Furthermore, the governance of urban activities does not always lie solely with municipal or local authorities or with other levels of government. Ultimately, the goal of urban sustainability is to promote and enable the long-term well-being of people and the planet, yet doing so requires recognition of the biophysical constraints on all human and natural systems, as well as the acknowledgment that urban sustainability is multiscale and multidimensional, both encompassing and transcending urban jurisdictions. Restrictive housing covenants, exclusionary zoning, financing, and racism have placed minorities and low-income people in disadvantaged positions to seek housing and neighborhoods that promote health, economic prosperity, and human well-being (Denton, 2006; Rabin, 1989; Ritzdorf, 1997; Sampson, 2012; Tilley, 2006). Daly (2002) proposed three criteria that must be met for a resouce or process to be considered sustainable: Fiala (2008) pointed to two issues that can be raised regarding the ecological footprint method. Assessing a citys environmental impacts at varying scales is extremely difficult. As discussed by Bai (2007), although there are factors beyond local control, the main obstacles to bringing the global concerns onto the local level are the reflection of contradictory perceptions, concerns, interests, and priorities, rather than the scale of the issue. of the users don't pass the Challenges to Urban Sustainability quiz! In particular, the institutional dimension plays an important role in how global issues are addressed, as discussed by Gurr and King (1987), who identified the need to coordinate two levels of action: the first relates to vertical autonomythe citys relationship with federal administrationand the second relates to the horizontal autonomya function of the citys relationship with local economic and social groups that the city depends on for its financial and political support. Concentrated energy use leads to greater air pollution with significant. Further, sprawling urban development and high car dependency are linked with greater energy use and waste. Conceptually, the idea that there is an ecological footprint, and that sustainable cities are places that seek to minimize this footprint, makes great sense (Portney, 2002). Measuring progress towards sustainable or unsustainable urban development requires quantification with the help of suitable sustainability indicators. How can greenbelts respond tourban sustainability challenges? planetary boundaries do not place a cap on human development. Third, the critical task of developing finance models to support urban sustainability action requires urgent attention. Urban sustainability therefore requires horizontal and vertical integration across multiple levels of governance, guided by four principles: the planet has biophysical limits, human and natural systems are tightly intertwined and come together in cities, urban inequality undermines sustainability efforts, and cities are highly interconnected. There are six main challenges to urban sustainability. Where possible, activities that offer co-occurring, reasonably sized benefits in multiple dimensions of sustainability should be closely considered and pursued as primary choices while managing tradeoffs. A large suburban development is built out in the countryside. Efforts to reduce severe urban disparities in public health, economic prosperity, and citizen engagement allow cities to improve their full potential and become more appealing and inclusive places to live and work (UN, 2016b). Although cities concentrate people and resources, and this concentration can contribute to their sustainability, it is also clear that cities themselves are not sustainable without the support of ecosystem services, including products from ecosystems such as raw materials and food, from nonurban areas. A multiscale governance system that explicitly addresses interconnected resource chains and interconnected places is necessary in order to transition toward urban sustainability (Box 3-4). There is the matter of urban growth that, if unregulated, can come in the form of suburban sprawl. StudySmarter is commited to creating, free, high quality explainations, opening education to all. For example, in order to ensure that global warming remains below two degrees Celsius, the theoretical safe limit of planetary warming beyond which irreversible feedback loops begin that threaten human health and habitat, most U.S. cities will need to reduce GHG emissions 80 percent by 2050. 2, River in Amazon Rainforest (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:River_RP.jpg), by Jlwad (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Jlwad&action=edit&redlink=1), licensed by CC-BY-SA-4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en), Fig. It can be achieved by reducing, reusing, and recycling materials. doi: 10.17226/23551. It is crucial for city leaders to be aware of such perceptions, both true and artificial, and the many opportunities that may arise in directly addressing public concerns, as well as the risks and consequences of not doing so. Maintaining good air and water quality in urban areas is a challenge as these resources are not only used more but are also vulnerable to pollutants and contaminants. This common approach can be illustrated in the case of urban food scraps collection where many cities first provided in-kind support to individuals and community groups offering collection infrastructure and services, then rolled out programs to support social norming in communities (e.g., physical, visible, green bins for residents to be put out at the curb), and finally banned organics from landfills, providing a regulatory mechanism to require laggards to act. The results do show that humans global ecological footprint is already well beyond the area of productive land and water ecosystems available on Earth and that it has been expanding in the recent decades. Each city's challenges are unique; however, many have implemented one or more of the following in their efforts to develop their own integrated solutions: Very little information on the phases of urban processes exists, be it problem identification or decision making. 