Urban Sustainabiliy - Essay Example

Critique paper (APA) on the "inhabitants and experts assessments of environmental quality for urban sustainability" from the journal of social issues. People are sculptors of their own fates and ways of living according to the minds and hearts they have got and according to the relations between what they have and what they are earning to get. Urban places are valued for their well structure and being especially in places where first world nations could attract people from all over the world with certain capabilities and abilities to thrive the nation widely and give them in return the fantastical type of life they have never dreamed of in their countries. Another reason to live an urban life is the progress in its growth directly proportional with the increasing wealth of people world wide which brings the question:after all the taxes that are laid each year,where does the population grow and why vertically and not horizontallyin other words,why is it that people with good lives in urban places could not be placed with better accommodation when life expenses are varying and sky rocketing Populations grow vertically because families stick together and find space to work and connect with people through wealth. Urban places have a better chance of growing horizontally than those places with poorer services who are growing vertically as each person in the block or family or cross-section investigated has to grow out on their own and wish selfishness for himself while growing up. Defining what an urban citizen needs is what every citizen in the world requires:clean air,natural beauty,less pollution and intoxication of natural resources,peace and quietude and simplicity of living and understanding life and people with less complicated structure of behaviour than that which is by the people of rural or countryside places. 'In the context of sustainable urban development, we discuss the assessment of residential environmental quality and the importance of considering inhabitants' perceptions of natural resources in urban areas. Two series of studies, conducted in Guildford (United Kingdom) and in Rome (Italy), addressed the correspondence, or contrast, between inhabitants' and experts' assessment of urban quality concerning two crucial natural resources: air quality and biodiversity. The Guildford study emphasized the accuracy of the assessment of urban air quality by experts and the public. The Rome study focused on the evaluative criteria employed by scientists and the public in assessing the quality of urban green spaces. The results from both studies shed more, albeit complex, light on the simple conventional wisdom about public versus expert understanding and assessment of environmental quality.' (1) This is true as scientists do not have themselves living under the pressure of the persons in need of the changes and challenges especially that their points of discussions could be more of a story than of a realistic impression of what goes on and what is the fact that results in such concerns and what they mean and what they impose on the people who live such conditions which could be fatal to their lives because there is no escaping it. Scientists speak for the purpose of being heard even though much of them speak to solve,but the point of differences resulting in both words of the inhabitants and experts is the realism of what the inhabitants speak of and in the semi-realism of what the experts speak of. As always,the words of inhabitants shown in expert's words leads to the fact and result that inhabitants speak out of emotions and not realization and realization of facts;that their perspectives of the problems is nave and unemploying reason and facilities to exert more effort to bring thoughts and understanding of the nature of the problem to the person who really lives such an issue. It is like what a doctor's manner of trying to soothe the pain of a dying patient by telling them that they are going to be alright except that they just have to wait a while 'and see furthermore solutions to solve it'. Experts believe that the ethics of those who live in the urban residential areas have declined and have made it impossible for any such help from abroad or way from the roads and routes which are conventional to be used to help and get a better future living in an urban area. While they are true,the residents of such areas think that scientists are fairly meek in their abilities to help and that they do not exert more effort to get things done and help them get over the problems and find fit solutions for the lax remaining problems of the lives of the citizens of these areas. The problem lies in tow points:ethics and capability. Whereas experts have the capabilities the scientists have ethics of helping and instructing and getting the best of the government to help. People,as they sit and wait for the help depending on how much they ask and want from the governments and experts according to the much they pay for taxes,find themselves in the critical zone of being abused socially by their peers in better areas and sympathized even though if their ethics do not submit the experts to help them but it is just based on what they believe to be true and what they understand is the proper function of what an expert is supposed to be functioning as even if he is an ordinary many:a supernatural problem solver. 