Download - Social Problems in Urbanization
SOCIAL PROBLEMS IN URBANIZATION
2010
AZIS KEMAL FAUZIE
School of Environmental Studies
University of Delhi
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SOCIAL PROBLEMS IN URBANIZATION
by Azis Kemal Fauzie
School of Environmental Studies, University of Delhi, Delhi - India
Urbanization (also spelled "urbanisation") is the physical growth of urban
areas as a result of global change. The United Nations define urbanization as a
movement of people from rural to urban areas with population growth equating to
urban migration. Urbanization is closely linked to modernization, industrialization,
and the sociological process of rationalization. The United Nations projected that half
of the world’s population would live in urban areas at the end of 2008.
Urbanization refers to an increase in the ratio of urban to rural population.
Each country may have different definitions in what they called urban areas. What
may be defined as urban in one country may be rural in another. For example, areas
with as few as 400 inhabitants are designated as urban in Albania, while in Japan
the lower limit is 50,000 inhabitants. Urban status in some other countries is
assigned on the basis of density. In Sweden, urban areas are those built-up areas
with less than 200 m between houses. In India, places having a density of not less
than 1000 persons per square kilometer where at least three-fourths of the male
adult is employed in nonagricultural work are called urban. Other countries define
urban areas in terms of the extent of urban characteristics, such as the number of
plazas or schools or the availability of sewers, electric, or water supply facilities.
People move from rural areas to urban areas to seek economic opportunities.
They believe that cities can give lots of fortune to them. Cities provide better basic
services as well as other specialist services that are not found in rural areas. There
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are more job opportunities and a greater variety of jobs. Health is another major
factor. People, especially the elderly are often forced to move to cities where there
are doctors and hospitals that can cater for their health needs. Other factors include
a greater variety of entertainment (restaurants, movie theaters, theme parks, etc.)
and a better quality of education, namely universities. Due to their high populations,
urban areas can also have much more diverse social communities allowing others to
find people like them when they might not be able to in rural areas.
According to Yap Kioe Sheng, rural-to-urban migration can take different forms, each
with its own conditions and motives, and each requiring specific policy responses:
a. Permanent or long-term migration of the entire family.
This is the stereotypical form of migration, but an entire family is unlikely to
migrate together during the first move. Because it is easier for them to find
accommodation, the men in the family will move first to establish a foothold in
the city before the rest of the family moves. Family migration has important
consequences for the local authorities, because the family needs access to
permanent housing, infrastructure and services. While the parents may plan to
return to the rural areas, the move is likely to be permanent for the children.
b. Temporary or permanent migration of an unmarried family member.
The main reason for such migration is economic, but in some countries up to 10
per cent of the migrants move for educational reasons. Depending on the
culture, such migration traditionally concerned men only or also women. Recent
foreign direct investment in the textile and electronics industries has created
employment opportunities, especially for young women. Unmarried sons and
daughters may move to support their family or to start their own life. The
successful migrant is often quickly absorbed in the urban society.
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c. Temporary migration of a married family member leaving back home.
Such a migrant may stay a part of the year or a couple of years in the urban
areas to earn a living and support the family through remittances. The migrant’s
primary goal is to spend as little as possible in the urban areas and to save as
much money as possible. Temporary migrants are typically house renters rather
than house owners; rental housing tends to be among the worst kind of urban
accommodation, but receives little attention from policy makers.
d. Seasonal migration of the entire family during the low agricultural season.
Such migrants move with the entire family, despite higher transport costs
because the family cannot survive in the absence of the income-earning
members, while sending small amounts of money is not affordable. The family
may earn an income from various sources, ranging from construction work with
the family living on the construction site and the family members contributing
from doing odd construction jobs, to begging. Their very low income may not
suffice to cover the cost of renting adequate housing, and the family may live as
pavement dwellers.
Problem of urbanization is manifestation of lopsided urbanization, faulty urban
planning, and urbanization with poor economic base and without having functional
categories. Hence, urbanization is followed by some basic problems in the field of
poverty, unemployment, housing, transport, class conflict, social conflict (between
majority and minority, ethnic groups, and racism), social and economic inequalities,
crime and victimization, drug and alcohol addiction, broken family, personality and
mental health, environmental degradation (water supply, sanitation, pollution in
water, air, noise, etc.) and degradation in quality of urban life. In this paper, we will
further discuss some of these urbanization basic problems.
