The Effects Of Urban Migration
(Urban Migration- Part 3 of 4)
So far we know that people are moving to the cities. The next step is what the impacts of these moves are. How are the people affected? How is the surrounding environment affected? How will the migration trend change the world we know and our communities? That’s what we will explore this week.
Be warned, this is a long one :).
In order to make this blog easy to follow, we are going to examine the impacts of urban migration in the following order, separately for the discussions of rural areas and the cities:
- Impacts to humans and community;
- Impacts to the environment.
The topics will include discussions of possible solutions where applicable.
Let’s start with the rural towns getting smaller and the impacts of a consistently decreasing population. Decreasing population impacts the level of manpower available to move a community forward. In order for a town to thrive, it requires people to provide basic services such as mail delivery and school teachers. Without the necessary manpower, the community would suffer from a lack of essential goods and services. Private investors are less likely to invest in a place that does not have the proper attraction for labor which means less revenue and opportunities. These effects on the human element will especially impact the disadvantaged groups such as the young and the old since they tend to be less mobile and more dependent on local resources (6).
In order for a town to retain and attract residents the most important resource is economic incentives. Economic incentives are important because it is the fundamental building block of a town’s quality of life for people. It is also necessary for residents in order to maintain their basic needs.
The impacts of an abandoned town on the surrounding environment varies. Nature tends to overtake abandoned places quickly but if the area is not properly contained and treated prior to abandonment, hazardous materials may escape and create pollution plumes that would have a larger impact on the environment later on. Hazardous materials are used and stored at common places such as dry cleaners, gas stations (underground storage tanks), and hospitals. In functional towns and cities, facilities are maintained and hazardous materials are regulated and properly stored. When a town is abandoned, the maintenance of the facilities ceases to exist which is why proper abandonment is necessary to prevent additional environmental impacts later on. In most cases, previously developed land requires significant restoration to return the condition of an area back to before the development took place.
The effects of urban migration in cities are often the polar opposite when compared to rural areas. Urban migration has 1) made more cities and 2) made them larger than ever. (See Figure 1) To start off, with more people comes the need for more support services that are needed including the infrastructure, public and private goods and services, and development (housing, facilities, commercial buildings…etc.).
Figure 1
Source: (1) United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Megacities: Population and Number
Infrastructures in many cities are not ready to serve the influx of people that are entering into the cities. Excess people entering into the cities create stress on existing infrastructure which can overload the existing infrastructure, causing significant operational issues. Overcrowding is also a serious issue requiring infrastructural upgrades.
Because of the challenge of crowd management, mass transit systems are now being invested in by cities and towns on a larger scale than ever before (See Figure 2). This choice for transportation development is at least two fold: alternative methods of transportation take less land to transport more people and alternative transport typically emits less pollutants per person moved.
Figure 2
Source: (7) https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/09/the-global-mass-transit-revolution/570883/
It is commonly recognized that the usage of cars takes up a significant amount of limited resources, including fossil oil and land. The burning of fossil oil has long been linked to the emission of pollutants (5). Pollutants emitted from gas-burning engines include, but is not limited to, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, and greenhouse gas-carbon dioxide. Cars also require roadways and places to park which all take up a large amount of limited land. The impact of cars will only become increasingly exacerbated as the city’s population grows.
Transportation is just one infrastructure that needs to be upgraded. Other overhauls of infrastructure structures include sanitation systems, water systems, utility infrastructure, and others that support the basic quality of life. With an increased influx of people to cities, the capacities of the infrastructures will have to be made to accommodate the additional population. This can be done by increasing the efficiency of an existing system or enlarging it. Innovative solutions such as the one that is being applied to the transportation infrastructure around the globe is also an important tool for expanding cities. Another good example of innovative solutions is the use of solar panels on existing buildings to supplement the utility system. The method requires no additional land and the maintenance of the units are the responsibility of the building owners. This minimizes costs to general funds and labor required by the government.
Housing is another important human facing issue for expanding cities. In order to provide enough housing at an affordable price, cities have to provide new housing at a rate that matches with its net household gain and either 1) build out or 2) build up (increased density). On the west coast of the United States, the existing cities have been struggling with providing enough housing to accommodate the expanding population. The lack of housing drives up housing affordability and exacerbates the existing homelessness condition. The high housing costs also degrades residents’ quality of life since it creates a high cost of living and a substantial homeless population.
We will not be exploring the affordable housing issue here but we will be exploring it as one of our upcoming topics in the near future.
The environmental impacts of an expanding city are many. Ranging from the wider range impacts of sprawl, resource depletion, and habitat degradation to the more centralized impacts such as disease cultivation and pollution, city expansion requires a large amount of resources and has many environmental impacts. Sprawl and habitat degradation can potentially be mitigated by developing a more dense city by focusing on vertical development (building up) and by building on existing vacant or underutilized city lots. The denser a city is, the more opportunity there is for disease cultivation and pollution that requires careful planning and proper infrastructure upgrades.
Because of the wide-reaching impacts of urban migration, it is important that citizens and planners today make the decision to invest in the necessary technologies and development to support a city’s continued population growth. The solutions to these problems are not one dimensional and often takes many different forms. Only with proper planning and action can we create the most promising future for both humans and the environment.
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Next week’s blog will focus on summarizing all the information we have been going over this past month. The concluding podcast on the topic of urban migration will also be released next Sunday, on 8/24. As always, feel free to leave a comment for us as we love to hear from our readers and listeners.
We hope you have enjoyed today’s blog and thank you for joining us. Have a wonderful Sunday night and see you next week!
Project Planning Green
Resources:
- Urbanization And The Mass Movement Of People To Cities: https://graylinegroup.com/urbanization-catalyst-overview/
- 2018 World Urbanization Prospects: https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/2018-world-urbanization-prospects.html
- The Global Mass Transit Revolution: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/09/the-global-mass-transit-revolution/570883/
- Affordable Housing Crisis in the US: https://www.curbed.com/2019/5/15/18617763/affordable-housing-policy-rent-real-estate-apartment
- Car Choices Impacts Your Green Score And Cash: https://www.theaa.com/driving-advice/fuels-environment/emissions
- Lonely Sunsets: Impacts of Rural–urban Migration on the Left‐behind Elderly in Rural China: https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.1829
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