How does urbanization stress the infrastructure

The positive effects include economic development, and education. However, urbanisation places stresses on existing social services and infrastructure. Crime, prostitution, drug abuse and street children are all negative effects of urbanisation.

Also there tends to be a lack of social support for children in school and home by their hard-working, usually poor, parents. Inadequate income, overcrowded housing and poor living conditions create a fertile ground for the development of violence. Crime in the city can create a sense of insecurity in its inhabitants.

This unsafe feeling in city streets separates residential areas into higher-income and lower-income groups, which reduces the sense of community and forms areas with dissimilar incomes, costs and security levels.

In the next study session we will look at some of the ways in which these problems and challenges can be addressed by considering the future demands for urban living and by taking a planned approach to the development of new urban areas.

Now that you have completed this study session, you can assess how well you have achieved its Learning Outcomes by answering these questions. Urbanisation is an ……………… in the number of people living in towns and cities.

The two causes of urbanisation are natural population increase and ……………… Urbanisation affects all sizes of settlements from small villages to towns to cities, leading up to the growth of ……………… which have more than ten million people. Rapid urbanisation often means that ……………… areas immediately around a city grow more rapidly than urban centres and this can lead to development of ……………….

The two causes of urbanisation are natural population increase and rural to urban migration. Urbanisation affects all sizes of settlements from small villages to towns to cities, leading up to the growth of mega-cities which have more than ten million people. Rapid urbanisation often means that peri-urban areas immediately around a city grow more rapidly than urban centres and this can lead to development of slums.

Both push and pull factors drive the migration that leads to urbanisation. In your answer you should state one push factor and one pull factor. Pull factors in migration are factors that attract people to urban areas, e. Push factors in migration are factors that drive people from the countryside, e.

Other pull factors that encourage migration to urban areas include better education opportunities, better health care, improved access to social services and opportunities for social and cultural activities. Other push factors that drive people away from rural areas are poor living conditions, lack of paid employment, poor health care, limited educational and economic opportunities and environmental changes.

Is urbanisation increasing faster in developed or developing countries? How does the rate of urbanisation in Ethiopia compare with other countries? Urbanisation is occurring faster in developing countries, with Africa and Asia showing the highest rates of urbanisation. Do you think that urbanisation is a bad thing or a good thing? Justify your answer by giving two examples of the impacts of urbanisation.

You could answer either way — you could view urbanisation either as a good thing or as a bad thing. You might justify answering that urbanisation is a good thing because, first, it brings together economic and human resources that stimulate the economy through the development of business, science, technology and industry and, second, it is more cost-effective and efficient to supply facilities such as fresh water and electricity to a concentrated population in a city.

Other justifications you might have thought of include the fact that the concentration of people and resources leads to more readily available education, health, social services and cultural activities in cities; urban living is linked with higher levels of literacy and education, better health, lower fertility and a longer life expectancy; there are better communication and transport networks; and social and cultural barriers can be overcome.

You might justify your answer that urbanisation is a bad thing because, first, rapid and unplanned growth in urban areas is associated with inadequate housing, water and sanitation which leads to health problems and, second, it is associated with adverse environmental effects such as reduced water quality, a build-up of waste materials and poor air quality.

Other possible reasons you might have thought of include the link between urbanisation and increasing urban poverty and inequality; rises in slum and squatter populations; adverse social effects such as higher levels of crime and violence; and a lack of social support. Printable page generated Sunday, 14 Nov , Use 'Print preview' to check the number of pages and printer settings. Print functionality varies between browsers. Printable page generated Sunday, 14 Nov , Learning Outcomes for Study Session 5 When you have studied this session, you should be able to: 5.

SAQs 5. SAQ 5. The two lines cross at about or This is when urban first exceeded rural population. The graph shows the proportion of the total population living in urban areas. Adapted from MWUD, Population of urban settlement Number Up to 2, 2, to 4, 5, to 19, 20, to 49, 79 50, to 99, 14 , to , 8 Above , 4 Total Explain what is meant by natural increase of population.

Natural increase of population occurs when the number of births exceeds the number of deaths. Water quality In developing countries, including Ethiopia, many rivers in urban areas are more like open sewers Figure 5.