11: 6486 . This lens is needed to undergird and encourage collaborations across many organizations that will enable meaningful pathways to urban sustainability. 3 Clark, C. M. 2015. Climate, precipitation, soil and sediments, vegetation, and human activities are all factors of declining water quality. The ecological footprint of cities is measured by the number of people in a city and how much they're consuming. How can urban growth boundaries respond to, How can farmland protection policies respond to, How can the redevelopment of brownfields respond to. Be perfectly prepared on time with an individual plan. The major causes of suburban sprawl are housing costs,population growth,lack of urban planning, andconsumer preferences. Overpopulation occurs when people exceed the resources provided by a location. Feedback mechanisms that enable the signals of system performance to generate behavioral responses from the urban community at both the individual and institutional levels. Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. There are many policy options that can affect urban activities such that they become active and positive forces in sustainably managing the planets resources. For instance, over the past 50 years, many U.S. cities experienced unprecedented reductions in population, prominently driven by highly publicized perceptions that city environments are somehow innately unsafe. October 15, 2015. How can climate change be a challenge to urban sustainability? Efforts have been made by researchers and practitioners alike to create sets of indicators to assist in measuring and comparing the sustainability of municipalities, but few thresholds exist, and those that do often seem unattainable to municipal leaders. This is because as cities grow, more resources are needed for maintaining economic conditions in a city. See our explanation on Urban Sustainability to learn more! Some promising models exist, such as MITs Urban Metabolism framework, that warrant further development (Ferro and Fernndez, 2013). What are five responses to urban sustainability challenges? Sign up for email notifications and we'll let you know about new publications in your areas of interest when they're released. Cities in developed countries may create more waste due to consuming and discarding a greater amount of packaging. In order to facilitate the transition toward sustainable cities, we suggest a decision framework that identifies a structured but flexible process that includes several critical elements (Figure 3-1). See also Holmes and Pincetl (2012). Climate change, pollution, inadequate housing, and unsustainable production and consumption are threatening environmental justice and health equity across generations, socioeconomic strata, and urban settings. Successful models exist elsewhere (such as British Columbia, Canadas, carbon tax), which can be adapted and scaled to support urban sustainability action across America. Here it is important to consider not only the impact on land-based resources but also water and energy that are embodied in products such as clothing and food. In order for urban places to be sustainable from economic, environmental, and equity perspectives, pathways to sustainability require a systemic approach around three considerations: scale, allocation, and distribution (Daly, 1992). When poorly managed, urbanization can be detrimental to sustainable development. Sustainable management of resources and limiting the impact on the environment are important goals for cities. Resources Cities need resources such as water, food and energy to be viable. suburban sprawl, sanitation, air and water quality, climate change, energy use, and the ecological footprint of cities. Wrong! Urban sustainability requires the involvement of citizens, private entities, and public authorities, ensuring that all resources are mobilized and working toward a set of clearly articulated goals. The DPSIR framework describes the interactions between society and the environment, the key components of which are driving forces (D), pressures (P) on the environment and, as a result, the states (S) of environmental changes, their impacts (I) on ecosystems, human health, and other factors, and societal responses (R) to the driving forces, or directly to the pressure, state, or impacts through preventive, adaptive, or curative solutions. For instance, with warmer recorded temperatures, glaciers melt faster. Urban areas and the activities within them use resources and produce byproducts such as waste and pollution that drive many types of global change, such as resource depletion, land-use change, loss of biodiversity, and high levels of energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Book Description This title includes a number of Open Access chapters. Ecological footprint calculations show that the wealthy one-fifth of the human family appropriates the goods and life support services of 5 to 10 hectares (12.35 to 24.70 acres) of productive land and water per capita to support their consumer lifestyles using prevailing technology. How many goods are imported into and exported from a city is not known in practically any U.S. city. It will require recognition of the biophysical and thermodynamic aspects of sustainability. An important example is provided by climate change issues, as highlighted by Wilbanks and Kates (1999): Although climate change mainly takes place on the regional to global scale, the causes, impacts, and policy responses (mitigation and adaptation) tend to be local. How can a city's ecological footprint be a challenge to urban sustainability? Best study tips and tricks for your exams. To improve the threshold knowledge of sustainability indicators and their utility in defining an action strategy, it is necessary to have empirical tests of the performance and redundancy of these indicators and indicator systems.3 This is of increasing importance to policy makers and the public as human production and consumption put increased stress on environmental, economic, and social systems. However,. This is to say, the analysis of boundaries gives emphasis to the idea of think globally, act locally., Healthy