What are the trade-offs associated with cities or urban areas?
Why You Should Care
Chances are, if you haven’t been already, you’ll be faced with deciding where to live and start a career. You also probably have a good grasp of the pros and cons of city life. If you lived in the city, you’d probably be closer to work and a more diverse array of entertainment, people, and food. But you’d have to pay more to live there; in fact, you probably couldn’t afford to buy a home. It’s also crowded and could be noisy or polluted. If you lived in the suburbs, you’d have room to move around, but you’d have to do a lot more driving—to get to work, buy food, etc. Many of the environmental pros and cons are readily apparent, too. Living in cities saves land resources and should reduce carbon footprints since you don’t need to drive as much. But large amounts of waste are produced by cities, and disposing of it causes both environmental and social problems. Moreover, cities tend to be hotter than the surrounding countryside. Even the difference of a few degrees can make a huge difference in the environment—even if the hotter weather in cities is only enough to make air conditioners run a few extra minutes each day. Multiply that by millions of homes in a city and it’s a huge problem, especially if the electricity provided for the city is derived from coal. Although city and suburban living both have their drawbacks, the prospects of making city living sustainable are better than the suburbs, so hopefully, the current trends to make cities greener will continue.
Nation | Approximate Population in 2012* |
Carbon Footprint in Tons of Carbon per Year |
---|---|---|
Spain | 47,000,000 | RItqJKsFGYAAt4Pgf5HB4CjwXunXjq9YhL/RRg== |
United Kingdom | 63,000,000 | CI73aVBRMldJ5KNWKfwjOQcWtcZF9szyEzfY1Q== |
United States | 314,000,000 | sXkDTMGhRQTmYKbDIiT0+wfaigdMoBKRPuRAAg== |
Brazil | 206,000,000_206000000 | uEHMKtBdaMvtWfOdVE6xqyLOCOY= |
Japan | 127,000,000 | AN2B9ji4bIu8QMKu02tUcCu0rbYfPOX6tA3D5Q== |
China | 1,343,000,000 | 2xP25UhSm0o5AHF3jWAgXtFZ8X6ZYIUM1QLa6Q== |
*As found in the United States CIA World Factbook; rounded to the nearest million people.
Relative to suburbs and rural areas, cities have:
5eLjcO3kzGriXKVp4UtVjA== traffic congestion.
IjgrRM/WKsqycMUxjJsBog== green space.
5eLjcO3kzGriXKVp4UtVjA== environmentally caused illness.
5eLjcO3kzGriXKVp4UtVjA== concentration of waste to be disposed of.
5eLjcO3kzGriXKVp4UtVjA== violence.
B/XphFheMK+GNPzLSHHC9FnnkrA= transportation options.
wqjJUblyMeknVkP2nvD6YIaWQpU= ecological impact per person.
5eLjcO3kzGriXKVp4UtVjA== effective zoning ordinances (usually).
cpLIWcmcDhIHoTgKT0mWDCquxjw= average temperature.
5eLjcO3kzGriXKVp4UtVjA== dependence on food and resources that aren't local.
B/XphFheMK+GNPzLSHHC9FnnkrA= advanced health-care options.
5eLjcO3kzGriXKVp4UtVjA== diversity of job opportunities.
ZmIAY2tZ6qnAI6KLxT7FmtR+C7U= home energy efficiency.
IjgrRM/WKsqycMUxjJsBog== traveling to get to work and to buy goods or services.
5eLjcO3kzGriXKVp4UtVjA== difficulty handling stormwater runoff and flooding.
j4PQ12qm2qXjmARQ5E4p9CHs76I= air quality.
iEsKyHsm4uIdZnVVmkFztZXr+fRvEYtY homes on average.
B/XphFheMK+GNPzLSHHC9FnnkrA= educational opportunities.