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Opportunities
- Education and employment
- Technological innovations (e.g., reduce carbon emissions, improve mobility)
Education and Employment
Cities are centre of learning with various educational institutions such as vocational schools and universities. Education enables people to gain useful knowledge and skills which help them gain employment. Businesses benefit from the concentration of educational institutions as they can hire directly from a large pool of skilled people.
Technological innovations
There are many skilled people living in cities such as researchers, designers and entrepreneurs. There is also funding from government and investors for these people to experiment with new ideas. Thus cities are known for technological innovation where scientific knowledge is used to create new products and services. Watch the video on a smart city below.
What do you think of an eco "smart" city?
https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/singapore-tengah-eco-town/index.html
Solar panels on top of HDB block in Sengkang.
Solar panels are also installed on the rooftop of school building. The following was captured in Edgefield Secondary School. Total electricity generated from the solar panel in eight months could power 1197 4 room flats! A reduction of 174 tons (157,850kg) of carbon emission!
Vegetation:
The plants on the exterior of the buildings in this nursing home in Hougang would definitely reduce the heat absorbed. One way to reduce urban heat in the area as well as cooling the interior.
Green Buildings in Ecotown Tampines.
Several buildings in Tampines central may soon be retrofitted with a cooling system that is more energy efficient. This can lead to 17 to 18 % reduction in electricity consumption.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/sustainability/tampines-cooling-buildings-eco-friendly-towns-2122426
2. Building Facade:
Cool paint - A new type of heat-reflective paint will be used on some 130 Housing Board blocks in Tampines, under a pilot project that aims to reduce ambient temperatures by up to 2 degree Celsius.
More updates on cool paint in HDB towns
https://olevelgeog.blogspot.com/2025/02/cooling-hdb-towns.html
3. Water bodies and features:
Ponds and pools in the design of urban spaces help to prevent overheating. Punggol waterway was artificially completed in 2011.
Challenges
- Increased environmental pollution (e.g., water pollution, air pollution)
- Competition for natural resources (e.g., land, water)
Researchers from Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) and the United Kingdom’s University of Brighton took seawater samples between 2017 and 2018 in four locations at Jakarta Bay. Their study found that there were 610 nanograms per litre (ng/l) of paracetamol in Angke and 420 ng/l in Ancol. Angke is a highly populated area in Jakarta with inadequate sanitation, while Ancol is north of the city where the mouth of the main Ciliwung river is situated. Long-term exposure with low or high concentrations of paracetamol causes impaired reproductive function in shellfish.
Greenpeace Indonesia ocean campaigner Arifsyah Nasution suggested that the source of the paracetamol could be from industrial waste disposal, especially by the pharmaceutical companies. Hospital waste as well as domestic consumption are other possible sources of the pollution, he said. He noted that the study indicates that waste management in the megacity is still poor because law enforcement and monitoring are weak, due to a lack of political will. The concentration of paracetamol detected can also indicate that the water circulation in several locations in the Jakarta Bay is impeded due to various reclamation projects that have been running for years in the coastal areas of Jakarta. there is a need to improve the city’s waste management facilities and the government to conduct further studies to identify the source of the problem and determine the necessary steps needed.
Air pollution in Jakarta was so bad that the civil servants were asked to work from home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RcMikXORYw
Look at how rapidly the cities in China is growing. There was an energy crisis in China Oct 2021. One of major challenge of cities is the provision of energy.
Source: https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/ex/sustainablecitiescollective/friday-fun-these-maps-help-visualize-world-s-urban-growth/1025051/
• Competition for natural resources e.g. land resource
As population size continues to grow in cities, large amounts of resources are needed to build infrastructure and supply materials for industrial use, resulting in competition for natural resources.
Competition for Land Resource: What happens if the land area of a city is insufficient?
Cities may expand towards rural areas, replacing forests and farmlands, or leveling hills;
Rebuild part of the current city to use land more intensively, such as replacing low-lying buildings with taller ones.
Competition for land can lead to conflicts when existing residents have to relocate to make way for new buildings for other uses.
Competition for Water Resource: What happens if the water supply of a city is insufficient?
Cities need to ensure the continual supply of clean water to meet the needs of people and business.
However, competition for land may limit the construction or expansion of reservoirs.
Water catchment areas and groundwater are also affected as more natural vegetation is converted to concrete surfaces
For example, in July 2018, the city of Cape Town in South Africa turned off the water taps for homeless and businesses.
• This was because the water level in the reservoirs had dropped to dangerously low levels.
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