Urban Sprawl and Motorization

Increasing urban sprawl and motorization have become leading causes of environmental and social problems in recent years throughout the world, particularly in cities of developing countries. Urban sprawl is the disorderly expansion of urban areas, especially resulting from real estate development on the out skirts of a city. Motorization, which is linked to urban sprawl, can be defined as the increasing use of motor vehicles. Although motor vehicles offer some benefits such as convenience, their use results in environmental and social problems. All sorts of people are concerned about this issue, and making some suggestion to solve these problems. This essay will describe six solutions for the environment and social problems, and demonstrate that land management, reducing car use and using hydroponics or aeroponic technology are more effective way to confront these issues.

Climate change, which is caused by motorization and urban sprawl, is one of the most significant problems. Urban sprawl results in more energy use in transportation, and it also use in large homes on the urban fringe which leads to more heating and cooling. This creates global warming gases such as carbon dioxide into the air. There are two solutions that offer different degrees of effect for the problem of climate change. Nuclear technologies are one solution. In Gonzalez’s article, two international business organizations named the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) recommend using new technologies such as new renewable energy and cleaner fuels helps to reduce global warming. However, Gonzalez (2005) explains these technological solutions can only shift the ecological pressure and cut down the global warming problem in the short term. For instance, nuclear energy emissions will cause other major environment problems (Gonzalez, 2005). Another shortcoming about nuclear technologies from Gonzalez (2005) is that now