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Poverty
Defining urban poverty solely via income poverty and measuring it with
normative concepts such as the World Bank’s definition of extreme poverty (less
than the equivalent of US$ 1 in purchasing power a day) cannot reflect the reality of
the poor in cities with more than a million inhabitants of the developing countries.
There is no unambiguous definition of poverty.
Rather, poverty is a multidimensional problem that can be encountered in
different forms depending on the local conditions in the cities of the developing
countries. The street beggars and inhabitants of rubbish tips in Madras, the kiosk
vendor living in the Favelas in the hills of Rio de Janeiro and the cafe waiter in
Buenos Aires living on the outskirts and supporting a family of five may have
different monetary resources, but poor access is common to all of them, such as:
• poor access to secure income sources;
• poor access to health facilities (doctors, midwives, hospitals);
• poor access to educational institutions (primary and secondary modern schools,
vocational training institutions, higher education institutions);
• poor access to safe accommodation;
• poor access to social policy and other socio-cultural institutions enabling them to
actively participate in public affairs (Kaltheier, 2002).
Poverty is a serious social problem occurs not only in the poor countries, but
also in the developed countries, such as United States. It is not a wholly urban
phenomenon. Yet, it is useful to analyze urban poverty alone because poverty is
closely related to the nature of contemporary urban experience and the structure of
opportunity in cities.
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Table 1 - Poor in different locations in United States of America, 1999
Total number of residents
Number below poverty line Percentage
USA 271,059,000 32,258,000 11.8
Metropolitan Areas 221,348,000 24,816,000 11.2
Central Cities 80,761,000 13,123,000 16.4
Outside Metropolitan Areas 52,145,000 7,442,000 14.3
Source: Dalaker and Proctor, 2000
Table 1 shows the distribution of the poor among metropolitan, central city,
and nonmetropolitan locations, and the numbers and proportion of these divisions of
the population that felt below the poverty line in 1999. Given the greater proportion of
the US population living in cities within them (a subset of the metropolitan
population) contains more poor people than nonmetropolitan areas. Note, that when
we contrast metropolitan and nonmetropolitan populations, we find that a somewhat
greater proportion of people living in nonmetropolitan areas is poor. However, the
highest concentration of poverty overall is found within central cities: 16.4% of
central city populations are poor, in contrast to a 11.2% poverty level for metropolitan
populations in general, and 14.3% of the nonmetropolitan populations.
In order to be understood fully, poverty must be considered in connection with
the economic and political system that distributes opportunities and rewards, as well
as in connection with race and ethnic group, age, and gender. It is well-known that
the problem of concentrated urban poverty is usually serious for the minority
populations rather than the majority. For example, 40% of American blacks lived in
central city poverty areas in 1990, while the whites only 14% (Flanagan, 2002).
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Housing, Slums, and Squatter Settlements
The most visible impact of rapid urbanization has been the growth of what is
commonly called ‘slums’. Massive rural-to-urban migration in the 1960s and 1970s
turned many erstwhile pleasant colonial towns into large slums. Although no
accurate figures exist, 30- 50% of the population of major cities live in such housing.
The term slum actually refers to old, dilapidated structures that belong to the
formal housing stock, although they may be unsuitable for habitation. It usually refers
to housing – but it can be any type of building – abandoned by its original users,
subdivided and rented to the poor at low rates. The buildings tend to be
overcrowded, and because of lack of maintenance, the quality is often poor and will
decline further, until the owner finds another use for the land and demolishes the
structure. Here, new and temporary migrants find accommodation, because of the
centrality, the low cost and the ease of transaction. In most cities, local government
tolerates informal settlements because there is no alternative and such settlements
enable the residents to improve their living conditions on a self-help basis.
Squatter settlements are built without the approval of the landowner and
without permission from the authorities. They are, therefore, under a permanent
threat of eviction, lack secure land tenure and basic infrastructure and services. Over
time, some gain recognition by default and this encourages the population to
improve their housing and infrastructure on a self-help basis. It is now becoming
increasingly difficult for the poor to find land on which to squat; in many cities there is
a market in unauthorized land occupation so even squatting has its price.
