How To Deal With People

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that..." the world population has had a rather drastic increase in the past two centuries. Not only has the population gone up, but there has been a rather large influx of people into cities. The lure of jobs, accessibility, and comfort is calling people from the country into the cities, causing havoc for the environment, the governments, and for other people.

The two articles that I found (delicious.com/idanci) deal with urbanization in China and Mexico and what effects it is having on the counties. China is planning on funneling 3.6 trillion dollars in the next ten years, which is an obscene amount of money in my eyes, into "urban infrastructure". Every aspect is going to be affected: roadways, water systems, residential buildings, power plants, the list goes on and on. In China, the urbanization that is occurring seems to only be having a negative effect on the economy and the environment. As Sachs mentions in his books, China is consuming tons upon tons of coal and they only have plans to add more factories. In the next ten years, it is projected that over 60% of the Chinese population will be living in cities.

Mexico is also experiencing what the article calls "intense urbanization". More and more people are moving to one of the eleven urban areas that Mexico has. This is putting a great stress on the environment and it is becoming increasingly difficult for the government to implement the "green plan" for the country. An interesting side note that the article makes is that the average age is rising, meaning that there are more people who are older in Mexico. This means that soon there will be less people looking for jobs, opening up the market for others. The writer posits that immigrants will start coming back home because it will be easier to find a job in Mexico than in America.

A common theme found whenever one talks about urbanization is the effect that it has on the environment. The amount of people crammed into a small area is bound to have some adverse affects, such as the one mentioned about China. There was a book that I read once in elementary school that dealt with the future. In the book, there was a boy who was running away from an orphanage and getting into trouble and such, but one of the details that I remember is a conversation that he had with a friend. They were discussing the setting sun and color it was; the remark went along the lines of "the color is pretty bad tonight. I guess this means that we won't be able to leave the house tomorrow since the air quality is going to be pretty bad." Despite the fact that it is sci-fi, it can become reality. We need to take care that urbanization does not cause us to the push the envelope and attempt to squeeze more people into an already-packed space. It would be sad if our actions caused us to be like the children in the book, unable to venture from the house because the events from the previous day made the air quality unsuitable for human life. I know, I know, this sounds rather dramatic, but the amount of people crammed in an apartment building in Manhattan or the number of people on a city street in China should be viewed as a dramatic problem that needs to be addressed.