1. THE IMPERATIVE FOR SUSTAINABLE CITIES
Fernando Alcoforado *
Abstract-The growth of urban centers has led to a marked decline in quality of life of
population, Increasing social problems and environmental imbalances, Which require
the adoption of sustainability principles incorporated in urban management. The future
of man on Earth depends on urban solutions That Are Implemented to Their benefit in
the scenario of towns
Keywords: urban planning. Building sustainable cities
The world's first cities were formed between 3500 and 3000 BC in the river valleys of
the Nile in Egypt and in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia.
Formed cities, too, around the year 2500 BC in the Indus valley in India and around
1500 a. C., in China. However, the urban phenomenon manifests itself significantly
from the mid-nineteenth century, especially since the Industrial Revolution. In the early
twentieth century only 10% of humanity lived in urban areas. In the middle of that
century, the city came to be regarded as a place of hope and opportunity for a better
future, modernization, progress and welfare. Since the field was regarded as a place of
backwardness, illiteracy and violence.
Archaeological excavations of ancient cities already revealed the existence of some
deliberate planning in the Greek and Roman civilizations, as well as the Far East.
During the Renaissance, in sharp contrast to the narrow streets and medieval irregular
settlements, planning contributes to the implementation of wide streets that responded
to a radial pattern or regular circumference, or streets that formed concentric circles
around a space center, called Grand Plaza or Plaza Mayor. These ideals of public
greatness and radial streets and in the form of circles stretched until the nineteenth
century, but the uncontrolled growth of large cities around the world from the Industrial
Revolution in England with a serious overpopulation problem and other difficulties that
arising caused the emergence of a new era in urban planning.
In recent years, there has been a slow but significant shift in thinking urban planning
and management. Abandons gradually the idea of the city as a chaos to be avoided, to
the idea that you need to administer the city and the social processes that produce and
modify. It can be said that a new framework is set of challenges for managers and
citizens and that key elements of dynamic pro-sustainability thought to print the urban
dynamics are already placed, forming a new repertoire. It can be said that the essential
combination strategies between ecological, economic and social is totally new and
challenging. This challenge has to be faced in the twenty-first century. And, hopefully,
happen in cities.
After the Rio Conference 92 and the Habitat II in 1996 was a turning point in
addressing the sustainability of cities. The main reasons for this change, which sees
cities as a reality that can be transformed for the better, and not as a problem to be
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2. avoided, can be attributed to two key factors: first, the failure of the policies of retaining
the rural population in field, and second, the actual reality that the city seems to be the
way that humans have chosen to live in society and provide for their needs. To reach
this conclusion, just see the statistics: in 1990 there were 2.4 billion urban dwellers
around the planet, in 1998, this figure rose to 3.2 billion and nothing indicates that this
is a declining trend.
Research sponsored by several international organizations, including the UNDP (United
Nations Development Programme) and the IDB (Interamerican Development Bank)
show that rural inhabitant tends to migrate to the cities in them because there is actually
a better chance of obtaining employment and access to education and health. Currently,
over 60% of GDP of developed countries are produced in urban areas. The future of
mankind depends on the Planet of urban solutions that are put in place for their benefit
in the setting of towns. In this new context, it also changes the way of looking at the
town-country relations. It seems that the future sustainable society will be mostly
installed in cities and that a "ruralization" of the human population, at least in the
traditional way, is not a realistic goal.
In the countries of the capitalist periphery such as Brazil, where reigns in cities like
Salvador, the poverty of the majority of the population, the low standard of living of the
majority becomes strongly discriminating factor in the organization of the new
metropolitan areas. In the internal organization of metropolitan areas, the influx of new
residents devoid of all forms raises specific characteristics of suburbanization. The first
moments of the overgrowth of large cities - cities or megalopolises - result in the
proliferation of substandard housing areas. The metropolises of globalization would be
the urban monsters of tomorrow.
The effects of globalization on cities can not be understood without considering new
forms of intervention planning, which appear in the evolution of urban policies and the
efforts of many actors to better manage the city. The growth of cities and new forms of
urbanization accentuate the dysfunctions resulting from uncontrolled urban
development. It would be catastrophic to let the market will regulate the contradictions
resulting from the action of different actors with different interests. The intervention of
government becomes increasingly necessary to prevent the formation of what some call
"monstruópoles."
There is a danger of choking urban congestion by all means of transport, a social
explosion by worsening forms of spatial exclusion. Who should plan and control the
destinies of cities and to all the cities that are part of them? Only the government with
strong participation of organized civil society would be able to avoid the
"monstruópoles" and urban chaos resulting from them and ensure good governance.
In Brazil, the population living in urban areas has surpassed the 75% of the total
population and is expected to reach 85% in the next twenty years. The growth of urban
centers has led to a marked decrease in quality of life and the growth of social and
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3. environmental imbalances, aggravated by recent structural changes in capitalist
dynamics. This involves working with the principles of sustainability incorporated into
urban management, focusing on issues such as reducing levels of poverty, creation of
jobs, implementation of sanitation systems, education and health; adequacy of urban
land use, pollution control , environmental remediation, use of renewable energy
sources, combating urban violence, protection of historical and environmental, among
others.
Building a sustainable city requires the adoption of a set of changes that depend on the
ability to rearrange the spaces, new managing external economies, eliminate
diseconomies of agglomeration, improve the quality of life of the people and overcome
the socio-economic inequalities as a condition for economic growth. Also depends on
the correct management of the environmental resources of the city, including water
resources, climatic conditions, soil, topography, vegetation, environmental deterioration
because of the cities is a result of overexploitation of its environmental resources, non-
respect their limits and carrying capacity of the environment to urban activities.
The search for an economically viable, socially just and environmentally sound leads
the effort to understand the new dynamics that govern urban space, which enable the
construction of articulated policies whose goal is quality of life, productivity,
conservation and social inclusion . In the world there are no sustainable cities in the true
sense of the term, and there is therefore, a city on the planet to serve as a reference. The
challenge is to think of all the parties related to the construction of a city in a systemic,
encompassing economic, social and environmental aspects along with others as its
distance from the sources of food, waste treatment, heating, use or reuse water, recycled
and recyclable materials etc..
The pursuit of sustainability should be pursued on a global and local level. Every city,
particularly the megacities, should adopt the model of sustainable development aimed at
reconciling the environment with economic and social factors. To achieve this goal in
the cities, it is an imperative to improve energy efficiency by developing interventions
to achieve energy savings in buildings, industries and transportation in general and
thereby contributes to the reduction of global emissions carbon and hence the
greenhouse effect.
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