4. Negative factors.
4.1. City population.?
Population.
migration.
4.2. Congestion.
Cost of land.
Concrete jungles.
Slums.
Escape.
Strangers.
Quality of city life.
4.3. Traffic.
Chokes.
Concentration.
Suburban sprawl.
Rush hour.
Public mass transportation.
Coordinated.
Last mile.
School.
Facilities.
Car centric.
Cargo.
Night time.
Surface roads.
Tiring.
Walking.
Health.
Apocalypse.
4.4. Pollution.
Cities, Polluters.
Air pollution.
Toxic.
Greenhouse gases.
Global warming.
Anthropocene.
Lakes and rivers, polluted.
Aquifers.
Oceans.
Value of water.
Soil pollution.
As cities grew, the population increased.
More significantly the population density increased.
The network of positive factors influenced the growth of cities.
This growth was much more rapid, after the industrial revolution.
But there are many negative factors associated with the growth of cities.
The world is witnessing a rapid rise in population.
The population of the world was around 10 million in 10000 BCE.
In about 12000 years, in 1804 it increased to 1 billion.
In 123 years, in 1927 it increased to 2 billion.
In 33 years, in 1960 it increased to 3 billion.
In 14 years, in 1974 it increased to 4 billion.
In 13 years, in 1987 it increased to 5 billion.
In 12 years, in 1999 it increased to 6 billion.
In 12 years, in 2011 it increased to 7 billion.
In 13 more years, in 2024 it will increase to 8 billion.
In another 18 years, in 2042 it will increase to 9 billion.
In the recent past every 12 years or so, the population has increased by one billion people.
Much of this population has contributed to the population increase in the cities.
The industrial revolution triggered one more significant demographic trend.
There was a large scale migration of people from rural to urban areas.
Industries which sprung up in cities created more jobs, and attracted more people.
Mechanisation of farming created surplus labour, which motivated people to migrate to cities.
High growth of population, compounded with large scale migration to cities,
created a exponential growth in the population of cities.
Cities pack the increasing population more densely.
As the city grows, the density of the population increases rapidly.
One of the driving factors for this, is the cost of land.
As the city grows, the cost of land becomes more and more exorbitant.
This renders the land unaffordable to most residents of the cities.
Cities which once had a population density of less than one thousand per square kilometre,
now have more than 30000 people packed into one square kilometre.
The city tends to grow upwards.
High rise buildings are a common feature of a city.
Cities have started to become concrete jungles.
Even this accommodation is affordable, only for medium and higher income groups.
The cost of accommodation becomes too high, for lower income groups.
These people tend to cluster together very densely, in certain areas, like slums.
Some slums pack more than 280 thousand people in one square kilometre.
The living conditions in these areas is extremely poor.
The hygiene conditions makes living in these areas very unhealthy.
The people staying here, play an important and crucial role,
in the functioning of the city.
Many technicians, maintenance staff, small vendors, bus drivers, housekeeping staff, etc. etc..
reside in these areas.
We can honestly state, that a city cannot function, without these people.
Future organic cities need to be designed, keeping in mind, the habitat needs, of all sections of society.
Organic cities, if it needs to be harmonious requires a new way of economic thinking.
If a city needs the services of certain people, it is the responsibility of the city,
and the residents who can afford it, to decently accommodate the supporting staff.
On the whole the city has become a suffocating place to live in.
As we become technologically more advanced,
and economically more affluent,
the quality of life dropped steeply.
Living in congested cities is no longer an enjoyable experience.
When they have the time and resources, people tend to "escape" from the city,
to places which are more serene.
Ironically these vacation spots themselves are becoming congested.
Do living in a congested city, make people more connected to each other?
Unfortunately no.
People who are packed together more densely tend to become strangers.
An important consequence of increasing density and congestion,
that it squeezes out many positive factors.
Increased congestion leads to more cramped living and work spaces.
A large part of our waking life is spent in the workspace.
Congestion forces these spaces to become more cramped.
Work is best done when it is enjoyable.
Congestion does not allow designing of spacious pleasant workspaces.
The same is true for learning spaces, like schools and universities.
Possibly the saddest victim of congestion is trees.
Trees take decades to grow and mature.