Established families buy or build housing in squatter settlements as a form of
savings and investment, but many urban poor can only rent their accommodation.
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Single migrants often live in boarding houses and dormitories or share rental rooms
with other migrants from the same village. Families that migrate on a seasonal basis
have a problem finding accommodation, unless they can find work in the sector such
as construction where the employer provides accommodation on site. Many families
may end up living on the pavement or under bridges.
In the early 1940s, during the involvement of United States in World War II,
many of these slum housing problems were developed. As the US industries
expanded into the production of weapons and other war materials, a sudden growth
of urbanization were took place in many of the industry cities. Million of people had
left from rural areas to war production areas by the fall of 1941. Under conditions of
rapid growth, people were forced to live in whatever shelter they could find or build.
At Alabama, newly arrived steelworkers set up house in garages, barns, old store
buildings, and shacks with dirt floors. At Texas, men paid $3 to rent cots in tar-paper
shacks with no sanitary facilities. In Florida, some made shelters of palmetto leaves
spread over wooden frames. Clearly, the circumstance were intensified by the
housing shortages that often causing many convulsive effects in urban areas.
Not all residents of slum and squatter settlements are migrants. Some of them
are second-generation migrants who were born in the city, but their parents were
born in the rural areas. Not all migrants are poor when they arrive or after finding
work in the city. The successful migrants will not live in squatter settlements.
The slum residents are often facing conflicts with other residents who live
nearby to them. The nearby residents usually complain about the unsanitary and
dilapidated slum conditions as well as the seemingly suspicious nature of many slum
dwellers. They fear the spread of disease, fire, crime, and prostitution into their
neighborhood. They brought an accusation against the slums to the government.
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The land where the slums and squatters built their settlements usually
belongs to central government unit, not the municipality. But, the central unit refuses
to take responsibility for its land. It had plans to build an office building and housing
compound there, but since the arrival of the squatters, the official prefer not to force
the people off; It would probably create a political incident having unfavorable public
relations consequences for the central officials. They blame the municipality for
failing to regulate this land. Since the municipality lacks authority to regulate land
use, it can do little except send health section officials and fire brigade to inspect and
take preventive measures in the squatter settlements. Municipal officials blame both
the central government unit and the police for this problem.
In their operation, the police are uncooperative because they fail to enforce
local sanitation codes. Publicly, they sympathize with the squatters and claim they
lack the necessary manpower to enforce local ordinance. Privately, the police prefer
avoiding this area because they fear the local toughs and because some police
officers have a vested interest in keeping the houses of prostitution operating.
Hence, the police acquiesce to the slum conditions and shift responsibility by
blaming the municipality for allowing these conditions to develop.
The slum continues to grow as more squatters move into the area. Moreover,
slum residents are particularly pleased with the provision of municipal health and
sanitation services into the area. Their children were also accepted to join the
municipal schools. Because of they do not own the land, the slum and squatter
dwellers pay no taxes, but still they gain continuing services from the municipality. A
few local politicians were also helped the squatters by promising to increase services
to the slum area – if residents agreed to vote them in the election. Consequently, the
problem of the slum and squatter settlement is not solved (Flanagan, 2002).
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Racial, Minority, and Ethnic Conflict
At the beginning of the 21st century, it is too easy to see in everyday
experience and news accounts that racism remains an important structural feature of
the distribution of opportunity and of poverty in the United States. A more helpful way
to make distinction between historical and contemporary effects is to differentiate
between overt racism and institutional racism.
Overt racism may be explicit or subtle. The law has made it more difficult to
discriminate and to seem to be discriminating. Overt racism has to do with the
willingness and ability of employers and others to discriminate openly against
members of minority groups. In the past, the relative disadvantage faced by blacks
(Afro-American) in the United States. Blacks were disproportionately represented in
the growing underclass because they were relatively recent arrivals to the industrial
cities. They had been discriminated against in jobs, education and housing in the
past, but in the post-Civil Rights era, their problems were not a matter of deliberate
discrimination based on prejudice, but were the result of the structural and color-
blind elimination of urban employment prospects due to increased international
competition and technological changes in manufacturing.
