![]() ![]() Cities are relatively good places to be poor in, and abundant in opportunities for becoming less poor. Where it is more prevalent, it is not so much because cities make people poor as because poor people move to cities. But urban poverty is much more visible than rural poverty, not necessarily more prevalent, and usually less so. It would be more accurate to say that high levels of urbanization and wealth go together. And rapid urbanization in the poor countries also coincides with rapid economic development. The richest countries in the world, though, are the ones with the highest levels of urbanization.īurundi and Papua New Guinea, the two least-urbanized countries, are two of the very poorest. It depends on what you mean by “urbanization.” The poorest countries in the world are indeed the ones that have the highest rates of urban growth. So, let’s consider some examples of commonsense environmental antiurbanism. Cities, or highly urban places, function under some formal or informal institutions of government, with land cover occupied by structures and artifacts of human shaping, and the chief livelihood being something other than agriculture. Suburban sprawl, sometimes sloppily described as urbanization, is better termed de-urbanization it shifts population from more to less urban settings.Īnd the terms imply other criteria as well. We can only say that one place is more urban than another. There is no cutoff point in size or density between urban and rural. Yet, we wouldn’t call them urbanites, because they live in groups of only 30 to 40. Consider the 1973 study of the !Kung Bushmen (hunter-gatherers of Botswana and Namibia), which found that they live at densities equivalent to about 30 persons per room. I stay as close as possible to everyday usage: the terms city and urban denoting a place both with a high density and a large number of people.īoth elements are necessary. What do I consider a city, anyway? In the absence of an established core discipline of urban studies, there is no standard terminology for the subject. The result is my latest book, The Environmental Advantages of Cities: Countering Commonsense Antiurbanism. Several of my students, notably Shannon Sweeney ’07 and the members of my spring 2012 class in urban geography, helped me along the way. ![]() I decided to write about cities and the environment through object lessons in how not to think about their relationship, citing not only those who erred, but also those who got it right. I came to call the negative profile formed by the beliefs those errors promote commonsense environmental antiurbanism. I found that even some of the most respected authorities have stepped into certain pitfalls, which are well camouflaged and highly seductive. ![]() The mistakes display many of the same recurrent underlying errors. In fact, many widely held beliefs that sound not just plausible, but downright convincing, fail to stand up to close logical or empirical scrutiny. I began assessing what many people have written on the subject in the popular as well as the scientific literature, and found myself identifying mistakes they made in thinking about it. I was surprised at how many I was able to find. So, I thought that providing a few counterexamples might provide some interest. In preparing the course, I supposed (and soon discovered) that the students would arrive expecting that cities and environmental quality are fundamentally at odds, and that the rationale for the course would lie squarely in the greater magnitude and severity of damage that cities can do. Although I’ve done extensive research into the human dimensions of environmental issues, I had never thought particularly about the role of cities. In the fall of 2004, I was assigned to teach a course on urban environmental issues in the coming semester. By William Meyer, Associate Professor of Geography | Illustrations by Dante TerzigniĬities are fundamentally at odds with environmental quality and safety, right? Not so fast. ![]()
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