Some trees live for hundreds and even thousands of years.
Trees purify air, and create a favourable micro climate.
Trees provide a tremendous balance to human habitation.
Destruction of trees turns cities into concrete jungles.
The lakes are natural reservoirs of fresh water.
It captures rain water during monsoons and stores it through the year.
They provide a source of fresh water.
Congestion pressurises people to encroach on lakes, to construct buildings.
Millions of litres of fresh water is pumped into the city, sometimes from sources more than 100 km away.
When there is heavy rain, the city gets water logged.
Parks are natural recreational spaces.
They also act as lungs for the city.
When a city gets congested, parks get sacrificed.
There are many facilities like cultural centres, public places, play grounds, etc.,
which make city living a pleasant experience.
All these are compromised in a congested city.
In summary we can say that, increased density and congestion,
cause a steep decline in the quality of city life.
When designing organic cities, we need to give primacy to quality of life.
Technological progress and economic prosperity, is an inadequate metric,
to measure the quality of life.
We need new norms, to design cities which are pleasant and enjoyable to live in.
The worth of an organic city is measured, by the quality of life, it offers.
Most modern congested cities suffer from traffic gridlocks.
One of the defining features of the industrial revolution was the invention of the automobile.
Suddenly we could travel much faster than we ever could,
using transport like horse carriages.
Within a century, cities became so congested,
that cars could travel in it, at speeds much slower than bullock carts.
Connectivity is an important factor which drew people together to live in cities.
The roads of the city are like arteries in the human body.
They were intended to provide a free and fast flow,
of people and goods throughout the city.
When the arteries are clogged, it chokes the movement of people,
negating the purpose of city life.
There are many reasons why cities evolved in a way,
which made traffic a nightmare.
One of them is the concentration of work spaces, in living spaces.
People lived in specialised places, like residential areas,
and worked in specialised places, called as business districts.
People had to commute to work, which was a significant distance away.
This created a mass concentrated unidirectional flow of people.
The cities infrastructure was not designed to cater to this mass concentrated mobility.
Organic cities have a mixed use concept,
where workspaces are dispersed throughout the communities.
Apart from workspaces, commercial spaces like shopping centres,
also tended to become concentrated.
Any type of concentration leads to higher traffic densities, and gridlocks.
When the core of the city became too dense,
people moved to the suburbs, and built residences.
As the city expanded the suburbs grew further and further away from the city centre.
This resulted in a suburban sprawl.
This increased the distance from home to work,
which contributed to more traffic.
Work culture that developed in cities, developed standard timings.
Nine to five, became synonymous with office time.
This causes a sudden peaking of traffic, during work start and end time.
Appropriately, these timings were called peak traffic, or rush hour traffic.
This again stressed the transport infrastructure, beyond its capacity.
Travelling to work became a tiring and stressful experience.
We can expect that this has a powerful negative influence, on quality of work.
If quantified this could be an enormous cost.
Travelling back from work is equally tiring and stressful.
We can imagine that this would be directly impacting,
the quality of family life.
Work culture is evolving.
In future we can expect more of "work from home".
We can also expect more flexible timings.
The infrastructure of most cities, were built to be compatible with the population,
which they had early on.
As the cities population rapidly increased, the cities infrastructure could not keep pace.
Planned public mass transportation was either non existent or minimal.
It could not handle increased needs of transportation, in the city.
People became more dependent on private cars and vehicles.
The smaller percentage of people who could afford cars,
occupied a disproportionately large portion of the roads.
Cars require a large space of the roads.
A car weighs about 20 times the driver.
A chair which can accommodate one person has an area of about one sq. metre.
A car occupies closer to 20 sq. metres.
Lesser number of passengers hogged the already choked roads.
Cars needed space not only to travel, but also to park.
Invariably cars were parked on roads.
This compounded the problem, by further restricting the space to travel.
The lack of adequate public transportation, motivated more and more people,
to acquire cars.
This resulted in a vicious cycle, leading to more and more congested traffic.
Even the public transportation which existed, was not properly planned to be coordinated.
It became very difficult to switch from one mode of transport to another.
For example, people travelling by metro rail, could not find appropriate bus connectivity.