Subtle racism or discrimination involves unfair practices accompanied by an
attempt to hide the intent from the victim and any other interested parties.
Employers, realtors and rental agents have devised various practices to circumvent
fair housing and employment laws without seeming to do so. The following passage
demonstrates what may have been a crude and inept attempt to conceal
discrimination. Although one can never be sure, several such encounters in an
individual’s experience would suggest the obvious conclusion. The account also
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offers insights into how expectations of discrimination, combined with the structural
disadvantages of urban poverty, deeply discourage young people who are
attempting to find work. This concise but vivid picture is presented by Regina
Eugene, a black teenage resident of Louisville:
Employment is a joke for most people and it’s also a joke for me. I’m growing up in a poverty
stricken area. It’s hard trying to find a job. Day in and day out I’m looking in the want ads.
Usually you got to be 18 years old. Most of the time, the job is in some community that I’ve
never heard of. Every time something turns up that I’m qualified for, it’s way out of my district.
Once I went to a Wendy’s because they had an ad in the paper. When I got there I was told
there weren’t any more applications in the store and to come back tomorrow. The next day I
came back and I was told the ten positions had been filled. Then I asked the man was he
prejudiced. He looked at me stunned. I walked out. Finding a job is a bitch in our democratic
society. Our system was designed so that everyone can develop to his or her potential, but
we can’t develop to our potentials because we can’t get what we need. (Williams and
Kornblum,1985).
Urban arena definitely affects intergroup relations and the dynamics of group
experience. The terms ‘ethnic group and minority group’ are often associated in
these relations. An ethnic group is often based on attachment to a culturally
distinguishable group that is contained along with other groups within a particular
society, while a minority group is identified as a group whose members have
politically shared-position marked by some disadvantage and degree of
powerlessness. A minority may or may not be an ethnic group, e.g. the Jews in Nazi
Germany and the Chinese in North Sumatera, Indonesia are examples of ethnic
minorities, while women, handicapped persons, and homosexuals are minorities, but
are not generally considered ethnic groups. In fact, some ethnic groups could be
majority groups, but the important point is that ethnicity is a concept altogether
independent of intergroup or power relationship.
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Many Third World cities, recruit their migrants from culturally diverse regions.
As a consequence, the urbanization experienced by these populations includes an
ethnic dimension. It has been suggested, that similarities in urban ethnicity invite the
emergence of ethnic solidarity. One examples of ethnic solidarity from Indonesia
serve as reminders of the importance – and could be an advantage – of the
urbanization of culturally diverse groups in urban areas.
In Indonesia, there are cross-cutting territorial and ethnic divisions. In two
main islands, Sumatera and Java, it is found that ethnic identity affected all aspects
of social life – residence, educational and occupational opportunity, religion,
friendship and political patterns. In North Sumatera, all other groups are opposed to
the large and successful Chinese population. Yet, the population of Sumatera,
including the Chinese, taken as a whole, generally resent the Javanese domination
of Indonesia, a domination symbolized by the location of the capital, Jakarta.
An interesting dynamic ethnicity can be found from the Batak groups, whose
sense of peoplehood interacted with their urban locations and political situation. The
city of Medan on North Sumatera is the home region of many groups of Batak.
There, the Bataks distinguished themselves and prefer to dissociate into many group
identities, i.e. Batak Toba, Batak Karo, Batak Simalungun, Batak Pakpak, and Batak
Mandailing, and they lock themselves socially among other groups. In the city of
Bandung on Java, the population of Batak is smaller than in Medan because they
were only migrants. The Sundanese as native in Bandung failed to perceive the
relevance of such a distinction and lumped together the Batak as one group.
Ultimately, the Batak members saw this condition as an advantage for all urban
Batak uniting. The relevant analysis in understanding this pattern of ethnicity was the
urban area, where they cannot find such group unification in their hometown.
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Mental Health
Urbanization brings with it a unique set of advantages and disadvantages. It
has also brought its own set of problems pertaining to mental health and well-being.
