Sustainability

When I saw this in Carapo, I had to stop and take a picture. While doing this, I actually chuckled to myself saying “the sign actually says ‘No Dumping’ and people a literally doing what they want.
Then,,,, it hit me, the residents are physically destroying their own community and many don’t even know it.
My smiling expression quickly changed into one of concern. I wondered if they understood what the repercussions of these behaviours can denote for future generations, if they could even read and interpret the sign (as many of these marginalised people maybe illiterate) or if they knew what sustainability meant.

Although throughout my blog posts I’ve seem to be the voice of the poor residing within sprawls, bring to the forefront both negative and mostly positive facets to this lifestyle. Conversely, with the topic of sustainability, I must say that most of these areas are almost as good a doomed as their living conditions do not meet the needs of the present generation without comprising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Brundtland 1987).

However as populations have skyrocketed in recent decades, the actual rate of sprawl has slowed while urban populations have become denser. Still, real problems emerging out of the time-honoured condition of sprawl raise important questions for the nature of sustainable development. Such questions would suggest added pressure on the professionals representing the real estate market, those brokers for whom defining themselves meant aggressive efforts towards legitimization in the early- and mid- twentieth century.

Meanwhile, the category of the middle class has become in some ways a virtually all-encompassing consciousness and has remained directly tied to the ideal of consumerism within strong housing markets (Campbell and Mollica 2009). This idea has prompted anti-sprawl advocates to criticize unrestrained development and the over-consumption of resources. Though not unique to the late twentieth century, anti-sprawl campaigns during this period were particularly strong and multidimensional (Hall and Barrett 2012, 306).

 Easily accessible data such as the cost of sprawl, the visible destruction of open spaces and agricultural land, and the over-dependence on the automobile were used by such marquee anti-sprawl activists as the Sierra Club and the National Trust for Historic Preservation to prove that sprawl is a major public concern. In fact, the idea of sustainable land use previously broached by Richard Ely has been one of the key concepts uniting groups in their campaign, because it taps into the larger and even more compelling issue of global warming (Bruegmann 2005).

With increasing populations and diminishing resources, issues of ethical, conscientious development may take centre stage and force a rewrite of existing curriculums. Many great cities fail if there is unsustainability and a classic example of this is the Roman Empire. With unsustainability there is only two options ship-up (adapt) or ship-out (die) as resources degrade and competition for necessities increase. Sprawls are not environmentally sound and these areas would not thrive into the future, however if these is a possibility where sprawls continue to spread, they would just evolve with time as they consume new areas and over-exploit these newly found resources.

References

Bruegmann, Robert. 2005. Sprawl: a compact history. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Brundtland, Gro Harlem. 1987. Our common future. Melbourne: Oxford University Press

Campbell, Tom, and David Mollica. 2009. Sustainability. Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate

Hall, T. and H. Barrett. 2012. Urban Geography. 4th ed. London/ New York: Routledge.