Conclusion and Reflection

 " The more populous the city the greater its 'ecological footprint' that is the land area and natural resource capital on which the city draws to sustain its population and population structure" (Pacione,2009, 556)

From the 10 blogs posted,  I have discussed several aspects of environmental issues that have been created due to development. This has been created due to heavy demand for renewable resources by cities. Due to increasing wealth of nations and their tendencies to want to become more developed, resources are being consumed faster than they are being replenished with little to no regard for the environmental impact of their actions. As a result these 10 blog post aimed at projecting the illusions of a paradise that development portrays when truth and in fact it is the environment that pays the consequences of mankind's actions.

As this was a class assignment where each person chose to discuss any theme that exist within an urban environment, I found that several of my colleagues shared similar views as I did.

In the blog on Urban Livelihood (Shanaz Khan) I found several of her post related to me. This was interesting because when I think about the urban livelihood, I think about the positive aspects of the city in terms of its services. However the way in which Shanaz integrated the human and environmental aspects of  the urban center was appropriate because the pollution which varies from land, noise, water and air is as a result to human consumption and expansion as she stated in her blog post "Urban Pollution". What I gathered from her relates to my own belief which is, for a country to be sustainable livelihood needs must be met in ways that do not degrade the environment. She also touched on the differences in pollution levels between the global North and South. What this shows is developed countries are practicing unsustainable planning and as a result developing countries who are trying to become developed look up to these standards of the Global North and so it can be seen that history repeats and the degrading cycle continues as the Global South also adopts these unsustainable practices and face worst off consequences.

In Clea Ragbir's blog on Urban Pollution, even though we had the same theme our approach to addressing it and discussing its effects were different. One of her blog's that stood out to me was "Preserving our Capital City by Decentralization". In this post I like the way she gave a background history on what makes the urban city important. It was a very structured transition from the positive features that the city incorporates and then it enters into the severe consequences to the environment.  This was  due to the concentration of people in the area and their lifestyles exploiting the city. In this post she proposed the clever idea of using decentralization to help save the environment. By doing so that is spreading out the use of land not only just to the urban center, the overcrowding that accompanies these areas as well as the exploitation of resources would be reduced. This gives way to sustainable practices as resources are not being depreciated faster than they are being replenished. In my opinion, further decentralization can provide a change. This was quite informative and it is definitely a good read.

Lastly, in the blog Urbanization an Environmental Menace by Faheem Mohammed, his blog post on "Selling Degradation" related to my discussion on the fact that people generally fulfill their own needs and wants without care of the consequences it may have. This post relates to my own post of "Reclaimed Land and Eco-system Destruction" because a large area of mangrove which provides habitats for many species were destroyed in the name of development. These commercial buildings and the services they provide are only concern with their economic gains and they pay no mind to the effects on the environment that their construction caused. Faheem went on further to explain that even the products being sold came about due to degradation and some even contribute to environmental pollution. Even though this post condensed a lot of information, the quality of information was in fact correct and it is true that commerce encourages the over-consumption of resources.

This blogging experience over the past few weeks has been very educational for myself and I hope for others as well. Urban environmental pollution is a ongoing problem seen in the world today, and future planning and individual change has to happen in order for cities to become close to achieving a level of sustainability.

Thank You for Sharing this experience with me.
Terry-Ann Arjoon

Reference:

Michael Pacione. 2009. Urban Geography: A Global Perspective Third edition. London and New York: Routeledge.