people-environment and human-environment interactions are necessary synergistic relationships that underpin the sustainability of cities. Since materials and energy come from long distances around the world to support urban areas, it is critical for cities to recognize how activities and consumption within their boundaries affect places and people outside their boundaries. Healthy human and natural ecosystems require that a multidimensional set of a communitys interests be expressed and actions are intentional to mediate those interests (see also Box 3-2). The success of the Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG 11) depends on the availability and accessibility of robust data, as well as the reconfiguration of governance systems that can catalyse urban transformation. In practice cities could, for example, quantify their sustainability impacts using a number of measures such as per capita ecological footprint and, making use of economies of scale, make efforts to reduce it below global levels of sustainability. Sustainable urban development has its own challenges ranging from urban growth to environmental problems caused by climate change. This paper focuses on adaptive actions in response to WEF challenges as well as the environmental implications of these responses in Harare, Zimbabwe. Poor resource management can not only affect residents in cities but also people living in other parts of the world. It's a monumental task for cities to undertake, with many influences and forces at work. transportation, or waste. Cholera, typhoid, diarrhea, hepatitis A, and polio. The key here is to be able to provide information on processes across multiple scales, from individuals and households to blocks and neighborhoods to cities and regions. You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Meeting the challenges of planetary stewardship demands new governance solutions and systems that respond to the realities of interconnectedness. True or false? Learn about and revise the challenges that some British cities face, including regeneration and urban sustainability, with GCSE Bitesize Geography (AQA). Particulate matter, lead, ground level ozone, nitrogen oxide, sulfur oxide, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide. These opportunities can be loosely placed in three categories: first, filling quantitative data gaps; second, mapping qualitative factors and processes; and third, identifying and scaling successful financing models to ensure rapid adoption. See the explanations on Suburbanization, Sprawl, and Decentralization to learn more! In discussing sustainability from a global perspective, Burger et al. Commercial waste is generated by businesses, usually also in the form of an overabundance of packaged goods. The sustainability of a city cannot be considered in isolation from the planets finite resources, especially given the aggregate impact of all cities. Long-term policies and institutionalized activities that can promote greater equity can contribute to the future of sustainable cities. Healthy people, healthy biophysical environments, and healthy human-environment interactions are synergistic relationships that underpin the sustainability of cities (Liu et al., 2007). However, recent scientific analyses have shown that major cities are actually the safest areas in the United States, significantly more so than their suburban and rural counterparts, when considering that safety involves more than simply violent crime risks but also traffic risks and other threats to safety (Myers et al., 2013). Understanding these interconnections within system boundaries, from urban to global, is essential to promote sustainability. . As simple and straightforward as this may sound, the scale argument encompasses more than spatial scaleit is composed of multiple dimensions and elements. What are six challenges to urban sustainability? However, air quality and water resources can be protected through proper quality management and government policy. If a city experiences overpopulation, it can lead to a high depletion of resources, lowering the quality of life for all. . A suburban development is built across from a dense, urban neighborhood. Second, cities exist as part of integrated regional and global systems that are not fully understood. Practitioners starting out in the field would be well served by adopting one or more of the best practice standards (e.g., United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, Urban Sustainability Directors Network Sustainability Tools for Assessing and Rating Communities, and International Organization for Standardization Sustainability Standards) rather than endeavoring to develop their own unique suite of metrics as their data would be more comparable between cities and would have some degree of external validity built in. For the APHG Exam, remember these six main challenges! What pollutants occur due to agricultural practices? Thus, urban sustainability cannot be limited to what happens within a single place. Proper land-use designation and infrastructure planning can remedy the effects of urban growth. This is a target that leading cities have begun to adopt, but one that no U.S. city has developed a sound strategy to attain. Characterizing the urban metabolism constitutes a priority research agenda and includes quantification of the inputs, outputs, and storage of energy, water, nutrients, products, and wastes, at an urban scale. Currently, urban governance is largely focused on single issues such as water. Goals relating to local or global ecological sustainability can be incorporated into the norms, codes, and regulations that influence the built environment. A comprehensive strategy in the form of a roadmap, which incorporates these principles while focusing on the interactions among urban and global systems, can provide a framework for all stakeholders engaged in metropolitan areas, including local and regional governments, the private sector, and nongovernmental organizations, to enable meaningful pathways to urban sustainability. Urban sustainability strategies and efforts must stay within planetary boundaries,1 particularly considering the urban