3

Comments

The concept of sustainable urban development is more or less related to environmentalism but it has seen some real changes since its introduction in the 80s. It can be described as a kind of development that satisfies the needs of the present without compromising the capabilities of the future generations to meet and satisfy their own needs. The concept further goes to have two key things of sustainable development. One is the essential needs of the people living in abject poverty and the second is the limitations that such things as social structures and technology have imposed on the ability of the environment to satisfy the present and the needs of the future.

As such, sustainable urban development aims to satisfy human needs, the future generations included, while at the same time protecting the environment and all that is in it. In order to do this, the ultimate goal of sustainable urban development is to get rid of or mitigate poverty, to tackle such things as unemployment, alongside other social inequities commonly experienced in the urban developing nations. The process therefore integrates 3 key aspects of development – social political sustainability, environmental sustainability, as well as economic sustainability.

Under social political sustainability, the government promotes democracy in an effort to satisfy the most basic of human needs through giving basic human rights. These include basic needs such as food, shelter, health care, education, and a fair and equitable distribution of resources and income. Through empowerment, the social political sustainability is achieved by empowering the citizens to be in a position to satisfy their own needs and enhance their own lives rather than rely on the government.

Environmental sustainability, as the name may suggest, deals with the environment business and aims at preserving the earth, and every resource in it, for both the present and future generations, but more specifically the future generations to come. In an attempt to address this, the environment business expects people to use only the resources that are replenishable naturally. Still on point, continuous use of resources, or using them at an extremely high rate may exhaust or deplete them, which needless to mention will lead to an unsustainable situation whereby the planet with all the resources that nature gave it, may not be able to support human life alongside other living things in it.

Talking of economic stability, the government ensures that work availability is increased and as a result empowers people to support themselves. This is where industries like sustainable farming and agriculture are promoted. Be advised though that economic and socio political sustainability are complementary and so much interrelated that for a truly sustainable urban development to be fully realized, both have to be successful.

People tend to confuse sustainable urban development with green development, and while these two concepts seem to be closely related, they are very diverse. This is because green development tends to lean more on environmental sustainability with less focus on socio political and economic development. As such, supporters of sustainable urban development have always argued that developing nations cannot attain green development because the countries will lack a sustainable socio-political condition and economy.