Chaotic urbanization and human health

Chaotic urbanization and human health

    
January 2007  – Rapid and chaotic 
urbanization is taking a massive toll on human health and the 
environment, the Worldwatch Institute said today in its annual 
report on the state of the world. In 2008, half of the Earth’s 
population will live in cities, the first time in history that 
humans can be considered an urban species. 
These children live in Soweto, South Africa, the most populous 
urban residential area in the country. (Photo courtesy 
USAID/Hope Worldwide) 
How the world tackles the social and environmental challenges 
of urbanization, in particular the needs of the urban poor, 
will determine the future of humanity and the fate of the 
planet, according to the report by the U.S. research group. 
"The global shift from rural to urban is the defining trend of 
our time," said Molly O'Meara Sheehan, project director of the 
Worldwatch report. 
More than 60 million people are added to cities and suburbs 
every year and sometime next year more than half the world's 
population will live in cities. 
And more than a third of the world's three billion city 
residents live in urban slums, where they lack clean water and 
sanitation. 
Making the best of slum living in Bhilai, an industrial city 
in India's Chhattisgarh state. This mobile library built on a 
rickshaw in the shape of an orange serves workers' children. 
(Photo courtesy Janshala) 
"These are places where every day is an intense struggle for 
survival," Sheehan said. 
Current trends indicate the number of urban slum dwellers will 
increase some 500 million by 2030 unless global development 
priorities are reassessed. 
"The international community has been too slow in recognizing 
the growth of urban poverty," Sheehan told reporters today at 
a press conference in Washington, DC. "Some continue to view 
the urban poor as a problem to be ignored at best or at worst 
pushed away." 
The report calls for policymakers to address the "urbanization 
of poverty" by increasing investments in education, health 
care and infrastructure. 
"If ever there was a time to act, it is now," according to 
Anna Tibaijuka, executive director of UN-HABITAT. In a 
foreword to the 251-page report, Tibaijuka warns that many 
cities are "environmentally unsustainable" and "rapidly 
becoming socially unsustainable." 
Botafogo, a beachfront neighborhood on Guanabara Bay, in Rio 
de Janeiro, Brazil, a city of about 5.6 million people. (Photo 
courtesy Peter & Jackie Main) 
There is little doubt that the environmental problems facing 
cities are profound, including energy and food production, air 
pollution, transportation and waste disposal. But those 
challenges are providing fertile ground for new sustainable 
solutions, according to the report, and many solutions readily 
complement efforts to improve the lives of the urban poor. 
"Cities are great centers of innovation and that is even more 
true today than it has been in the past," said Worldwatch 
Institute President Chris Flavin, who added that "necessities 
from food to energy are increasingly being produced by urban 
pioneers inside city limits." 
The report says an estimated 800 million people are involved 
in urban farming and highlights a sewer project in the 
Pakistani city of Karachi that has linked hundreds of 
thousands of low income households. 
Traffic jam in Karachi, Pakistan (Photo courtesy Ka-Neng Au) 
It also cites a government program in Rizhao, China, that has 
enabled many residents to obtain solar water heaters and 
allowed officials to install solar powered traffic signals and 
street lights. 
In addition, the report highlights a bus rapid transit system 
developed in the Brazilian city of Curitiba has inspired other 
cities in South America, the United States, Europe and Asia to 
follow suit. 
Cities are also increasingly realizing that they are on the 
front lines of climate change, the report says, and that could 
provide momentum for a global cooperation on the daunting 
issue. 
Of the 33 cities projected to have at least eight million 
residents by 2015, at least 21 are coastal cities that will 
have to contend with sea level rise from climate change. 
"Cities are directly or indirectly responsible for the vast 
amount of the world's greenhouse gas emissions," said Janet 
Sawin, director of the Worldwatch Institute's energy and 
climate change program. "But many cities are now leading the 
way, going where their national governments and the 
international community has not." 
A rooftop garden atop Chicago's City Hall improves air 
quality, conserves energy, reduces stormwater runoff and helps 
lessen the urban heat island effect. (Photo courtesy City of 
Chicago) 
The report highlights actions by U.S. cities, including 
Chicago and New York, to increase their use of renewable 
energy and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as well as 
global efforts to encourage greener buildings. 
The United States has "a vacuum on sustainability that is 
being filled by cities and states," said Peter Newman, a 
coauthor of the report and director of the Institute for 
Sustainability and Technology Policy in Australia. 
The report also calls for a broad effort on the part of cities 
and nongovernmental organizations to gather and share 
information on local solutions to urban problems and for 
policymakers to ensure the urban poor have a voice in 
development decisions. 
Urban development efforts must be "participatory and 
inclusive," said Her Royal Highness Princess Dana Firas of 
Jordan, a contributor to the report. "It is critical for the 
government to play a leading role, but government must engage 
other sectors and partners, and give citizens a genuine 
voice."