metabolism, constituted by the material and energy flows that keep cities alive (see also Box 3-1) (Burger et al., 2012; Ferro and Fernndez, 2013). Sustainability Challenges and Solutions - thestructuralengineer.info If development implies extending to all current and future populations the levels of resource use and waste generation that are the norm among middle-income groups in high-income nations, it is likely to conflict with local or global systems with finite resources and capacities to assimilate wastes. What are some anthropogenic causes of air pollution? Part of the solution lies in how cities are planned, governed, and provide services to their citizens. Without paying heed to finite resources, urban sustainability may be increasingly difficult to attain depending on the availability and cost of key natural resources and energy as the 21st century progresses (Day et al., 2014, 2016; McDonnell and MacGregor-Fors, 2016; Ramaswami et al., 2016). Indeed, often multiple cities rely on the same regions for resources. How can urban growth boundaries respond tourban sustainability challenges? Providing the data necessary to analyze urban systems requires the integration of different economic, environmental, and social tools. Commitment to sustainable development by city or municipal authorities means adding new goals to those that are their traditional concerns (McGranahan and Satterthwaite, 2003). and the second relates to horizontal autonomy, which is a function of the citys relationship with local economic and social groups that the city depends on for its financial and political support. Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email. (2014). Local decision making must have a larger scope than the confines of the city or region. Classifying these indicators as characterizing a driver, a pressure, the state, the impact, or a response may allow for a detailed approach to be used even in the absence of a comprehensive theory of the phenomena to be analyzed. In many ways, this is a tragedy of the commons issue, where individual cities act in their own self-interest at the peril of shared global resources. Farmland protection policies are policies that prevent the conversion of agricultural land to anything non-agricultural-related. Much of the current information on urban areas is about stocks or snapshots of current conditions of a single place or location. Fossil fuel energy (coal, oil, and natural gas) currently supplies most of the world's energy, emitting carbon and other pollutants into the atmosphere that exacerbate climate change and reduce air quality. What are some effects of air pollution on society. Meeting development goals has long been among the main responsibilities of urban leaders. Urbanization is a global phenomenon with strong sustainability implications across multiple scales. These can be sites where previous factories, landfills, or other facilities used to operate. In this regard, access For a nonrenewable resourcefossil fuel, high-grade mineral ores, fossil groundwaterthe sustainable rate of use can be no greater than the rate at which a renewable resource, used sustainably, can be substituted for it. First, large data gaps exist. Principle 3: Urban inequality undermines sustainability efforts. 5. A city or region cannot be sustainable if its principles and actions toward its own, local-level sustainability do not scale up to sustainability globally. The challenges to urban sustainability are also what motivate cities to be more sustainable. For instance, greater regional planning efforts are necessary as cities grow and change over time. Urban systems are complex networks of interdependent subsystems, for which the degree and nature of the relationships are imperfectly known. For example, as discussed by Bai (2007), at least two important institutional factors arise in addressing GHG emission in cities: The first is the vertical jurisdictional divide between different governmental levels; the second is the relations between the local government and key industries and other stakeholders. Discriminatory practices in the housing market over many decades have created racial segregation in central cities and suburbs. Health impacts, such as asthma and lung disease. Cities have experienced an unprecedented rate of growth in the last decade. In a kickoff event at UCLA's Royce Hall (see event video), Chancellor Gene Block will describe the ambitious project . Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Waste disposal and sanitation are growing problems as urban areas continue to grow. Finally, the redevelopment of brownfields, former industrial areas that have been abandoned, can be an efficient way of re-purposing infrastructure. I have highlighted what I see as two of the most interesting and critical challenges in sustainable urban development: understanding the 'vision' (or visions) and developing a deeper understanding of the multi-faceted processes of change required to achieve more sustainable cities. Moreover, because most cities are geographically separated from their resource base, it is difficult to assess the threat of resource depletion or decline. . Globally, over 50% of the population lives in urban areas today. The continuous reassessment of the impact of the strategy implemented requires the use of metrics, and a DPSIR framework will be particularly useful to assess the progress of urban sustainability. AQI ranged 51-100 means the air quality is considered good. This task is complex and requires further methodological developments making use of harmonized data, which may correlate material and energy consumption with their socioeconomic drivers, as attempted by Niza et al. As discussed by Bai (2007), the fundamental point in the scale argument is that global environmental issues are simply beyond the reach and concern of city government, and therefore it is difficult to tackle these issues at the local level. This is because without addressing these challenges, urban sustainability is not as effective. It focuses on real world examples within two key themes - smart cities and transportation - as a way to look at the challenges and practical responses related to urban sustainability.