paf 3442 midterm
urban people
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What do market economists (environmental economists) believe is the source of most environmental problems?
Environmental economists are interested in pollution and other externalities, where some consequences of producing or consuming a good or service are external to the market, that is, not considered by producers or consumers.
environmental externalities
Environmental externalities refer to the economic concept of uncompensated environmental effects of production and consumption that affect consumer utility and enterprise cost outside the market mechanism. As a consequence of negative externalities, private costs of production tend to be lower than its "social" cost.
major characteristics of sdgs and why they matter to urban sustainability
Making cities sustainable means creating career and business opportunities, safe and affordable housing, and building resilient societies and economies. It involves investment in public transport, creating green public spaces, and improving urban planning and management in participatory and inclusive ways.
congestible goods
goods where at some point, consumption can become so crowded that use by one individual does interfere with use by another. These are public goods that become rival when they are heavily used e.g. during rush hour the usage of roads by each additional car causes congestion that diminishes the utility of other drivers. By charging a toll to control congestion the good becomes excludable during toll hours.
what types of cities grow the fastest
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how cities are defined
A city is distinguished[by whom?] from other human settlements by its relatively great size, but also by its functions and its special symbolic status, which may be conferred by a central authority. The term can also refer either to the physical streets and buildings of the city or to the collection of people who dwell there, and can be used in a general sense to mean urban rather than rural territory.[13][14]
two primary market solutions to environmental problems
A pollution charge is a tax imposed on the quantity of pollution that a firm emits. A pollution charge gives a profit-maximizing firm an incentive to figure out ways to reduce its emissions—as long as the marginal cost of reducing the emissions is less than the tax. A marketable permit program is a program in which a city or state government issues permits allowing only a certain quantity of pollution. These permits to pollute can be sold or given to firms free. Command-and-control regulation sets specific limits for pollution emissions and/or mandates that specific pollution-control technologies that must be used.
Rival goods vs. non-rival goods
A rival good is a type of good that may only be possessed or consumed by a single user. These items can be durable, meaning they may only be used one at a time, or nondurable, meaning they are destroyed after consumption, allowing only one user to enjoy it.
Urban Settlement
An Urban settlement is a concentrated settlement that constitutes or is part of an urban area. It is an area with high density of human-created structures. These geometrical patterns are usually in squares and rectangles and are well laid out.
Example of Vulnerable Populations
Children, pregnant women, elderly people, malnourished people, and people who are ill or immunocompromised, are particularly vulnerable when a disaster strikes, and take a relatively high share of the disease burden associated with emergencies. Poverty - and its common consequences such as malnutrition, homelessness, poor housing and destitution - is a major contributor to vulnerability.
why cities matter in sustainability
Cities are not isolated. They interact extensively with surrounding regions and, increasingly, with the rest of the world. Since the emergence of new discourses and agendas, such as sustainable development, climate change, disaster risk reduction, urban development, etc., scholars stress the need to create integrated and harmonized policies and promote a coordinated decision-making approach at local, national, regional and international levels. Furthermore, they argue that achieving overlapping objectives and goals can occur when decision-makers better recognize and understand how their actions, interests, and mandates link and interact with other components within the broader system of governance. Cities have significant potential in contributing to resource demand management (e.g., infrastructure, awareness, policy interventions, and community engagement) and urban climate-related strategies (adaptation and mitigation). Furthermore, at the city scale, there are significant opportunities for synergies between the sectors and potential for collaboration and coordination between the key actors responsible for planning and designing sustainable development plans, adaptation and mitigation responses, and disaster early warning systems, etc. There are also various significant sectoral interlinkages and urban synergies between SDG11 and potential innovations and practical solutions to advance policy coherence and interventions within cities. It is critically important for policy makers in global, regional and national governments and cities to understand these linkages and the need for coordination when devising sustainable development strategies. Despite the progress that has been achieved at a global level in recent years to help guide and drive local, national and regional processes on sustainable development, many knowledge gaps and challenges still exist that might hinder the SDG11 implementation process.
problems with rapid urbanization
Cities cannot keep up: not enough housing, jobs, schools, hospital, services, traffic jams, etc. The problems associated with urbanization are: High population density, inadequate infrastructure, lack of affordable housing, flooding, pollution, slum creation, crime, congestion and poverty. This problem of high population density is caused due to the heavy rate of migration from rural areas
cooperative management
Cooperative management means:- foster free circulation of information within the company, - establish, support and reward behaviors based on trust and mutual help, ... - mobilize human skills, processes, as well as financial and technological resources so that the company's goals can be reached.
relationships between globalization and localization
Globalization is the process of making a product multi-lingual. All language-related aspects of the program are separated from the code, and all aspects, which vary with target country, are handled in a country-independent way. Localization is the process of adapting a global product for a particular language and country. Localization includes translations and other conversion, and takes into account local practices and culture, providing a product, which is comfortable to use in the target country.
population vulnerability
Vulnerable populations are groups and communities at a higher risk for poor health as a result of the barriers they experience to social, economic, political and environmental resources, as well as limitations due to illness or disability.