There also exists a large "last mile gap".
Public transport is available up to a point, but there is no suitable transport for the last mile.
An important need for travel, is children going to school.
Roads are designed to be car centric.
It is generally not considered safe for children to walk to school.
They are transported by cars and vans to school.
The natural energy present in children is suppressed.
School traffic contributes a significant portion of the total road traffic.
This further leads to increased congestion.
The location of schools relative to the location of residences,
is also important.
If the schools are too distant to walk or bike,
it creates a demand for vehicle traffic.
People also need to travel to facilities.
There is a need to travel to the park, to the market, to the day care centre,
to the cultural centre, to the club, to the play ground, etc..
If these facilities are not at a convenient walkable distance,
it creates a need for more vehicular transport.
When roads are designed for cities, they tend to be car centric.
To cater to higher traffic volumes, multi lane roads are built.
Vehicles move at different speeds in these roads.
Separate lanes are created for fast moving traffic.
Special multi lane roads are built to access important facilities like the airport.
Creating limited corridors for higher traffic volumes,
does not solve the traffic problem.
The rest of the roads remain congested.
The overall transportation efficiency, is strongly influenced by the weak links,
in the congested roads.
Road crossings provide major hurdle to fast moving traffic.
In a desperate attempt to overcome this, flyovers and more flyovers are built.
The city becomes a maze of flyovers.
This too does not solve the traffic problem.
Congestion merely shifts from one point to another point.
In the current concept of road design, the most importance is given for cars and vehicles.
The least importance is given for pedestrian traffic.
Building more cars centric roads does not solve traffic problems.
It requires a more fundamental design change.
Another vital need for transportation, is the need to transport cargo.
Cargo needs to be transported from and to industries.
Cargo also arrives from farms and other cities.
Trucks carrying this cargo add considerably to the city traffic.
Cargo and humans tend to use the road, during day time.
During night time the roads are relatively free.
There is no attempt to balance the load of human passengers,
and cargo transport.
This is one more factor, which contributes to congestion.
Even small parcels which need to be delivered to homes,
can be delivered by drones at night.
Cities and roads were designed to cater to all human travel and cargo transport,
on surface roads.
The underground space in the city, is not optimally utilised.
The air space available in the city, is also unutilised.
This concentrates all the traffic on the surface roads, leading to congestion.
Travelling in congested traffic, is time consuming, tiring and irritating.
The common experience of "road rage", serves to highlight the problem.
The majority of people arrive at their place of work, after this ordeal.
Though there is no known metric to measure this impact of tiring travel,
we can imagine that it would be having a tremendous negative effect on the quality of work.
We can assume that the magnitude of economic laws is immense.
Travelling from work to home, is equally arduous.
This again has deleterious effect on the quality of home life.
Overall city travel is physically and psychologically debilitating.
The most glaring defect in the design of city roads,
that it is not designed for walking.
Walking on city roads is unsafe, unpleasant, and impractical.
People have given up the concept of walking, thanks to the way,
city and roads are designed.
One of the fundamental ways to rethink road design,
is to make walking practical, pleasant and enjoyable.
Since the automobile was invented, we have made phenomenal progress,
in science and technology.
Automobiles have become central to our thinking process.
Any progress is viewed in terms of faster and better automobiles.
In this context, designing roads for walking, appears to be retrograde.
Why in heavens, should we walk, when we have invented the automobile?
Nature has designed the human body to be physically active.
However great our technological and economic progress,
we still need to be physically active to be healthy.
It is now widely accepted that being physically active is essential for health.
Walking is perhaps the simplest, most elegant and enjoyable way to be physically active.
We cannot force people to walk, even for health.
But it is possible to design cities and avenues, which makes walking desirable and enjoyable.
In this way, we can induce people, to lead a healthy lifestyle.
This would be one of the key objectives, of designing an organic city.
We have about 1.2 billion vehicles, in the world today.
About 64 million kilometers of road has been built, to facilitate movement of these vehicles.
About 130 million vehicles are being added to the roads in a year.
98% of the vehicles today are powered by fossil fuels like petrol or diesel.
With the current rate of growth vehicle population on roads will exceed 2 billion in 2035.
It is estimated to exceed 2.5 billion in 2050.