Mostly because of increased speed and decreased costs of communication and
transportation, cities are growing more diverse in their population. Consequently,
cultural factors have taken place in understanding of urban mental health.
Most migrants coming from rural areas are bringing values, beliefs, and
expectations about mental health that are often very different from the ones they
encounter in their new location. In many instances, people coming from rural areas
have endured years of isolations, lack of technology connection, poor health,
poverty, unemployment, and inadequate housing. They need to acculturate and
adapt not only to a new challenging urban environment, but also to alternative
systems of symbols, meanings, and traditions. They should also ready for facing
social processes such as competition, assimilation, and class conflict.
The multiculturalism of today’s cities contributes to increased tolerance, better
quality of life, and sociocultural stimulation. At the same time, it often contributes to
heightened social tension, interethnic striving, and cultural conflicts that carry mental
health ramifications. The range of disorders and deviancies associated with urban
areas may include psychoses, depression, sociopathy, substance abuse, alcoholism,
crime, delinquency, vandalism, family disintegration, and alienation. Such negative
impact often results in unreasonable means which may result in communal violence.
Negative impact is also experienced by behavior constraints practiced or imposed
upon the urban people. If behavior is unduly suppressive, it may result in learned
helplessness leading to stress-related disorders.
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Rapid urbanization has also led to creation of ‘fringe population’ mostly living
from hand to mouth which further added to poverty. Poverty and mental health have
a complex and multidimensional relationship. Poverty is understood as lack of both
social and educational resources. Poor and the deprived nations have a high
prevalence of mental and behavioral disorders by either the social causation theory
or the social drift theory. In the absence organized social welfare agencies, in the
deprived countries, vicious cycle and impoverishment progress. Low socioeconomic
status is known to be associated with a higher prevalence of major depression,
substance abuse, and personality disorders.
Urban alters the dynamics of society at large and family in particular. It is
affecting the entire gamut of population especially the vulnerable sections of society
– elderly, children and adolescents, and women. Rapid urbanization has created a
huge population of older men and women left to fend for themselves in the rural
areas. This also means less availability of caregivers when older people fall ill.
Children and adolescents in socioeconomically deprived urban areas are
often drawn to antisocial behavior. Although not exclusively an urban phenomenon, it
thrives in inner cities where degradation, poverty, drug use, and unemployment
result in an explosive blend favoring violent solutions.
Women are particularly vulnerable with urbanization. In rural setup, they
would work mostly at homes, but in urban environment women bear the burden of
being wives, mothers, educators, and careers at the same time as part of labor force.
Significant gender discrimination, malnutrition, overworks, domestic and sexual
violence add up to the problems. Social support and help of close relationships
(more commonly observed in rural society) appear to be missing in rural society due
to high force of individualism in urban neighborhood (Trivedi, 2008).
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Crime and Victimization
The 2008 Crime Index in the United States compiled by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) indicated that serious offences reported to police had declined
2.5% from the previous year for violent crime and property crime had declined 1.7%
from the year 2007. According to FBI, violent crime is composed of four offenses:
murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated
assault, while property crime includes the offenses of burglary, larceny-theft, motor
vehicle theft, and arson. Both violent and property crime are known as ‘index
offences’. Until now, crime remains a serious problem and it is highly understood that
violent and property crimes are often associated with urban areas. It is well known
that crimes are more vulnerable in urban areas rather than in rural areas.
The urban poor are disproportionately represented in national crime statistics,
both as accused perpetrators and as victims. In general, people in cities are more
likely to commit common crimes or be victimized. Table 2 reflects one of the clearest
and most consistent relationships known to the social sciences – the size of cities as
it relates to the incidence of crime. As the population of cities increases, the overall
rates of violent and property crimes increases, as does the incidence of each of the
individual categories of crime shown in the table. There is evidence to deny any
simple explanation based on the idea that crime results from a simple frustration-
aggression reaction due to conditions of crowding. What is clear is that urban crime
remains concentrated in a relatively small number of areas within a city, areas
characterized by high levels of chronic poverty, unemployment, substandard
housing, teenage pregnancy, and drug use. While the economic costs of crime are
spread throughout the urban population, its effects are greatest on the poor.
