In an article titled “World’s biggest city database shines light on our increasingly urbanized planet” published by Science Daily, the author discusses how the world’s largest data platform on cities reveals the planet is even more urbanized than we thought. The article states that “populations in urban areas doubled in Africa and grew by 1.1 billion in Asia between 1990 and 2015. Furthermore, worldwide, more than 400 cities have a population between 1 and 5 million and more than 40 cities have 5 to 10 million people. In addition, there are 32 ‘megacities’ with above 10 million inhabitants.” The article goes on to discuss the positive environmental impacts of these growths. The author emphasizes that cities became 25% greener between 2000 and 2015. I believe that the author of this article is extremely knowledgable on environmental issues and uses an extremely reliable source for their data, RC’s Global Human Settlement Layer. The authors intended audience is individuals who are interested in the growing urbanization our society is experiencing, as well as the impacts these large cities have on our environment. Their agenda is to inform people of growing urbanization and how it exceeds the level we once thought. I believe the author is bias in one sense. He/she only discusses the positive impacts of the growth in urbanization and fails to touch on the negative impacts urbanization has on our environment. It is likely that the author resides in a large urban area, giving them this bias. I believe that urbanization has both pros and cons. The pros are that urbanization provides living spaces for millions of people as well as improves the convenience of acquiring living essentials. Moreover, urbanization greatly helps our economy by introducing new markets. Also, urbanization provides new job opportunities to the civilians that inhabit these cities. The cons of urbanization are that it increases pollutions levels, which greatly effects our environment in a negative way. Furthermore, an inevitable part of urbanization is gentrification. Lower income families are forced to move out of their homes due to steep increases in the cost of living. Many times these families are left with no where to go and forces to rely on charity, such as The Salvation Army, and government aid, like welfare. To go on, urbanization takes away valuable land that could be used for agricultural purposes. This could, in turn, leave us with a shortage of produce and livestock in the future. In conclusion, I believe that urbanization is positive and also inevitable. As we experience population growth there becomes a need for more housing, stores, hospitals, manufacturing facilities, and entertainment. However, I do believe that while our world becomes more urbanized, we should remain environmentally conscious and work to make these cities sustainable. Furthermore, restrictions should be placed on manufacturing facilities with regards to pollution and waste disposal.

Link to the article:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180213111512.htm