In
the article “Developing Sustainable Infrastructure in New Cities”, Cho (2014)
believes that urban challenges must be considered in developing a sustainable
infrastructure. She further mentions the Envision Sustainability rating system
which prioritizes the sustainability of its infrastructure and allows a 360
degree impact on its community. Infrastructures in this era should efficiently
serve the community by improving their quality of life. She further shares her
focus on its assessment on King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) and its key
challenges of urbanization. In context of sustainability against growth, she
hopes that the right project will help community and city to function as a
whole. While I agree with Cho on the importance of inputting urban
challenges in infrastructure planning, I think that her points on dealing with rapid
urban growth are incomplete. Her explanations seem to only address developed
countries.
The
first reason that makes her points incomplete was the lack of explanation on
how developing countries deal with its rapid urban growth through
sustainability. Cho only mentioned how countries with resources deal with its
urban challenge and left out how developing countries will achieve sustainable
development. Developing countries must first ensure their people have access to
basic social provision before moving towards sustainability. Due to increased
poverty and urbanization, the ideals of sustainable development largely remain
a distant reality across developing countries (Amoateng, 2015). Cho should have
addressed the issue on the extra challenges developing countries face and how
they can move towards sustainability. She should have provided examples of successful
infrastructure stories from developing countries.
The
second reason is because Cho did not state what developing countries should not
do when coping with its rapid urban growth. The challenges faced by both the
developing and developed countries are different. With different challenges,
the actions taken by both countries will be different. As it’s different, they
should work and act efficiently. Though poverty conditions have compounded and
weakened the capability of developing countries in achieving sustainability,
they still should not ignore sustainability in their development and just
continue striving for it (Kiamba, 2012). Cho also mentioned the success stories
of “the Nuevo Necaxa Avila Camacho Highway in Mexico and Highways Vias Nuevas
De Lima in Peru”. I liked that the infrastructure mentioned by her was from the
list of developing countries. However, it would have been more realistic to
mention both the success and unsuccessful stories of sustainable
infrastructure. From the unsuccessful stories, other developing countries can
efficiently strive for sustainability by learning from their failure.
In
conclusion, Cho managed to convince me on the importance of considering urban
challenges in sustainable infrastructure. However, her article was incomplete
as her points seem to only address developed countries. It would have been
better and more realistic to touch on how both developing and developed countries
work towards achieving sustainability. Sustainability shouldn’t just be
applicable to developed countries. Developing countries should also work
towards it.
References
Heidi,
Cho. (2014). Developing sustainable
infrastructure in new cities. Retrieved from
Kiamba, Anita(2012). The
sustainability of urban development in developing economies . The Journal of
Sustainable Development, 8(1),20-25.
Paul Amoateng.(2015).Sustainable development in developing
countries: ramifications of urbanisation and poverty. Retrieved from
http://www.openpop.org/?p=1054
No comments:
Post a Comment