Wednesday, April 23, 2008 Osmeña: Urban growth stress By Antonio v. Osmeña Estatements
“MODERN cities are centers of employment, education and culture. But they are also centers of poverty, delinquency, crime, prostitution, alcoholism and drug abuse. As a rule, cities offer less space, less daylight, less fresh air, less greenery and more noise.” —Georg Borgstrom
Urbanization is the percentage of the population living in cities and towns.
Urban growth, on the other hand, is the process of increasing this percentage.
Today, over 40 percent of Cebu’s population live in urban areas.
Accommodating these new urban dwellers will be a monumental task.
Over five decades ago, Cebu City’s mountain hinterland easily replenished the underground aquifer where rainwater percolates through the soil due to lush vegetation within. The unprecedented urban growth, specifically in Cebu City’s hinterlands, has caused environmental degradation.
Then President Ferdi-nand E. Marcos issued a presidential decree prohibiting the development of land with a slope or grade of 60 percent and over. Have Cebu City government officials and the Province of Cebu pinpointed these areas?
The rationale of prohibiting the development of land with a 60 percent slope is to prevent erosion, landslide and flooding of the coastal areas. Consider that 70 percent of the island of Cebu is mountainous terrain.
However, the presidential decree has now been amended, except for memorial projects only.
Is an urban system an ecosystem? Some ecologists and urban experts treat cities and urban regions as ecosystems. An ecosystem is defined as a community of plants and animals interacting with one another and with their environment. Technically, a city meets the requirements of this definition, but there are important differences between natural ecosystems and artificial urban ecosystems.
Unlike natural ecosystems, cities do not have enough producers (green plants) to support their inhabitants. Cities may have some trees, lawns and parks, but these are not major sources of food.
Cities also lack animals or plants that can be used as food for humans. Thus, urban systems survive only by importing food from external plant-growing ecosystems.
Although 70 percent of Cebu City and the rest of Cebu’s land area could be a self-sustaining ecosystem—if boundaries of the urban areas are expanded to include: (1) the farmlands, forests, mines, watersheds, and other areas throughout the world that provide input materials; and (2) the air, rivers, oceans and soil that absorb massive outputs of wastes.
Cebu’s political leaders need to have the political will to implement, as soon as possible, ecological land-use planning while the island’s population is only four million.
The goal of ecological planning is to help planners and citizens strike a balance among the four major types of ecosystems: 1) unma-naged natural ecosystems (wilderness), 2) managed multiple-use ecosystems (parks, estuaries, and some managed forests), 3) managed productive ecosystems (farms, cattle, ranches, and other managed forests, and surface mines), and 4) managed urban ecosystems (cities and towns).
Japan is the only country with comprehensive planning and zoning —the entire nation is divided into five major land-use zones (urban, agricultural, parks, nature reserves and forests). Canada also has a fairly comprehensive land-use planning program.
It is about time our country’s provincial governments set up advisory councils of government (COGs) to draw up and coordinate integrated land-use plans for an entire region. They should appoint experts, provide funds and the authority to implement decisions.
The rapid urbanization of Cebu due to the high level of population growth should now be a major concern to coordinate integrated planning program.
Considerable land should never be converted to other use except for agriculture. The environmental and social problems found in low-income urban areas are crowding, poor medical services, inadequate sanitation, garbage removal, infestation by rodents and other pests, uprooting of houses and community structure, and high noise levels.