'In conjunction with this continuing urbanization, problems such as air and noise pollution, or the lack of access to green spaces and fresh water resources are becoming more serious for large numbers of urban inhabitants throughout the world. As a consequence, the so-called "ecosystem approach," originated in the bio-ecological sciences, is increasingly being adopted as a principal conceptual frame for addressing urban environmental problems (Celecia, 1996; di Castri, Baker, & Hadley, 1984). Thus, the issue of urban sustainability has become a priority on the current environmental agenda, in both the scientific and the political domain (Moser, 2004; Platt, 2004)'(2) This fact makes it clear what is stated in the first commentary's commentary. People procreate and gain a lot of money and indulge in pleasures which they find in their environments as worth seeking and find to be the object of living. This philosophy of living subjugates the fact that objectivity of living life in groups forms which creates a sense of realization of others who are in need or unable to get their effects on people better enough leads them to only suffer the facing of rejection from those social peers of theirs who only manage to gain their attention materialistically through what they have got -and because of what they have got from materialistic influence and properties. Everyone loves to live the best lifestyle but the ethics of those growing up people who live in urban places decrease as they become shallower and shallower in the earth of reasoning why and what is the purpose of living life in the urban to be but to enjoy pleasures and live among others who have fine arts and designs. 'The idea of considering cities as "ecosystems" has been promoted in recent decades by different international agencies. For example, the UNESCO Man and Biosphere (MAB) Program played a substantial role in moving this ecosystem approach from what has been defined as a partial ecology paradigm, often typical of the natural sciences, to what was defined as a full ecology paradigm, including the social and behavioural sciences (Bonnes & Bonaiuto, 2002; Bonnes, Carrus, Bonaiuto, Fornara, & Passafaro, 2004). Within this framework, multidisciplinary collaboration between the natural, human, and technical sciences was particularly recommended, and the potential contribution of the social and behavioral sciences was stressed in order to better understand environmental processes and changes occurring within urban systems. According to such a full ecology perspective, the "natural sphere" (typically pertaining to biological processes), and the "human sphere" (typically pertaining to cultural, social, and behavioural processes) are conceived as interdependent and not as conflicting elements. Thus continuity is emphasized between the more nature-dominated ecosystems (e.g., wilderness and rural areas) and the more human-dominated ecosystems, such as urban areas (Bonnes et al., 2004).'(3)'This latter issue may be understood through studying human perceptions and behaviors toward urban natural resources and thus toward related urban environmental quality and sustainability. Here, the concept of "place," which has been crucial in environmental-psychological research, is particularly important (Uzzell, Pol, & Badenas, 2002). A psychological place-specific approach, and not only an ecological site-specific approach, is indispensable to address the issue of urban sustainability (Bonnes & Bonaiuto, 2002; Uzzell et al., 2002). this returns us to the main issue of the problem:the problem of ethics within society when facing a problematic issue such as sustainable urbanization.'(4) The problem lies in how to talk with people concerned with the issue and with people who understand what they are solving but could not get help to get the enlightenment of their researches into the minds of those people who are working with them and whom they are working for. The government or people concerned who are in power find it mind and money draining to find solutions because such people would never stop demanding and would not stop asking for more even if they are given everything. This results in a frustration from the side of those who work on the urban side from inhabitants who concern themselves with the falsity and inadequacy of what authors about the problem and people who study them say. A sit down to talk is necessary but there's what is more:showing decrease in the l;ack of modes of not wishing to work to enhance the inhabitant's living style and the experts being shown appreciation. Most people of urban places are of a good scholarly studying background but not in the state of humanities which means that understanding people and dealing is the rule of the jungle prospects which make it more easier to handle oneself against the others self which is usually even if polite a confrontational being. This puts the workwers who work to find a safe background to start with and from for the people who live in these areas someway to be unable to be thankful and unable to get them to appreciate what they do even if they meet half way through which is not what the urban people see since they lack expertise and also since they see the experts as 'imaginative in the way they want to solve things and want them to cooperate to get things done.' Also,selfishness in getting things done makes it understood that whatever any party would give from confirmative and affirmative actions to help and be helped in return will be returned in the face of the other as saying 'where is your appreciation of what i do to get things done when you were lazy to do things without my help'this manner of behaviour makes it unwelcomed to work for any of either parties by the opposite parties. People have grown to be confrontational and unable to solve problems and that they are the center of the universe when they act alone or with the assistance of someone else. This sort of manner when dealing with experts or with inhabitants makes each party loath working and trying to find a middle ground to find forms of understanding between such people and their requirements and needs from urban living from experts and matter of thanking from the facts of being aided by the experts. Although there is a great extent of realization in both it all comes down to one big problem:the