnson of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Department, about our Charlotte community. The Charlotte Mecklenburg Planning Department’s mission is to provide integrated planning services that promote substantial growth to improve our community’s way of life with the cooperation of its citizens and being as environmentally friendly as well.

Credit: Mr. Willard

The Centers, Corridors and Wedges Growth Framework that Charlotte newly adopted in 2010 broadens the original transportation oriented focus to include other aspects of planning and development, such as public facility needs and environmental concerns.  The update also provides more specific definitions and guidance for Centers and Corridors and expands the concept to provide recommendations for Wedges, as well.

The Centers, Corridors and Wedges Growth Framework will be used:

• As the basis for development of more detailed policies, plans and regulations
• To give broad guidance for infrastructure investment
• As a tool to evaluate Charlotte’s success in addressing growth issues
• It is a long-term growth strategy
• Focuses on five primary transportation and development corridors
• It also encourages redevelopment and reuse

The Five Primary Corridors

Credit: http://charmeck.org/city/charlotte/planning/AreaPlanning/CentersCorridorsWedges/Pages/Home.aspx

Another notable factor in Charlotte’s growth is mass transportation, mainly the newly introduced Light Rail Transit. Along with the Light Rail Transit, there are also plans for Bus Rapid Transit (Curitiba), Streetcar/ Trolley, and Commuter Rail (DMU) in the future.

Light Rail Transit

Credit: www.charlottecommunitiesonline.com

Growth Impact: With all growth and development, there are both positive and negative impacts. The most concerning impacts are to the air quality, water quality, and scarcity of land (open space, trees)

Group Activity: For our group activity, we were placed in groups of four and given two sites that we were the urban planners for to accommodate the greatest growth. We needed to take into consideration many factors for our decision making such as residential areas, environmentally friendly, close-by transit stations and industries, and so on. The objective was to maintain the greatest growth while using as much of the icons (Institutional, Parks/Open Space, Employment, Retail and Residential stickers) given to you at the start of the activity.

Credit: Mr. Willard

The Future: The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Department has created a sustainable land use planning checklist to hopefully benefit Charlotte in the future.

The list:

• Use land efficiently
• Balance and integrate land uses
• Provide transportation choices
• Provide infrastructure to support development
• Respect the natural and social environment
• Design for quality
• Plan for the long term

Slides of the presentation can be found here.

For anyone out the day Garet Johnson (urban planner) of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Department spoke to the class, here is the slide deck of her presentation. ConorR wrote a scribe post about her visit that you can access here.

This is a cross post by KerrisG in the other class (your class has less folks to assign scribe duties to).

Our text defines urbanization as the shift from people living in rural areas to people living in urban areas and is probably the greatest change our society has undergone since the transition from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a settled agricultural lifestyle. What exactly is an urban area? An urban area is place with a population of 2,500 or more people. This said, around 50% of the earth’s population lives in urban areas, those urban areas only occupy about 3% of Earth’s land surface area.

Tokyo is the world's most populated metropolis with over 35 million people.

Is this statistic good news or bad news for the future of our planet? It all depends on who you ask. An environmentalist would say that dense, crowded cities are very much a good thing because more forests and farmlands are being preserved. However, some environmentalists would deem this a bad situation because these urban areas, especially the highly populated cities, require many inputs and therefore produce just as much waste. This waste is taken out of the urban areas and will most likely be buried in the farmlands.

An urban area, and especially a city, is a system. All systems receive inputs, process these inputs, and produce outputs. CITIES AND URBAN AREAS ARE NOT SELF-SUSTAINING; they rely on importing almost all their necessities to function. Here are the inputs and outputs of a city system:

INPUTS:

People

Food

Water

Money

Goods

OUTPUTS:

Jobs

Solid Waste

Pollution (water, air, light, noise)

Heat

Energy (gas, electricity)

The production of money and jobs in urban areas provokes wealth, education, technology, and health. The massive amount of heat produced by cities gave rise to cities being nicknamed “heat islands.” This is because the dark asphalt of the paved roads absorbs the heat from the sunlight and then slowly releases it back into the city air.

Air pollution in Mexico City

A Quick Introduction to Urban Sprawl:

Sprawl is the spread of low-density urban or suburban development outward from an urban center. Urban sprawl is more likely to occur in the “developing” countries of the world because the Average Growth Rate of these countries is much higher than in “developed” countries, so, the populations of urban areas in “developing” countries are growing much more rapidly, creating a need to increase the size of the urban area. Regarding the statistic I began my post with, research shows that by 2030, 60% of the world population will live in urban areas.

To see examples of urban sprawl in different countries around the world from the 1970s to 2000, click the UN Urbanization Preso Slides in the Box. These are the pictures we looked at today in class.

Sources:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/altus/1934592762/

http://www.julioetchart.com/A_environment1a.htm