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Table 2 - Crime Rates by City Size in the United States, 2008
Violent Crime
City Size Murder Forcible Rape Robbery Aggravated
Assault Total
> 250,000 6,502 19,145 203,730 259,698 489,075
100,000-249,999 1,981 10,057 61,874 95,300 169,212
50,000-99,999 1,360 9,119 44,032 79,520 134,031
25,000-49,999 831 7,276 27,221 56,213 91,541
10,000-24,999 689 6,759 20,358 51,336 79,142
< 10,000 559 5,895 12,169 49,057 67,680
Property Crime
City Size Burglary Larceny Theft
Motor Vehicle Theft Arson Total
> 250,000 541,896 1,520,608 349,004 17,706 2,429,214
100,000-249,999 268,600 798,869 128,283 7,357 1,203,109
50,000-99,999 225,361 740,309 98,919 6,838 1,071,427
25,000-49,999 167,855 600,722 59,807 5,002 833,386
10,000-24,999 161,949 590,024 48,487 4,405 804,865
< 10,000 136,769 534,073 34,106 4,231 709,179
Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2009
Even though crime rates are higher in the poorer districts within cities, but
there were controversy about the linkages between poverty or inequality and criminal
behavior. Take the example of two Highland Parks in the Midwest, United States.
Highland Park, Michigan, is part of the inner city of Detroit. It had population just
under 30,000 in 1983; in that year, one in three families was poor; there were 27
murders, 55 reported rapes, and 796 robberies. Highland Park, Illinois, a community
of about the same size, is a lakeside suburb just north of Chicago. In 1983, one in 67
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families was poor; in that year, there were no murders, one reported rape, and seven
robberies. Clearly, the poverty is not usually a direct cause of crime.
Crime grew not because people were poor, but because many among the
poor had become part of a lower class, a category set off by its cultural values and
habits. The growth of this category has been marked by several factors: the
increasing number who have applied for and received welfare payments, the
increasing use of drugs, and the increasing proportion of the poor who are young.
The dominant numbers of poor young people, especially who grow on the street,
allowed them to tone down their moralities in public life that lead them to the crime.
There is also a convincing linkage between unemployment and crime.
Unemployment is associated with higher rates of drug use and gambling, and the
high cost of drug and gambling dependency with property crime. Unemployment is
also associated with alcohol use, and alcohol is associated with violent crime.
The impact of lack of employment opportunity on crime rates may be
compounded by segregation and race. It is likely that the young Afro- and Latino-
American urban males face harder in unemployment rather than the white, and it
may affect fundamentally on criminal involvements and illegal activities. The black
neighborhood, with shrinking numbers of commercial establishments, experienced a
higher number of predatory crimes than other neighborhoods due to the fact that
there were few opportunities for targeting commercial properties. The Latino
neighborhood contained factories owned and operated by outsiders, which were a
favorite target of young burglars. In the white neighborhood, participation in criminal
activity was reportedly lower among young people. Although crime among white
youths was economically motivated, it typically ended when young men found jobs
through family and neighborhood networks (Flanagan, 2002).
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Transport
Transport is one of many crucial impacts arise in the cities of the developed
and developing countries. Here, strong evidence was proven that the transport
problem in the cities is caused by the rapid growth of urbanization. Transport
problems in the metropolises mainly form in transport infrastructures, high local
levels of air pollution, noise, traffic jams even outside the peak traffic times as well as
decreasing safety levels for non-motorized road-users. The above problems have a
particular impact on other people especially who rely heavily on non-motorized
transport and are therefore particularly vulnerable to road accidents.
For decades, urban transport infrastructure in the developing countries has
been oriented on motorized private transport (MPT), following the example of the
developed countries. Many Asian cities with more than a million inhabitants and a
high population density used to feature a hot mix road in residential and commercial
areas, so that travel by MPT in the peripheral city centre were more comfortable, and
people usually use motorized transport means within the city.
According to Ralf M. Kaltheier, there are three groups of transport means based on
its accessibility and system capacity:
• Group 1 (normal bus, public motor vehicle, bicycle/tricycle taxis, bicycle,
pedestrians): Suitable for intra and inter connections and feeder services to more
efficient mass transport means and for distribution traffic in the inner-city area.
