If managed well, urbanization can create enormous opportunities: allowing innovation and new ideas to emerge, saving energy, land and natural resources, managing climate and the risk of disasters.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Besides infrastructure, there is a huge opportunity in housing and urbanisation of cities - not only building new ones, but also renewing the infrastructure of old cities to make them more livable. This provides tremendous scope for large investments to fuel growth.
Urbanization is not about simply increasing the number of urban residents or expanding the area of cities. More importantly, it's about a complete change from rural to urban style in terms of industry structure, employment, living environment and social security.
The biggest thing growing cities need to do is minimize barriers to development so that as long as someone is doing good urbanism, they can get permitted quickly and get building quickly.
Cities generate most of the global economy, and most of its energy use, resource demands and climate emissions. How we build cities over the next decades will largely determine whether we can deliver a bright green future.
Cities can be the engine of social equity and economic opportunity. They can help us reduce our carbon footprint and protect the global environment. That is why it is so important that we work together to build the capacity of mayors and all those concerned in planning and running sustainable cities.
As the world's 'most dynamic' cities seek to manage their own urban growth, American state and local officials have much to offer. Our mayors can share their experiences in urban design, clean energy projects, Smart Grids, codes for energy efficient buildings, transportation safety, and innovative environmental solutions.
Our world is evolving without consideration, and the result is a loss of biodiversity, energy issues, congestion in cities. But geography, if used correctly, can be used to redesign sustainable and more livable cities.
Cities all over the world are getting bigger as more and more people move from rural to urban sites, but that has created enormous problems with respect to environmental pollution and the general quality of life.
I think ultimately, bringing more nature back into the city is a way to deal with urban sprawl and things like that. If the cities feel a little more natural, people like to live there more rather than moving out and dividing up another piece of land that shouldn't be touched.
Urbanization has relied on land conversion and land financing, which is causing urban sprawl and, on occasion, ghost towns and waste.
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