In
the article “Developing Sustainable Infrastructure in New Cities”, Cho (2014)
claims that urban challenges must be considered in developing a sustainable
infrastructure. The improvement in performance and flexibility of
infrastructure must adapt to the 21st century extreme urban context.
Infrastructures in this era should improve a community’s quality of life. She
further mentions the Envision Sustainability Rating System, an evaluation tool
that measures the performance of infrastructure and its impact on the
community. She further shares her experiences in the King Abdullah Economic
City (KAEC) project and the key challenges of urbanization. She hopes that the
right project will help any community and city to function as a whole. While I
agree with Cho on the importance of considering urban challenges in
infrastructure planning, the examples she provided lacked details and was not
convincing enough.
The
first reason that makes her points incomplete was the lack of explanation on
how developing countries like Peru and Mexico managed to build the awarded
infrastructure. Developing countries must first ensure their people have access
to basic social provision such as water and education 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 of the extra
challenges developing countries face and how they can move towards sustainability.
Also, the challenges faced by both the developing and developed countries are
different. With different challenges, the actions taken by both countries will
be different. While Cho does mention projects in Peru and Mexico, both of which
are ‘middle income developing countries’ according to the World Bank (The World
Bank, 2015). She could certainly have given more detail especially the process
in building the awarded infrastructure.
The
second reason is because of the lack of explanation about her own KAEC project
and how the Envision Sustainability Rating System is applied to it. Cho only
mentioned her aims of KAEC sustainable infrastructure using the Envision
certification process and how this process allowed the infrastructure to
achieve the Infrastructure 360 degrees award. Envision has 60 criteria that is
broken down into 5 different sections: quality of life, leadership, resource allocation,
natural world and climate and risk (Beach, n.d.). It would have been better for
Cho to address how she plans to improve KAEC so as to achieve the points. Under
Envision Rating System, awards given based on credits. There are four tiers to
achievement, based on a minimum percentage of all applicable Envision credits:
Bronze, Silver, Gold and platinum awards (Beach, n.d.). Cho could have mention
her target for KAEC and which award she plans to achieve. Only then will it
seem more realistic and believable. Cho kept mentioning that she wants to apply
the Envision Rating System to KAEC but she did not mention how she is planning
to do it.
In
conclusion, Cho managed to convince me on the importance of considering urban
challenges in sustainable infrastructure. However, her article lacked detail
especially the process of applying the Envision Rating System to KAEC and which
award she plans to achieve. Also, it would have been more realistic to also
touch on both the successful and unsuccessful stories of building these
infrastructures as not everything has a happy ending.
References
H
Cho (2014, December 17). Developing sustainable infrastructure in new cities.
[Blog post]. Retrieved November 1, 2015 from http://www.newcitiesfoundation.org/evaluating-sustainable-infrastructure-development-new-cities/
P
Amoateng (2015, March 30). Sustainable development in developing countries:
ramifications of urbanisation and poverty. [Blog post]. Retrieved November 1,
2015 from http://www.openpop.org/?p=1054
S
Beach, S. (n.d.). Isi envision: sustainable infrastructure rating system. [Blog
post]. Retrieved December 28, 2015 from http://www.permatrak.com/news-events/bid/100073/ISI-Envision-Sustainable-Infrastructure-Rating-System
The
World Bank. (2015). Mexico Retrieved December 28, 2015 from http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/mexico
Hi Diyannah,
ReplyDelete“Another anti-Cho reader response” Haha
It was pleasant reading your article, and you clearly elaborated on how Cho on missed out the important factors.
However, there are a few things that you might one to take note:
In your first paragraph, “an evaluation tool that measures the performance of infrastructure” I believe that “infrastructures” would be a more suitable word.
In your second paragraph, “according to the World Bank (The World Bank, 2015).”, I believe it could be written as such, “ according to The World Bank (2015).”.
In the third paragraph, “Cho could have mention her target for KAEC”, “mentioned” should be used instead.
Cheers!
Nate