Anthony Maples

Professor Carthew

California Geography

November 17th, 2011

"The City Solution" Robert Kunzig National Geographic Magazine December 2011 National Geographic Society Washington D.C. Periodical Report: The City Solution "The City Solution," written by Robert Kunzig is an article published in the National Geographic Magazine from a pro urbanization standpoint. This article displays evidence as to why urbanization, a process which to my eyes had priorly been viewed by the majority as disastrous to the world we live in, could in fact be more beneficial to the earth than a populace more evenly distributed over a larger area of land. I accredit this prior view point to the mass amounts of media portraying cities and dense urban populations as major if not sole contributors to recently alarming environmental hazards

such as poor air quality, decline in water sanitation and the depletion of the ozone layer. Such issues increase our exposure to solar radiation, and could possibly lead to lasting repercussions on overall wellness in future generations. "The City Solution" opens with Kunzig painting a less than favorable picture of the urban living environment in London slums at the dawn of the nineteenth century. He quotes victorian writers describing these areas as "slum rookeries," and "colonies of breeding animals" due to cramped living space and poor sanitation. These slums would remain a wide spread and constant factor in city life during their progression to the metropolises we know today. London during this period was the only city to boast a population of more than five million. This remained true till the turn of the century adding 54 more cities to that status, most of them located in Asia. Kunzig examines the benefits of urbanization in the economical aspect, a viewpoint which drives most of the decision making in the world we live in, especially in the capitalist society we know in the United States. It governs the quality of life we have, especially due to the fact of its widespread affect on the world. Cities produce more simply because of the "absence of space between people" reducing the cost of transporting goods, people, and ideas. Today, with shipping and service industries so easily accessible, the amount of knowledge and ideas flowing per square mile is more valuable than ever before. With people easily accessing other people we can more fully learn from each other with chance encounters and the aid contextual clues give, allowing us to entirely grasp what another person is saying. In cities with a higher average education rating, even the uneducated earn a higher wage due to their daily

interactions with their educated peers creating a more constant intellectually stimulating environment. In the past decade, many more issues regarding our ecosystem have seemed to rise to the top of political, as well as social concern. Many people are wondering whether or not the increase of dense concrete jungles are to blame for the impact the environment has taken since the beginning of the nineteenth century. One way to look at cities in terms of the ecosystems is to consider their alternatives, a more spread out populace density would spread out the damage across continents rather than a few densely populated areas. Cities give us the ability to populate half of our race on 4% of arable land, leaving more space for open country. He explains that per capita, cities are more efficient because their roads, severs and power lines are shorter requiring less recourses to keep in service. The apartment lifestyle that dominates city life requires less to serve more than suburban areas for small to large home living. Automobiles are used less in cities as well, people are closer to the destination prompting them to walk, and enough people are going to the same destinations making public transportation more practical. New York cities per capita energy use and carbon footprint are a considerable amount lower than the national average. Many countries are taking steps towards the prevention of urbanization, adopting policies in attempts to stem migration to cities from less populated areas fearing the increase of slums and poverty areas. Some experts such as David Satterthwaite who advises government and association of slum dwellers believe that, its not due to over expansion itself but of a governments ill preparations for such expansion. However no

single model for managing rapid expansion has been found yet. He explains that the governments reaction will affect us all in the future. Geographically I found this article to be very insightful as to the possibilities of future relationship with the world around us both here in the Unites States as well as in other countries. The options are seemingly endless. Will the future world dwell almost exclusively in giant metropolis's leaving the country side available to us in its natural state preserving its beauty for future generations to enjoy and understand? With that comes another question, will they be of the utopian quality, where everyone enjoys a premium quality of living? Or will they be slum ridden plagued with poverty? The major cause of the fear of urbanization. Perhaps an expansion will take root and the populace will spread out over a larger area reducing the amount of un developed land in continents? These all are questions that are becoming ever more pressing as the exponential growth of the human race continues. I chose this article because of how often we compare living as well as economic factors between the densely populated areas of California such as Los angeles, and the sparsely populated such as Needles and I wanted to know more about the effects in the long term sense between the two different living spheres. Personally this article was very helpful in maturing my view of the dense urban environment. Coming from the northern California county of Solano, the only cities I have experienced that I would say were comparable to Los Angeles would be San Francisco and even Sacramento to a minor degree. Coming from a somewhat small town where the Stars are visible every night and 25mph is the standard speed limit,

major cities seemed to me to be polluted, noisy, and far too crowded. After reading and analyzing this article as well as having the opportunity to live in cities like Northridge and Long Beach for school, I have come to appreciate them as the most prime trading hubs of personal person to person information allowing for a flavorful array of life enriching encounters on a day to day basis.