Carbon emissions are the major cause for global warming.
Automobiles contribute a significant portion of our carbon emissions.
Carbon emissions have to be cut by 80% if we have to stabilise climate change.
The intensity of vehicle ownership varies in different countries.
The US with a population of 300 million, has 250 million vehicles.
If the whole world were to acquire this level of vehicles,
by 2030 the world will have more than 6.5 billion vehicles.
This would not be a dream come true.
We would not be able to breathe, if these vehicles were powered by fossil fuels.
It will be an apocalypse.
The writing is on the wall.
We need to necessarily move away from fossil fuels.
We also need to creatively design cities, which require negligible private car ownership.
Also, roads are designed to make walking a convenient and pleasurable exercise.
Over a period of time cities became less and less sensitive to the environment.
Human beings carry the distinction of being able to significantly alter the environment.
The ecological balance that existed naturally, was upset by the growth of cities.
Cities became the major polluters of the environment.
This was especially more so after the industrial revolution.
Cities have polluted, and are polluting the air, water, soil,
and the environment in general.
Industry was fuelled by the easy availability of fossil fuels.
Coal was the most widely used fossil fuel.
A large number of so called smokestack factories sprung up around the industrial world.
They spewed out soot, smoke, carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gases, into the atmosphere.
They continued to do so.
After crude oil was discovered and commercially available,
they became another source of fossil fuel.
Crude oil had many derivative fuels like kerosene, diesel and petrol.
They became the fuel for machinery, most notably-the automobile.
Industries, machinery and automobiles, spewed out more soot, smoke , carbon dioxide,
and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
They continue to do so.
One of the most undesirable side effect of industrialisation, is air pollution.
The air we breathe, in many major cities, is now becoming more and more toxic.
This has a direct impact on human health.
One of the important ways that we measure Air pollution, is the amount of particulate matter,
present in the atmosphere.
PM 10 measures the amount of particles, with the size of 2.5 to 10 microns.
PM 2.5 measures the amount of particles, with the size of less than 2.5 microns.
A PM 2.5 of 10, would mean the presence of 10 micrograms of particulate matter, of size less than 2.5 microns, per meter cube.
Among the two, PM 2.5 is the one which is more dangerous to health.
It can cause respiratory disease and other life threatening illnesses.
The WHO guidelines for particulate matters, is 10 for PM 2.5 and 20 for PM 10.
Unfortunately thousands of cities in the world, exceed these guidelines.
In many of them it exceeds the guideline by 1000%.
Many cities declare an emergency, caused by atmospheric pollution.
It is estimated that millions of people have died due to air pollution.
Millions of people more are expected to die due to air pollution.
The atmosphere of the planet is a source of life, for human beings.
Now the atmosphere in many cities, is acting like a silent killer.
Cities which were expected to provide a higher quality of life,
now seem to be more dangerous to live in.
Apart from the local effects of toxic air, we are also impacting the atmosphere, at a global scale.
Human activity has caused the emission of greenhouse gases, resulting in the altering the composition of the atmosphere.
Carbon dioxide is the major greenhouse gas pollutant of the atmosphere.
Methane, chlorofluorocarbon or CFC gases, nitrous oxide are some of the other greenhouse gases.
The concentration of carbon dioxide has increased by 36% since 1750.
In the same period the concentration of methane has increased by about 150%.
These levels are much higher than what it was during the last 800,000 years.
This gives us an idea of the impact we have had on a global scale, of the Earth's atmosphere.
Fossil fuel burning contributes to 75% of the increase in CO2 over the last 20 years.
Another significant contributor is deforestation.
Many industrial emissions, also contributes to greenhouse gases.
A notable example, is production of cement, which results in the emission of CO2.
The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is now about 400 ppm.
This is the first time in several million years that CO2 concentration has reached such levels.
It is projected that by 2100 the amount of CO2 could increase to 540 to 970 ppm.
Increase in greenhouse gases, increases the natural greenhouse effect of the atmosphere.
The greenhouse effect is the process by which absorption and emission of infrared radiation,
by atmospheric gases warm the lower atmosphere and surface of the planet.
This results in what is called as global warming.