Summary of Study Session 5 In Study Session 5, you have learned that: Urbanisation is a global trend reflecting the growing population of the world. The urban populations of less-developed countries are currently increasing at a faster rate than those of more-developed countries. California's Proposition 13, passed in , provides the most dramatic example, but this trend appears to have caught on in other states and localities throughout the nation.

Income and other taxes have also grown slightly as a proportion of total state own-source receipts; sales taxes, on the other hand, have remained relatively stable. The opposite is true at the local level, which has seen a small increase in relative sales taxes and steady property taxes. These costs include higher long-term construction and repair costs for facilities that are not properly maintained, higher costs borne by users of inadequate facilities, and potential constraints on economic development.

Three alternative but related "models" for analyzing and solving public works infrastructure problems are presented in this section:.

Although distinctly different in philosophical approach, all three of these models are closely related. Thus, the needs-based approach can help define the physical problems of public works that are, in turn, a key input to estimating the economic returns from alterna- tive projects. And correctly setting public and private incentives as called for under the capital management view depends on informa- tion assembled using tools that properly belong in one of the other two models.

After identifying the scope and efficiency of available capacity in light of present and projected demands, needs assessments highlight two types of specific project investments: 1 those that meet cur- rent demand and 2 those that provide additional capacity to meet projected demand. Removing bottlenecks to meet current demand and improving existing levels of efficiency are usually assigned the highest priorities.

Many presentations of needs estimates amount to a picture of a technically possible optimum, an idealized goal measured without regard to economic feasibility and based principally on age, capacity utilization, or technical standards. Standards tend to be vague in the scope of their definitions and, in some cases, "gold-plated.

Finally, the analysis is usually based on average standards instead of being site-specific. If there were no limits on available resources no budgetary constraints , the entire capital investment program identified by a needs assessment could be carried out without financing problems. In the private investment model, the basis for the choice is rooted in the extent to which the project contributes to the economy in effect, its economic efficiency. In economic terms, the project's contribution to the economy is measured by its return on capital investment.

Rate-of-return analysis measures the rate at which current investments will be converted into future consumption Value. As such, it is a key toot used by many private firms to help choose among competing investments. It has seen only limited use, however, as a too! A positive rate of return is not enough to justify the selection of a project, however; rather, the return should exceed the rate available on the last project to be invested in the marginal rate of return.

The most widespread use of rate-of-return techniques has been by private corporations in which the future strewn of benefits is simply expected profits or perhaps expected cash flow. The use of these techniques by the public sector obviously requires a broader definition of benefits.

This simple description begs a number of serious technical prob- lems with the use of rate of return for government-sponsored projects.

Some problems are largely technical and concern the availability of adequate data and estimating techniques: most importantly, what is the proper discount rate?

Other problems are conceptual and con- cern the degree to which a technique designed for private, financial returns can be applied to public investments in which intangible out- puts income redistribution, for example and returns to the public at large national defense, for example are often a key rationale for government involvement. These include benefit-cost analysis, in which the ratio of benefits to costs is used to rank projects; net benefits, which calculates the total dollar value of benefits minus the total costs; and the first-year benefit.

Other cost-effectiveness approaches might use measurer of physical output instead of financial return, calculating, for example, the number of new passengers per dollar spent on different transit strategies.

Rubir; When applied to public rather than private projects, benefit-cost analysis attempts to quantify the economic returns to the commu- nity as a whole rather than merely the financial returns. This kind of emphasis represents a significant difference from the application of the same techniques to private sector investment decisions.

More specifically, a project could generate great public benefits but still show up as ineffective in terms of its financial returns. This difference between public and private costs and benefits is a major justifica- tion for public investment in public works.

For example, because a new or upgraded highway provides improved operating conditions, it thus generates savings in user time, operating costs, and reduced accidents. These savings eventually result in greater productivity and lower transport costs and could justify the project even if public financial support were required.

Capita] Management Mode] The capital management approach attempts to combine eco- nomic techniques from the private sector model, local data available through the engineering model, and the recognition that an attempt to apply either of these models in their pure form would be likely to run into impossible technical and political problems. A key assump- tion is that decision makers act in their own best interests. Thus, the goal is to find those financial and organizational incentives that, along with adequate data, will encourage actions that support an effective infrastructure.

