To what extent can urban areas be sustainable
A sustainable city is a city that can meet the needs of the present without hindering the needs of future generations. To create a sustainable city many different factors need to be considered such as transport, energy and waste disposal. With the vast improvements to modern technology in the modern world it has become far easier for urban areas to become sustainable in many different ways. As the population of many urban areas is rapidly increasing, the need for sustainable transport has increased, meaning for an urban area to become sustainable it needs to implement major changes in its transport system. Also as consumption of energy increases with population growth it is now a requirement that there is a reshuffle on the amount of energy wasted and used in urban areas, as sustainability would not be achieved otherwise.
In the UK alone the level of traffic has increased by 12% since 1998, meaning a requirement for new and improved forms of transport, which will not only reduce congestion, but also reduce the amount of energy used at the same time. With this increase in traffic congestion brought an increase in air pollution, which could have caused risks to the livelihoods of future generations. The pollution would have caused major health problems to the future generations such as asthma. An example of a city, which has reduced the emissions and therefore became more sustainable through its new and improved transport system, is Leicester, which was the UK’s First environmental city. Leicester put together a scheme, which dealt with the air pollution, which was present in the city. They put in place a major cycle map of the city with new and improved paths and cycle lanes alongside a new bike park in the CBD with room for over 120 bikes. This shows how an urban area can become sustainable through improvements to transport as due to this implementation, traffic congestion in and around Leicester’s CBD saw a...