Economic vulnerability
Highly dependent upon the economic status of individuals, communities and nations. In this paper, economic vulnerability is defined as the exposure of an economy to exogenous shocks, arising out of economic openness, while economic resilience is defined as the policy-induced ability of an economy to withstand or recover from the effects of such shocks.
sdg outcome process
goals- indicators-policy-outcome
UN-HABITAT (United Nations Human Settlements Programme)
The United Nations Human Settlements Programme is the United Nations programme for human settlements and sustainable urban development. It was established in 1978 as an outcome of the First UN Conference on Human Settlements and Sustainable Urban Development held in Vancouver, Canada, in 1976
Sustainability
The ability to keep in existence or maintain. A sustainable ecosystem is one that can be maintained
vulnerable cities
The most vulnerable city was Guangzhou, China, followed by Mumbai and Kolkata in India, Guayaquil, Ecuador and Shenzen, China. Almost all cities at the highest risk of flooding damage were in North America or Asia
Relationship between economic growth and environmental preservation
There is a long-standing debate on the relationship between economic development and environmental quality. From a sustainable development viewpoint there has been a growing concern that the economic expansion of the world economy will cause irreparable damage to our planet. In the last few years several studies have appeared dealing with the relationship between the scale of economic activity and the level of pollution. In particular, if we concentrate on local pollutants several empirical studies have identified a bell shaped curve linking pollution to per capita GDP (in the case of global pollutants like CO2 the evidence is less clear-cut). This behaviour implies that, starting from low per capita income levels, per capita emissions or concentrations tend to increase but at a slower pace. After a certain level of income (which typically differs across pollutants) - the "turning point" - pollution starts to decline as income further increases. In analogy with the historic relationship between income distribution and income growth, the inverted-U relationship between per capita income and pollution has been termed "Environmental Kuznets Curve". The purpose of this chapter is not to provide an overview the literature: there are several survey papers around doing precisely that. We instead reconsider the explanations that have been put forth for its inverted-U pattern. We look at the literature from this perspective. In addition, without resorting to any econometric estimation, we consider whether simple data analysis can help to shed some light on the motives that can rationalize the Environmental Kuznets Curve.
why sdg 11 is important
Therefore, it will be under the auspices of cities where we will succeed or fail in achieving our goals of poverty eradication, equality, climate change reduction, and ensuring healthy lives. It will be the cities that determine if we achieve inclusive economic growth or yield to greater inequality. It is in cities where people will seek opportunities for higher education and employment. And, it will be cities that determine if we will continue our steadily increasing usage of the world's resources or if we can realize a more sustainable path. This is why sustainable development goal (SDG) 11, "Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable", is so important. Success in achieving the targets under SDG 11 sets the stage for achieving targets in many of the other SDG goals. We can examine just two of the targets as an example.
environmental vulnerability
They are caused by natural resource depletion and resource degradation.
satterwhaite main drivers of urbanization
Today, the main driver of urban change is the geography of where profit-seeking enterprises choose to concentrate (or to avoid).
megacities
Tokyo, Japan. Delhi, India. Shanghai, China. São Paulo, Brazil. Ciudad de México (Mexico City), Mexico. Al-Qahirah (Cairo), Egypt. Mumbai, India. Beijing, China.
nonrival good
a good whose consumption by one person does not diminish its availability for others
3 pillars of sustainability
social, environmental, economic The three pillars of sustainability are a powerful tool for defining the complete sustainability problem. This consists of at least the economic, social, and environmental pillars. If any one pillar is weak then the system as a whole is unsustainable. economic pillar; The economic pillar of sustainability is where most businesses feel they are on firm ground. To be sustainable, a business must be profitable. That said, profit cannot trump the other two pillars. In fact, profit at any cost is not at all what the economic pillar is about. Activities that fit under the economic pillar include compliance, proper governance and risk management. While these are already table stakes for most North American companies, they are not globally. Sometimes, this pillar is referred to as the governance pillar, referring to good corporate governance. This means that boards of directors and management align with shareholders' interests as well as that of the company's community, value chains, and end-user customers. With regard to governance, investors may want to know that a company uses accurate and transparent accounting methods, and that stockholders are given an opportunity to vote on important issues. They may also want assurances that companies avoid conflicts of interest in their choice of board members, don't use political contributions to obtain unduly favorable treatment and, of course, don't engage in illegal practices. It is the inclusion of the economic pillar and profit that makes it possible for corporations to come on board with sustainability strategies. The economic pillar provides a counterweight to extreme measures that corporations are sometimes pushed to adopt, such as abandoning fossil fuels or chemical fertilizers instantly rather than phasing in changes. environmental pillar; The environmental pillar often gets the most attention. Companies are focusing on reducing their carbon footprints, packaging waste, water usage and their overall effect on the environment. Companies have found that have a beneficial impact on the planet can also have a positive financial impact. Lessening the amount of material used in packaging usually reduces the overall spending on those materials, for example. Walmart keyed in on packaging through their zero-waste initiative, pushing for less packaging through their supply chain and for more of that packaging to be sourced from recycled or reused materials. social pillar; "Social sustainability occurs when the formal and informal processes; systems; structures; and relationships actively support the capacity of current and future generations to create healthy and liveable communities. Socially sustainable communities are equitable, diverse, connected and democratic and provide a good quality of life." Another definition has been developed by Social Life,[6] a UK-based social enterprise specialising in place-based innovation. They define social sustainability as "a process for creating sustainable, successful places that promote wellbeing, by understanding what people need from the places they live and work. Social sustainability combines design of the physical realm with design of the social world - infrastructure to support social and cultural life, social amenities, systems for citizen engagement and space for people and places to evolve."[7]
resilience
the rate at which an ecosystem returns to its original state after a disturbance