These solutions are not mutually exclusive because no matter what the level of funding, there is a natural interest in seeing it used effectively. Given the fact that all levels of government will probably be faced with budgetary pressures for the foreseeable future, a significant increase in general funding for infrastructure is improbable.

Infrastructure revolving funds may be one way to es- tablish a new financing mechanism despite such budget pressures. Thus, the most promising policy alternatives are likely to involve ways to improve the effectiveness of existing as well as any new resources devoted to infrastructure. Managing Demand: [ow-Capital Solutions The purpose of infrastructure is to provide productive services. As such, there is no inherent reason why infrastructure solutions must be dominated by capital-intensive projects.

In fact, ways of en- couraging more productive use of existing capital often show greater rates of return than do new investments. A comparable improvement could have been achieved by adding new airport capacity but not without also incurring massive capital and operating costs.

The productivity of Tow-capital options has long been recog- nized. In the early s, Congress even earmarked funding for Tow-capital urban highway improvements this program was called TOPICS and included traffic signal coordination and high-occupancy vehicle lanes. Indeed, an analysis of recent state and local spending trends for public works infrastructure shows a shift away from capital spending and toward what the data classify as operations.

Better Incentives The U. The parallel principle for the public works economy may be called "rational parochialism. Thus, it is important that infrastructure programs contain incentives to channel this parochialism along productive lines. The interstate highway trade-in program provides a good exam- ple of the influence of financial incentives. For more than 10 years,. Thus, when 90 percent funding was available only for new highways, states acted quite rationally in trying to maximize the number of segments that qualified for this level of funding.

When trade-ins per- mitted states to keep these funds for other local purposes, they also acted quite rationally in dropping road segments with low economic returns. At present, the federal government provides quite generous matching rates for those programs in which it is active: 70 to 90 percent for highways, 75 to 85 percent for transit, 55 to 75 percent for wastewater treatment plants, up to 90 percent for airports, and, of course, close to percent for most water resources prograrrts.

These high ratios of federal to nonfederal dollars have a history of encouraging capital-intensive projects. For example, a statistical analysis of wastewater treatment plants found that dropping the ba- sic federal matching rate from 75 percent to 55 percent would reduce the overall costs of secondary treatment plants by some 30 percent Congressional Budget Office, a.

The Shifting of Current Roles There is always considerable inertia favoring the current division of infrastructure responsibility, whatever it may be.

At present, the federal government dominates the funding of infrastructure capital despite the fact that most of the direct benefits accrue to lower levels of government. A realignment of responsibilities could be made based on one of two different principles. First, financial responsibilities could be adjusted to bring them closer to the incidence of benefits shown in Table 1.

This adjust- ment would be likely to shift considerable financial burdens to state and local governments and probably to the private sector as well. Arguments against such a move have usually centered on the heavy new financial responsibilities that would be imposed on state and local governments. Given the significant level of federal user fee fi- nancing of public works infrastructure, however, there may be ways.

Second, the degree of responsibility for each of the major stages in the infrastructure development process could be realigned more equitably. There would probably be increased costs as the decision process became further removed from the local level.

System performance measures could also play a valuable role in ex post facto evaluations of program effectiveness, but they are usu- ally ignored. Such a use of performance measures would help greatly in the design of new infrastructure programs and in improvements to existing ones.

Report A Washington, D. Apogee Research, Inc. Rubies d Trends in Public Works Expenditures, Break, George F. Report M Broude, Henry The role of the state in American economic development, Aitken, ea.

Government Printing Office. Public Works Infrastructure: Policy Considerations for the Wash- ington, D. Federal Policies for Infrastructure Management. Department of Transportation. Hilton, George W. Matz, Deborah, and John E. Petersen Trends in the Fiscal Condition of Cities: Report prepared by Apogee Research, Inc. Prepared by Apogee Research, Inc.

Historical Appendices. Peterson, George E. Tarr, Joel A. Transportation Systems Center Highways and the Economy. Cambridge, Mass. This up-to-date review of the critical issues confronting cities and individuals examines the policy implications of the difficult problems that will affect the future of urban America. Among the topics covered are the income, opportunities, and quality of life of urban residents; family structure, poverty, and the underclass; the redistribution of people and jobs in urban areas; urban economic growth patterns; fiscal conditions in large cities; and essays on governance and the deteriorating state of cities' aging infrastructures.

Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website. Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Automobile exhaust produces elevated lead levels in urban air. Large volumes of uncollected waste create multiple health hazards.

Urban development can magnify the risk of environmental hazards such as flash flooding. Pollution and physical barriers to root growth promote loss of urban tree cover. Animal populations are inhibited by toxic substances, vehicles, and the loss of habitat and food sources. Share Tweet Email.

Why it's so hard to treat pain in infants. This wild African cat has adapted to life in a big city. Animals Wild Cities This wild African cat has adapted to life in a big city Caracals have learned to hunt around the urban edges of Cape Town, though the predator faces many threats, such as getting hit by cars.

India bets its energy future on solar—in ways both small and big. Environment Planet Possible India bets its energy future on solar—in ways both small and big Grassroots efforts are bringing solar panels to rural villages without electricity, while massive solar arrays are being built across the country.

Thus, it was also underdeveloped as a prospect of healthy and liveable environments Ignatieva et al. In the phase of post-socialist transformation, new priorities, such as economic restructuring, dwarfed the debate on urban nature and greening Haase et al.

At this context the urbanization experience of Post-Socialist countries is quite unique. Most of these countries attained high-urbanization levels under a centrally-planned system, in which non-economic factors were pivotal in shaping the spatial distribution of both the population and economic activities. It is the most populated city not only in Russia, but in Europe as well.

In post-socialist period between and , city population increased from 9. Despite these improvements within Moscow, rural landscapes are still being transformed, meaning the whole urban area provides less ES.

Thus, case study of Moscow presents an interesting example of post-Soviet transformation of GI. It resulted in i the protection and management of a Green Belt around the city, ii the establishment of seven major green zones stretching from outskirts to the center and iii a connecting system of boulevards and parks. With urban planning standards for residential areas aiming at 14 m 2 of green area per capita Baranov, , Moscow could be considered a city with a well-developed GI.

Master Plans for large cities often incorporated green networks that connected vegetated areas and water bodies of different sizes, fitting into the urban pattern. However, continuous reorganization of urban planning, standards and policy alterations led to significant transformation of all green elements, with Moscow GI being a fine example of this process Voroncov, Combined with population growth and subsequent development of building sector, Moscow GI was severely depleted.

Its concept, though, is not completely absent as the strategic documents often mention recreational and regulating GI functions. The latest Master Plan of Moscow for the period of , while not introducing the term, addresses five GI ecosystem services, including noise reduction, biodiversity conservation, climate regulation, erosion control and recreation.

Figure 1. Its aim was to implement special regimes to natural areas and cultural landscapes according to their regulating and recreational ES and particular management and maintenance requirements. Urban Atlas does not have GI classification for Moscow like for other European cities, hence we developed a similar map by using vectors from Open Street Map. We chose layers, containing information on land-use, vegetation, surface and POI Points of Interest and reclassified them with accordance to Urban Atlas codes.

For the Atlas composition cloud free images from Landsat 5 , Landsat 6 , Landsat 7 and Landsat 8 satellites 2 were used. The data was reclassified by 7 types of urban tissue: 1 urban built-up, 2 suburban built-up, 3 rural built-up, 4 fringe open space, 5 captured open space, 6 rural open space and 7 water.

Then we calculated how much the area of every land-use type has changed during The transformation of GI ecosystem services was calculated on the base of reclassified in ArcMap Coniferous trees, planted in the 20th century, occupy about one quarter of the forest area.

Usually, natural forest in Moscow are part of specially designed nature protected areas PA. In City Plans, the protected areas are marked as territories with restrictions of city-planning development.

However, for a long time, all of them have been developing under the anthropogenic influence and their current state is the result of both natural landscape-forming processes and the history of cultural landscape formation nature adaptation for human needs during the long-term development.

Therefore, the urban protected areas are not only valuable ecosystems, but also cultural landscapes that provide ecosystems services as land values and cultural identity.

They posses a lot of qualities for climate change adaptation like permeability, saturation and runoff control.