Can There Be Sustainable Urbanism

Document Type:Research Paper

Subject Area:Archaeology

Document 1

Consequently, to attain sustainability, these three pillars must be put into consideration. Environmental sustainability seeks to maintain ecological integrity by keeping the ecological systems in balance and advocating for consumption of natural resources sparingly (Kuhlman, 2010). Economic sustainability, on the other hand, is the ability of human communities to meet their daily needs by having access to resources. Finally, social sustainability primarily concerns universal human rights, ability to access basic needs and a just society that is free from discrimination. Sustainable urbanism. In essence, a city should be self-reliant by sustaining the needs of its population with the available resources and energy. The goal of sustainable urbanism is to minimize pollution, regulate land use practices, recycle waste and convert waste into energy, and finally to minimize the contribution of cities towards climate change.

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The complexities of achieving a sustainable city. According to the statistics by the United Nations, it is approximated that by the year 2050, 70 percent of the world’s population will be living in urban centers (United Nations, 2013). This is a significant extra 20 percent since currently, an estimated 50 percent of the people are living in cities (United Nations, 2013). Urban form refers to the physical attributes that constitute the built environment. These include the density, shape, size, centrality and the arrangement of settlements (Thomas, 2013). Urban form is an evolving concept, and it has a direct influence on sustainability outcomes. To achieve a sustainable urban form, the infrastructure should meet the demands of the population in regards to reliability, cost-effectiveness, and high-quality services. Additionally, infrastructures should be affordable and resilient to extreme conditions to enhance sustainability.

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The process of developing a sustainable city is often considered as that which should integrate the ideas from different professionals, organizations, and stakeholders (Glomsaker, 2012). For example, there is a need for socialist’s, planner’s, archeologist’s and environmentalist’s world perspectives to be integrated when developing a sustainable city. All these viewpoints when put together are likely to elicit conflict of interest. Consequently, resolving these conflict is essential in achieving the ultimate goal of a sustainable city. It is thus essential to explain the courses of conflict and how they contribute to complexity in implementing the concept of sustainable urbanism. They rely on market prices to set prices for their properties. This, however, contradicts the expectation of the public or the citizens who are interested in buying property at an affordable price and access quality housing cheaply.

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Subsequently, when a majority of urban dwellers cannot access amenities such as quality housing due to the high cost of purchasing or renting they will resort to low-quality housing (Smith, 2011). There will be the emergence of informal settlements since the houses are cheap. Such settlements lack basic needs like clean water, and thus the sustainability goal shall not have been met if these two aspects are not harmonized and integrated into the decision-making process. Additionally, sustainability requires that cities minimize the production of waste which is compromised in this case. The complexity that results from this conflict is that it is quite challenging to prioritize resource allocation and utilization while ensuring additional economic activities. Conclusion. The discussion above underscores the importance of sustainability.

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