URBAN EXPANSION

Different Approaches To Urban Expansion



Different Approaches To Urban Expansion

Urban expansion, also known as suburban expansion, is a multifaceted concept, which includes the spreading outwards of a city and its suburbs to its outskirts to low-density, auto-dependent development on rural land, with associated design features that encourage car dependency.expansion As a result, some critics argue that expansion has certain disadvantages, including:

Long transport distances to work

High car dependence

Inadequate facilities eg: health, cultural. etc.

Higher per-person infrastructure costs.

From 1978 to 1997, gross domestic product in China grew at a remarkable 17 percent annual rate. Over the last several years, while most Western nations languished in recession, the economy of China grew at a steady 7 to 8 percent. China's population continues to grow as well. In November 2000, China's population was approximately 1.3 billion; by the year 2050 it is expected to reach 1.6 billion. Following familiar international patterns, the combination of population growth and economic expansion is manifest most prominently in Chinese cities. From 1957 to 1995, China's urban population grew from 106 to 347 million. In 1982 there were 182 Chinese cities; by 1996 there were 666.

While urbanization has led to significant improvements in the welfare of the Chinese people, it has also placed enormous pressure on China's land resources. China is the world's third largest country in land area (after Russia and Canada). But, with more than 21 percent of the world's population living on about 7 percent of the world's cultivated land, China's farmland resources are relatively scarce. Between 1978 and 1995 China's cultivated land fell from 99.4 million to 94.9 million hectares while its population rose from 962 million to 1.2 billion. Simply because of its scale, the widening gap between China's growing population and a shrinking supply of farmland has implications not only for China's ability to feed itself, but also for global food security.

Economic science should be used to determine whether some of the characteristics of urban expansion result in higher or lower efficiency in human behavior. Urban economists have entered the debate relatively recently. They tend to examine urban expansion as the aggregate extent of urban land use or as the average urban land use density. It has been shown that urban expansion can increase the aggregate urban land use and lower the average land use density while at the same time lowering average commuting travel times and increasing discretionary mobility.(See Curbing Excess Expansion with Congestion Tolls and Urban Boundaries).

The term urban expansion generally has negative connotations due to the health, environmental and cultural issues associated with the phrase.expansion Residents of expansioning neighborhoods tend to emit more pollution per person and suffer more traffic fatalities.expansionexpansion Expansion is controversial, with supporters claiming that consumers prefer lower density neighborhoods and that expansion does not necessarily increase traffic.expansion Expansion is also linked with increased obesity since walking and bicycling are not viable commuting options.expansionexpansion Expansion negatively impacts land, air, and water quality, and may be linked to a decline in social ...