• Group 2 (exclusive bus ways, tram with its own right of way): Suitable for
medium and large volumes of traffic and periphery-to-centre journeys of
distances up to 20 km (cities of approx. 1-1.5 million inhabitants); possibly also
for periphery-to-periphery transport and as a feeder in megacities.
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• Group 3 (elevated or underground metros, suburban railways): Suitable for
principal axes of traffic (periphery-centre, in the centre) of large cities with more
than a million inhabitants and megacities (more than 2-3 million inhabitants).
Transport is a service that cannot be stored. It required several years for
construction of transport infrastructure and considerable investments have to be
made for the means of transport. The chief determinant of transport supply is the
physical infrastructure of roads, cycle and footpaths, railways and waterways. The
extent and state of the transport routes influence the operational of transport means
(cars, buses, trams, light rail transit, metro, pedestrians, bicycles, etc.). Different
technologies and modes of operation used by these transport systems result in
different frequencies, journey time, capacities and costs or tariffs.
The volume of mass transit on a suburban railway in full use cannot be
substituted by normal bus transport. And although it would be comfortable and use
modern technology, an above-ground light railway system would be just as
unsuitable as a replacement for an underground railway or an elevated metro for
inner-city transport in the principal traffic corridors of megacities.
In some Asian cities (Hanoi, Surabaya, Jakarta), where fuel and vehicle prices
are subsidized, poor people also have access to motorcycles, so that MPT accounts
for a significant proportion of the modal split, with a high share of 25-40% of all trips.
The high share of motorbikes in the modal split - that can also be observed among
the urban population - is a special phenomenon in some Southeast Asian countries
(Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand).
For example, approx. 80-90% of the households in the Vietnamese metropolis
of Ho Chi Minh City have access to a motorcycle. In the Indonesian city of Surabaya,
which has 2.5 million inhabitants, the share of motorbike trips is approx. 30% (more
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than 60% of all motorized passenger trips), while it is 52% (65% of all motorized
trips) in the city of Denpasar, which has 1.5 million inhabitants.
There are various reasons for the phenomenon of the poor people often used
motorcycles beside bicycles and tricycles. On the one hand, the procurement and
maintenance costs of motorbike are very low. These countries often have a
motorbike industry of their own or plants that assemble imported components. Import
duties on spare parts are very low, and fuel prices are subsidized. We can say that
just like the car for the rich, motorbikes also play status role among the poor people.
Further disadvantages arise from urban transport sector beside increased
traffic volumes and traffic jams. Health hazards owing to settlements being built
along roads or on the periphery of urban districts are also affected by urban transport
sector that releasing high levels of environmental pollution (air and noise pollution).
Two-stroke engines, which have mainly been in use so far, can even pollute the
urban environment with higher emissions of pollutants (in particular hydrocarbons,
carbon monoxide and sulphur dioxide). This is why four-stroke engines are being
used more and more, even they are more expensive.
Urban transport policy and planning over the last few decades has been an
important thing in sustainable development for most of the developing countries.
Following the example set by the industrialized countries, developments have been
biased towards promoting the MPT urban road infrastructure. In the cities of the
poorer developing countries, the MPT share still lies below 15% on average of
overall transport and traffic demand. Non-motorized transport (footpaths, bicycles,
rickshaws, etc.), which accounts for more than 50% of the total traffic volume in cities
with more than a million inhabitants, especially in Asia and Africa, was hardly
considered in communal transport infrastructure planning (Kaltheier, 2002).
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Environmental Degradation
It is important to recognize the impacts of urbanization on the environment.
Urbanization that has various aspects, i.e. population, land use, transportation, and
services, is identified to have impacts on various components of the environment,
including the atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, human impacts, and others.
The impacts identified can then be classified as severe, moderate, slight, and zero.
The classification is ultimately subjective and influenced by the opinion of others.
Table 3 - The Environmental Impacts of Urbanization
Urban Component
Environmental Component Population Land use Transportation Services
Atmosphere Increasing release of CO2, decreased O2 production, as plant colonies are destroyed by spreading urban areas
Increased average temperatures for most urbanized areas
Air pollution from combustion of fuels
Particulates, noxious fumes from incinerators, landfills, sewage treatment works, etc.
