urbanization
kkrisberg | January 24, 2017Can I afford the water that comes out of my tap? It’s not a question that Americans typically ask themselves. However, a new study finds that in the next few years, many more of us might be asking that very question as we open our utility bills and realize that we’re merely accustomed to affordable water — we don’t have a guaranteed right to it.
While a good amount of research on water affordability has been conducted in the developing world, the issue has received much less attention in developed nations such as the United States. Elizabeth Mack, an assistant professor in the Michigan State…
kkrisberg | March 20, 2015For all you city-dwellers out there, next time you walk by a vacant lot that’s been refurbished with green gardens and budding trees, take note of your heart rate. You might find the pleasantly green view caused a welcome moment of relaxation and lowered stress.
At least that’s what researchers found in a new study published this week in the American Journal of Public Health. In monitoring the ambulatory heart of rate of study participants in Philadelphia before and after they walked by vacant urban lots that had received a “greening remediation treatment,” researchers found that seeing a…
kkrisberg | June 20, 2014Building safe ways for children to bike and walk to school is more than just a way of encouraging kids to go outside and get active. According to a new study, it’s also an investment that reaps millions of dollars in societal gains. In other words, smart walking and biking infrastructures for kids make good economic sense.
Published in the July issue of the American Journal of Public Health, the study examined the cost-effectiveness of Safe Routes to School (SRTS) infrastructure in just one city — New York City. SRTS was initially enacted in 2005 as part of a massive federal transportation…
lborkowski | May 23, 2011The saying "demography is destiny" reportedly dates back to 19th-century social scientist Auguste Comte, and it's still popular among journalists. Earlier this year, for instance, Alan Wheatley of Reuters warned about the challenges Asian countries (especially Japan) will face as over-60 residents make up ever-larger shares of their populations. His article also touches on the challenges for countries that face the opposite problem: a large proportion of young residents, or "large cohorts of angry, unemployed young men" prone to causing turmoil.
A recent Council on Foreign Relations report…
lborkowski | March 22, 2011Every March 22nd is designated as World Water Day, with the goal of "focusing attention on the importance of freshwater and advocating for the sustainable management of freshwater resources." This year's theme is "Water for Cities: Responding to the Urban Challenge," in recognition of the fact that half the world's population now lives in an urban area. Nearly 40% of this urban expansion occurs in slums, where the infrastructure is insufficient for delivering clean water to residents and properly handling sewage.
I addressed the sanitation aspect of urban growth a few months ago in "From the…
lborkowski | December 10, 2010It's been an interesting week of discussing urban issues, and I want to thank Sharon Astyk of Casaubon's Book and all of our commenters for making it so fun. I learned some interesting things from the comments - especially that vertical agriculture probably doesn't make sense, even if it sounds like a great idea to a non-expert urban reader (and page after page of Google results have nothing but praise for it).
I started off my first post explaining how I decided I wanted to live in the city, and several of the comments make points about why urban living might or might not be such a good…
lborkowski | December 9, 2010Yesterday I mentioned sewer systems as an indispensable part of urban infrastructure, and today I want to focus on the more visible issue of transportation. The efficiency with which people and goods move into and within cities has a huge impact on both energy use and air quality. And the availability of non-driving modes of transportation can improve people's lives in a lot of ways.
I read a few blogs that address transportation issues (Greater Greater Washington is indispensible for DC-area transportation nerds), and I'd like to address an assumption that I see a lot of commenters making:…
lborkowski | December 8, 2010In Monday's post I mentioned how much I loved London when I visited - but London wasn't always such an appealing place. During the Industrial Revolution, it was filthy and polluted. The stench was appalling, and an episode of particularly foul smells from the Thames River in 1858 was known as the "Great Stink." Life expectancy in England's urban areas was markedly lower than in the countryside.
This filthy environment was the site of a public health breakthrough. During the 1854 cholera epidemic in London, the physician John Snow mapped the cholera cases from an outbreak in the Soho district…
lborkowski | December 7, 2010As I mentioned yesterday, Sharon Astyk of Casaubon's Book and I are spending this week focusing on urbanization issues. Sharon is a farmer and has been writing for a long time about sustainable food production, particularly as it relates to climate change and a dwindling supply of fossil fuels. In her post yesterday, she linked to some of her past writing about urban issues, and the theme that ties them together is rural-urban collaboration. Cities can't grow enough food to feed all their residents, and rural areas need the durable goods that cities produce, so a reciprocal relationship is…
lborkowski | December 6, 2010The Pump Handle and Casaubon's Book are writing posts this week about the global trend of urbanization. More than half of the world's population now lives in cities, and this shift has implications for the health of the planet.
I grew up in suburban Delaware, and my first experience with urban living came in college when I spent a month on a study abroad trip to London. I fell in love with the Tube, the neighborhood markets and pubs, the profusion of cuisines, and the array of theatrical performances listed in Time Out magazine (it was the nineties, and we relied on the paper version). I…
lborkowski | November 4, 2010The United Nations Human Settlements Programme, UN-HABITAT, is tasked with promoting "socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all." The agency's new executive director, former Barcelona mayor Joan Clos, gave his first formal address to the UN General Assembly and outlined some of the priorities for improving settlements in the coming the years.
Clos started with some good news: between 2000 and 2010, the lives of 230 million slum dwellers were improved - an achievement that exceeds the Millennium Development Goal target of…