framework's timing,when it should start,how long it continues and when it is supposed to end. Urban inhabitants expect things to happen in a jiffy because they are paying and want things to be gotten quickly and in a jiffy. Experts take their time to get things done because they are not the ones to be in the sphere of concerns which needs fixation and requries out of them to work fast and 'on the double' since there will be a need for requests and registration forms,etc which makes them have to go through bureaucratic forms to get things done legally. another point of how experts work is that they use fantasy and depnd on the speed of science to get things done and perhaps better in the future when things are done perfectly well when science progresses more. There is always the phrase 'hopefully will things will get better when science progresses more/as science progresses into the future'.but the inhabitants of the urban places need ready made solutions which could be executed immediately. This difference is important as it shows that the lack of understanding between scientists and inhabitants causes the gap of realizing the problem from both sides of its living individuals is shattered. Environmental policies based only on experts' criteria might run the risk of being misunderstood and eventually opposed by urban inhabitants if their frames of reference are too different from the expert frames of reference. At the same time, involving laypersons in environmental decisions is often considered with suspicion by scientists and policy makers; it is claimed that laypersons do not have an adequate competence in judging environmental phenomena, and that their environmental perceptions and evaluations often are biased and inaccurate (Churchman & Sadan, 2004). As the problem lies in ethics,the problem of ability and capacity to work stands out:this problem shows how experts are in need of science to keep up with their requirements and not be built or directed to the fun of the buyers alone without the ability to find solutions for the scientific and humanistic problems in the society. Sciences are directed to supernatural theories(string theory and quantum physics,etc) or to the problems of entertainment and what is beyond it from complications. These two directions find the humanitarian issues down and beneath the level of what is supposed to be labelled as important and understood to be a priority since people's aggressivenesses and abilities to indulge lie only in the sphere of themselves and not of those outside. While experts try to help inhabitants are not encouraging enough to help those experts work and while inhabitants work and ask for more progress experts feel down because what they do from works is not appropriately up to the task as the people who ask such questions want from answers. According to the ecosystem approach, changes in one part of the system will have implications for the quality of other parts of the system. Thus, discussing the environmental aspects of urban sustainability necessarily implies taking into account its behavioural, social, cultural, and economic aspects, and requires combining different disciplinary domains, methodologies, and levels of analysis (cf. Bonnes et al., 2004). The findings from both the Rome and Guildford studies demonstrate the importance of pursuing multidisciplinary, multi-method, and multidimensional approaches to the assessment of urban environmental quality, as also pointed out by Vlek and Steg. Complications rise due to the fact that such ideas of self encouragement of highly pressured and efforting people who work shows the sides of those who are ignorant by experiences and of experiences and those who are ignorant of expertise of solving problems and ability to get themselves out of the problems without any help from the other side,it shows both to be ignorant in manners of cooperating to get each other to be out of the problem by helping and aiding one another and each other well. What is lacked here is the discipline of understanding what it is like to help and be helped and how the ethical borders of both the inhabitants and the experts should be like to be able to appreciate each other and work sufficiently and efficiently well. Otherwise,the works of both is just effervescent in ways of being like fizzy drinks shaken and awaiting the minute to explode,that is to say,the works of the experts are delusions of discoverers of truth and what it means to be in a problem which sinks you in it and what it means to have solutions which are theoretical in a problem but require a little realism from the realistic side of the problem(whomever lives it) to give it an acceptable dimension to live in to work and exert the requested effort to get things done. People sculpt their own fates and what they see is fine and well to be able to live in its medium and borders. If experts and inhabitants could not talk about the pollutions and the ideas they have as being part of what they live in and are able to reach because of lack of ethics and ability to find time to help one another then the possibility of someone getting the problem done is low and is pointless because it is exactly like a total loss of character and what its key content is to get it fixed,which is the problem of what the inhabitants and the experts face together:the problem of cooperating in a fully understood realistic medium of understandings and ethics(emotions and intelligence). BIBLIOGRAPHY: (1),(2),(3),(4) Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 63, No. 1, 2007, pp. 59-78 Inhabitants' and Experts' Assessments of Environmental Quality for Urban Sustainability Wakefield, S. E., Elliott, S. J., Cole, D. C., & Eyles, J. (2001). Environmental risk and (re)action: Air quality, health and civic involvement in an urban industrial neighbourhood. Health & Place, 7, 162-177. Read More