Even if we stop emitting more greenhouse gases, it will take centuries to mitigate the negative effects of global warming.
Global warming is measured by the average increase in the surface temperature of the planet.
This temperature has been steadily increasing since 1900.
It is increased by about 1 degree centigrade during the last century.
It has been projected that it will increase further by 2 to 5 degrees in the 21st century.
The real impact of global warming is on climate change.
Climate change includes global warming and its effects.
Some of the significant effects of global warming are:
Changes in levels of precipitation.
Melting of ice in the artic.
Retreat of glaciers.
Expansion of deserts.
Rise in sea levels.
Acidification of oceans due to dissolved carbon dioxide.
Extreme weather events, like heat waves, cold waves, droughts, cyclone, snow storms , etc..
Climate change has many negative effects on the environment.
Global warming and the resulting climate change, can result in the extinction of many species, and is a potential threat to our civilisation.
Nations have began to understand this potential threat.
Most nations have joined together to form the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change or UNFCCC.
Members of the UNFCCC have agreed to limit global warming to 2 degree centigrade compared to pre industrial levels.
They have also agreed to try to limit it to 1.5 degree centigrade.
We are in the unique epoch, of human history, called anthropocene.
It is a period where humans have made a significant impact on Earth's ecosystem.
This has happened in the short period, since the industrial revolution.
Humans are successfully and sadly, harming the planet's eco system.
Anthropogenic induced climate change, is expected to lead to many disastrous consequences.
Cities are the major contributors to climate change.
Organic cities need to be designed, in a way to ensure that this does not happen.
Cities have become large centres of consumption.
It has also become a monstrous source of waste.
Traditional economics incentivised production and consumption.
It ignored the enormous cost of the damage caused by waste.
Industries use water for processing.
The waste water containing many toxic chemicals are just let out.
Typically the toxic waste water is let out into lakes and rivers.
The large population of cities, were also large consumers of water.
The waste water of households, were also let out into lakes and rivers.
The lakes and rivers were the sources of drinking water.
Many lakes and rivers around the world, are now polluted by waste.
What was once a source of life, is now a threat to life.
Rivers and lakes, are located visibly on the ground.
There is another source of fresh water, which is located below the ground.
These aquifers are another water storage mechanism, of nature.
The study of the aquifer system, is called as hydrogeology.
The underground aquifer network, is part of the water ecosystem.
They are naturally recharged by snow and rains.
Due to excessive consumption, and wastage of water,
many cities over exploit underground water.
This resource is rapidly depleting.
This itself is a cause for major concern.
Over and above, over use of ground water, we also pollute it, in many ways.
Industries, pump out waste water into the ground.
Toxic chemicals present in waste water, pollute the fresh water in aquifers.
Industrial farming uses artificial fertilisers and pesticides.
These permeate through the soil, reach the aquifer and pollute the water.
Household waste water, let into the ground, also permeates through the soil,
and pollutes the aquifers.
70% of the earth's land mass, is covered by oceans.
Given the size of the ocean, we would imagine that it would be very difficult to pollute it.
But human beings are succeeding in doing so.
We directly or indirectly dump garbage, in the sea.
Most of this waste, is not biodegradable.
One example is plastic.
What was considered as a technical and economic boon, is now becoming a curse.
We produce about 450 million tons of plastic every year.
Only about 14% of this is recycled.
The rest of it is dumped, into landfills, water bodies, and the sea.
The oceans have now started to choke with plastic.
Plastic is one example of the many materials, we use and throw.
These are irreversibly damaging the ecosystem of the ocean.
Water is a precious natural resource.
Conventional economics do not reflect the true value of water.
We tend to take this gift of nature for granted.
Over use, wastage and pollution, is destroying this natural resource.
Organic systems do not waste or pollute.
Future organic cities, need to be designed for use of water, without waste and pollution.
Soil is another precious natural resource.
It is soil, that produces the food that we eat.
Over use of fertilisers and pesticides pollute the soil.
Toxic waste produced by human activity also finds its way into the soil.
When food is grown in soil containing toxic chemicals,
the chemicals get absorbed by the plants, and into the food we eat.
Soil pollution is another way, that human beings, are polluting the environment, and poisoning themselves.