Creation of photo-chemical smog
Emission of lead from some engines
Hydrosphere Greater demand on water resources (both surface and subsurface)
More intense use of hydrologic resources causing increased pollution load
Rain, surface waters polluted with lead
Leaching of pollutant from landfills
Drainage patterns altered by infrastructure
Discharges from sewage outfalls
Pollution from boats
Lithosphere Increased transfor-mation of uninha-bited agricultural or unutilized land to urban uses
Complete changes due to construction, landscaping, etc.
Disruption of disfigurement of landscape, etc.
Sanitary landfill of urban wastes and installation, repairs of services disturb landscape
Human Impacts Psychological impact of high-density living
Psychological impact Increased noise level
Health effects of air and noise pollution
Source: Henry and Heinke, 1996
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The environmental effects of urbanization are many and varied as shown in
Table 3. The predominant atmospheric effect of urbanization is the alteration of the
atmosphere’s chemistry through the release of massive quantities of carbon dioxide,
oxides of sulphur and nitrogen, dust, particulate matter, noxious and toxic chemicals.
The sources of these contaminants are diverse: industry, most forms of
transportation, the heating of buildings, municipal incinerators, sewage treatment
works, open fires, and landfill sites. In addition, significant heating of air masses over
urban centers occurs as a result of reradiation from heat-absorbing surfaces such as
roads, parking lots, and rooftops. The combustion of hydrocarbon, particularly those
used in the transportation sector and industrial systems, also gives rise to
‘photochemical smog’ as a result of the interaction of various by-products of the
combustion process and energy from solar radiation.
The impact of urbanization upon the hydrosphere is severe because of the
large volumes of pure water that must be provided and the correspondingly large
volumes of used water requiring disposal. Storm water also has an impact. Although
the total quantities of runoff from rainfall may not be altered significantly, the rate and
characteristics of the runoff may be changed sufficiently to cause damage or
inconvenience. The rate at which water runs off a paved road or parking lot, or off a
smooth pitched roof, is considerably greater than the rate it runs off a rural or
forested area (such as a golf course or park). As a result, water can accumulate
rapidly in an urban drainage system, and if an overflow occurs, extensive flood
damage is possible. Moreover, these storm waters are often contaminated by
chemicals or particulates adsorbed or absorbed during rainfall, or material such as
oil being washed off street sand parking lots. Degradation of water resources by
storm water is a problem in most urban environments. Another potential contributor
22
to the contamination of the hydrosphere is the drainage called ‘leachate’ that comes
from landfills of municipal solid waste or toxic and hazardous wastes.
From a visual inspection of the urban environment, it can be concluded that
lithosphere was the part of environment that most dramatically altered by
urbanization. The original state of the environment appears to have changed
irreparably. The elevations of the surface have been altered, rivers diverted, and
lowlands either excavated for harbors or filled in for building. The ‘water edge’ in
many cities has been pushed farther into the lake to facilitate development and
expansion of industry, transportation, and recreational facilities. In fact, the
construction of buildings and roads has revamped the character of regions. Native
ecosystems have been replaced by urban patterns. Circulation of air has been
altered on a local scale by the presence of obstructions, such as tall buildings and
smokestacks. Transportation, both public and private, is responsible for substantial
alteration of the landscape because of the construction of roads, railroads, parking
lots, airports, harbors, and warehousing and shipping facilities. The provision of
municipal services such as water towers, pumping stations, reservoirs, sanitary
landfills, and other structures accounts for the changes in the urban environment.
The human impacts of urbanization tend to be rather difficult to define and
assess. The health effects of noise, air, and water pollution, and the psychological
stresses caused by high density and a relatively fast-paced environment are not
easily quantified. Many of the effects are not particularly harmful in isolated contacts,
but continued exposure to inhalation of low-level concentrations of lead, for example,
may be a much more serious problem. The psychological impacts are the least
understood and as a result are the most difficult to evaluate. However, there are few
people who would deny that these stresses do exist (Henry and Heinke, 1996).
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