PDS AP Environmental Science 8th Period 2010-11

http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2011/02/08/133573667/dobrowner?sc=fb&cc=fp

Thought the artistic interpretation of Urban Sprawl was fascinating. Enjoy! (even though there are only 2 pictures)

I mentioned this in class a couple of weeks ago when we were studying Urban Planning, but I thought I might as well add this video to the blog (I just had the urge to be inspirational). It’s kinda cool, I guess. Just thought I would share this video.

China Straddling Bus

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…

Are you worried?

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?

On Thursday of last week, guest speaker Garet Johnson came to our class to discuss Charlotte’s future in terms of growth, planning, and the environment. Ms. Johnson graduated from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and has gone on to become part of the Charlotte planning department staff. She started off by lying out in layman’s terms what land use planning means, helping to figure out what goes where.Ms. Johnson’s lecture was brought our classes attention to the complex planning that goes into laying out the residential, office, retail, institutional, and transportation systems of the city. The challenge lies in determining things such as: where to put residential areas and what type of housing to build, building industrial areas that are either distant from residential areas or have an adequate buffer from residential areas, and keeping development close together so as to cut down commuting time.

She stressed that the goal of Charlotte’s urban planning is to provide integrated planning services that promote sustainable growth to improve our community’s quality of life.  Ms. Johnson talked on Charlotte’s projected growing population, 728,000 people and 459,000 jobs today, but by 2035 approximately 324,000 more people and 458,000 more jobs will be in Charlotte. This growth presents a challenge for urban planners like Ms. Johnson; they must find ways to maximize use of transportation systems, infrastructure, and services. Ms. Johnson focused a lot of time discussing the various transit systems that will help cut down traffic and cars on the road; the four proposed transit systems are: a light rail transit to the University area, bus rapid transit for Independence Blvd., and a commuter rail to north Charlotte. These rapid transit systems will assist in transporting masses of commuters along the growth corridors and activity centers where urban planners project the greatest amount of growth in the future, and they will vary due to environmental and community needs. Ms. Johnson discussed the importance of redevelopment and reuse in areas where there is a lot of poorly planned use and/or abandoned buildings. The main point of Ms. Johnson’s lecture was to bring to our classes attention the complex planning that goes into laying out the residential, office, retail, institutional, and transportation systems of the city.

She concluded her presentation by having us all participate in an urban planning activity in which we had to decide where to place housing, work, recreational, and institutional buildings and spaces. This activity really brought to life the difficulties of urban planning because it was hard to determine the most appropriate place for the icons on the map. Although we were crunched for time, the activity still illustrated the complexity of using land in the best possible way.

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.  BenK owes us a recap of the presentation and planning activity, so look for it soon.

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:                                      OUTPUTS:

People                                           Money/Jobs

Goods                                            Solid Waste

Food                                              Pollution (water, air, light, noise)

Water                                            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 over Santiago, Chile

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://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Skyscrapers_of_Shinjuku_2009_January.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Santiago30std.jpg