Issues of The Urban City

Globally an increasing number of persons are being forced to move to cities in search of better job opportunities and better living conditions. This process is occurring worldwide but at faster rates in developing countries such as Latin America and the Caribbean. This process is known as urbanization and leads to urban economic growth but neglects the issue of urban development. My blog focused on urbanization and the effects of pollution. It highlighted various pollution types that cities face, the causes and the solutions.

The blog found at http://urbantransporthubbs.wordpress.com/ targeted urban transport hubs in Trinidad. Transport hubs are extremely important across the globe, without transport systems the world wouldn’t be as is. Transportation links the entire globe and as a result of this the author of this blog, Ronnen linked the main transport hubs in Trinidad together. He showed pictures and described the challenges as well as the benefits of the transport system in Trinidad. He mentioned that the main transport hubs were City Gate (P.O.S.), San Juan, Curepe, Chaguanas, Arima and San Fernando. The main location to obtain transport was Port of Spain as one could obtain transport to all the other cities from this area. At each of the main hubs there were terminals available in which one could wait on transport, however all of the terminals were not that appealing. He outlined which hubs were more important and which urban cities were associated with the more important hubs. Some of the urban cities never “sleep” and as a result transport was always readily available at these locations. To relate Ronnen’s blog to mines is quite simple as he focused on transport as to mines on pollution. Each vehicle that is used for transport releases emissions into the atmosphere that can be very toxic and due to the rapid increase of vehicles on the road climate change is also expected to increase as a result of air pollution by vehicles. A solution to limiting the amount of vehicles entering the city could be the use of PTSC buses which have increased in efficiency over the years, however they are not as reliable as needed to be to support an urban city like P.O.S. Policies would need to implement and investments made in order for this vision to become a success.

The second blog that I reviewed was http://urbancommercialism.blogspot.com/ and I found it to be quite interesting and extremely appealing at the same time. She targeted many ideas under the theory of commercialism and therefore her blog kept flowing and wasn’t repetitive. Each post looked at something new and the headings and pictures were well done as they kept grasping my attention. She made a post on visual pollution which related to my blog as my topic was on pollution in urban areas. In my blog I didn’t target visual pollution as it is a form of advertising and doesn’t degrade the environment to the extent that land, water and air pollution does. Her blog can also relate to mines in the sense that she explains commercialism is everywhere and increasing, therefore there would be byproducts and increases in waste as a result. The more a population grows, the more resources they need which means the more waste is available, however the problem would be how to dispose of the increased waste efficiently.

The third blog that I reviewed was http://urbancongestion.blogspot.com/ which was done by Rachael. Urban congestion along with urbanization and pollution were areas that were targeted by many of the other bloggers. These two blogs although they have their differences are quite similar and target the same problems of urban areas. She outlined that urban congestion was a major issue that affected the city. When urban congestion occurs this leads overcrowding causing the city to exceed its carrying capacity, thus leading to many urban problems such as pollution which can lead to severe flooding: an issue in which P.O.S. is all too familiar with. Many of her posts along with many other persons who targeted this topic all mentioned how this congestion can lead to different forms of pollution. As mentioned before the urban population is growing at an increased rate for developing countries such as Trinidad and unless measures are taken to reduce the effects of urban growth, there will be many repercussions that might be unbearable for developing cities.

In closing all urban topics are related as they all lead to each other in some way or another and can lead to the ‘domino effect’ as outlined by Rachael. As a result of this each blog can be educational in its sense, but can never be completed unless all issues on urban cities are connected. Therefore when focusing on one problem of urban cities we are able to see relationships between different topics, thus showing the complex and diverse nature of urban cities.