Urban Environmental Problems: Air Pollution

Air pollution is a problem that affects everyone living in a polluted area. However, people perceive differently the issues related to air pollution because of their different living conditions. The challenge to tackle this issue, therefore, is how to approach a general issue but circumstantially perceived in order to convince the entire population that interventions such as zoning and mobility control would make everyone better off. “Concern about air pollution is very much influenced by the local setting and lived experience” (Bickerstaff, 1999). The greener is the area where you live and the more comfortably your living standards, the more reluctant you are to recognize negative environmental conditions (Bickerstaff, 1999). Even though air pollution is differently perceived, this problem requires broad solutions. Many cities are enacting policies that attach land use, mobility, technology, and monitoring systems to air pollution. However, implementing these policies is not an easy task because of technical and political reasons. Technicians have to establish an accurate baseline inventory to quantify, compare, and determine the relation between vehicle emissions and credits transferred and City Halls are reluctant to join federal and state land-based control strategies since mayors are afraid of losing their autonomy to decide what is more appropriate to their locality (Stone Jr., 2003). Mayors are also concern about the “the unpredictability of market forces related to urban development” since “there is no guarantee that policies adopted to promote sustainable land use would result in actual changes on the ground” (Stone Jr. 2003). In this adversarial context, planners have tried to address air pollution by advocating “land and habitat preservation, efficient public service provision, aesthetics, physical activity, vehicle miles traveled reduction, and the creation and preservation of urban culture” (Schweitzer, 2010). The arguments behind these policies are that once enacted they would help city dwellers live within less concentration of polluted air and would also reduce their costs on private and public health related issues. In terms of land use, compact development is the spatial conception that planners have been recently pursued (Schweitzer, 2010). Local governments with financial resources have resorted to technology such as GIS to increase engagement between environmental scientists and publics (Cinderby, 2005) Other localities enjoying less resources have implemented incremental changes such as motor-cycle control program and conversion to electric vehicles in Taiwan, tight vehicle standards in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and banning lead gasoline and equipping new cars with catalytic converters in Thailand (Walsh, 2003). References Bickersraff, K.; Walker, G. “Public understandings of air pollution: the “localization” of environmental risk”, Global Environmental Change, v, 11, pp. 133-145, 2001. Cinderby, S.; Forrester, J. “Facilitating the local governance of air pollution using GIS for participation”, Applied Geography, v. 25, pp. 143-158, 2005. Schweitzer, L.; Zhou, J. “Neighborhood Air Quality, Respiratory, and Vulnerable Populations in Compact and Sprawled Regions”, Journal of American Planning Association, v. 76, n. 3, 2010. Stone Jr., B. “Air Quality by Design”, Journal of Planning Education and Research, v. 23, i. 177, 2003. Walsh, M. “Vehicle Emissions and Health in Developing Countries”, in “Air Pollution and Health in Rapidly Developing Countries”, McGranahan, G.; Murray, F. Earthscan Canada, