From Yale University
Growth of cities endangers global environment
New Haven, Conn.—The explosive growth of cities worldwide over the next two decades poses significant risks to people and the global environment, according to a meta-analysis published today in PlosOne.
Researchers from Yale, Arizona State, Texas A&M and Stanford predict that by 2030 urban areas will expand by 590,000 square miles—nearly the size of Mongolia—to accommodate the needs of 1.47 billion more people living in urban areas.
“It is likely that these cities are going to be developed in places that are the most biologically diverse,” said Karen Seto, the study’s lead author and associate professor in the urban environment at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. “They’re going to be growing and expanding into forests, biological hotspots, savannas, coastlines—sensitive and vulnerable places.”
Urban areas, they found, have been expanding more rapidly along coasts. “Of all the places for cities to grow, coasts are the most vulnerable. People and infrastructure are at risk to flooding, tsunamis, hurricanes and other environmental disasters,” said Seto.
The study provides the first estimate of how fast urban areas globally are growing and how fast they may grow in the future. “We know a lot about global patterns of urban population growth, but we know significantly less about how urban areas are changing,” she said. “Changes in land cover associated with urbanization drive many environmental changes, from habitat loss and agricultural land conversion to changes in local and regional climate.”
The researchers examined peer-reviewed studies that used satellite data to map urban growth and found that from 1970 to 2000 the world’s urban footprint had grown by at least 22,400 square miles—half the size of Ohio.
“This number is enormous, but, in actuality, urban land expansion has been far greater than what our analysis shows because we only looked at published studies that used satellite data,” said Seto. “We found that 48 of the most populated urban areas have been studied using satellite data, with findings in peer-reviewed journals. This means that we’re not tracking the physical expansion of more than half of the world’s largest cities.”
Half of urban land expansion in China is driven by a rising middle class, whereas the size of cities in India and Africa is driven primarily by population growth. “Rising incomes translate into rising demand for bigger homes and more land for urban development, which has big implications for biodiversity conservation, loss of carbon sinks and energy use.”
The paper, “A Meta-analysis of Global Urban Expansion,” can be viewed on the PlosOne website at http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0023777.
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All this sprawl will be stopped by the Environmental Master Plan. See Clinton’s Gap Analysis.
http://www.takingliberty.us/TLHome.html
From Grant on August 20, 2011 at 8:16 am:
What it does is encourage socialism.
Think about the on-campus college experience. Everyone is packed into communal housing, accepting at least one roommate is virtually required, few can escape it. I’ve found the requirement at some institutions that everyone must live on campus for at least freshman year. There are communal bathrooms, study and lounging areas. Everyone is indoctrinated into the “we all must get along and support each other” experience. Individuals who do not appropriately respect the communal areas are punished and/or shunned, they are not being considerate enough to those they share space with. And there’s also that additional touch, the communal meals in the dining hall, where by standard practice you basically are required to eat what everyone else is having and like it. I’ve noticed more places banning cooking in the dorm rooms citing fire concerns; even the small sign of individuality of cooking your own meals is discouraged.
If you have any complaints, any concerns to be addressed, take it up with the central authority, their decision is final, note the use of committees of “fellow citizens” to resolve many issues.
And, which some find amazing, college campuses are hotbeds of socialist/communist thought, which has as a basic tenet the otherwise-laudable goal of people working together for the common good, but it has to be done through a central authority, with everyone participating. Also the norm is students coming to expect housing and food to be magically provided automatically by the central authority without any thought required as to who or what ultimately pays for it.
The city living experience has many of the same elements. People are packed into apartment buildings where they must learn to co-exist with each other. Rents are so high that two incomes are often required, thus roommates of some sort. Public transportation, public restrooms. Communal recreational areas (parks etc). Having your own car is increasingly discouraged, “green” city designers want car-free zones with everyone walking. Sometimes even bicycles, that small example of individual independent transportation, are banned. Everyone is expected to shop at the same neighborhood stores, mingle at the same eating and drinking establishments.
And if there are any problems, any complaints or concerns to be addressed, there is the central authority, the city government, the final arbiter. Which has a penchant for using “neighborhood committees” composed of “fellow citizens.” Also “the city” is who is expected to provide food and housing for the “less fortunate,” if you don’t have it then blame them, and don’t wonder how “the city” pays for it.
Yup, the sooner everyone possible is packed into cities, where those in charge can squash the independent streak of individuals who foolishly believe in living by themselves on their own terms on their own property where they can do practically anything they want without needing the approval of “the community” or the central authority, the sooner the Perfect World Order may finally be brought about.
Theo Goodwin says:
August 20, 2011 at 7:24 am
Jim says:
August 20, 2011 at 4:30 am
“Why should the government guarantee water’s-edge insurance? Why should the government be in this business at all?”
“Because federal bureaucrats surf!!!!
Or think they do. Or hang with the people who do. Or think they hang with them.”
The reality is billions of $$ collected in property taxes.
More self-loathing by the eco-fascists.
Are they truly aware of the amount of self-hate that is on display everytime they open their mouths?
Amazing.
kadaka says:
August 20, 2011 at 2:26 pm
“Yup, the sooner everyone possible is packed into cities, where those in charge can squash the independent streak of individuals who foolishly believe in living by themselves on their own terms on their own property where they can do practically anything they want without needing the approval of “the community” or the central authority, the sooner the Perfect World Order may finally be brought about.”
Good grief!. Cities exist because people are more productive when producing goods and services when they live closer together. City size and population densities tend to be correlated with the mix of goods and services produced in a given city. Cities with a manufacturing base tend to have a lower population density than do cities that are service-based. This is an outcome of capitalistic, market-driven economies; socialism has nothing to do with it. Eco-nuts advocate higher population densities than are usually optimal for a given city’s output of goods and services. If population densities are too high for a given city’s output of goods and services, then living standards are lower in that city than they would be otherwise. THAT is the problem with the eco-nuts position.
Can’t live if you do, can’t live if you don’t, can’t just squash ’em all…
The ‘green’ or eco view of humanity. For years we’re treated to all sorts of articles about how surburban sprawl, rural living, large yards, etc etc is bad bad bad. Destroys the environment, damages greater land area, less efficient, requires more roads, more transportation, kills biological diversity… and on and on. Pack ’em all into cities, the sooner the better, quick quick! & the higher the small apartment skyscrapers and the denser the population per unit area the better! (tho, of course, obviously less humans would be preferable even to that).
Now presto, we discover urban bad, damages more environment, damages more sensitive environmental areas, kills biological diversity…. well, you get the idea.
Takes all kinds I suppose. Just torture, twist, mutilate, omit, or cherry pick the data and by golly gee, you can make it say just about anything you want. Makes no difference just how contradictory the resulting conclusions from ‘study’ to ‘study’ might happen to be, who needs to go looking too deeply or accounting for confounding factors or doing actual field work or taking any actual measurements and data, or justifying why one’s results are somehow better than those that are contradictory and already out there, just shove that new ‘science’ out the door, do that meta-analysis, ‘research’ already existing literature of research, write that assumption based computer model, pound that keyboard!!!
/irate cynicism for the day. apologies.
henry@nationaldebate
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/16/new-paper-from-lindzen-and-choi-implies-that-the-models-are-exaggerating-climate-sensitivity/#comment-723928
now start laughing…
I liked the analysis above by John Tofflemire. In Indonesia, rural villages have population densities over 2000 per sqare kilometer. A minim density of 5000 per sq km is used for defining urban areas with 2500 representing peri-urban.
In the Mediterranean area cities are densely packed as they are in most developing countries. I wonder how much field experience these researchers have?
Lots of comments showing clear flaws in the study. As areas progress and industry develops, more people move to cities and population growth declines. If you want to slow the population growth of the world, industrialize the third world. These green nuts are really weird.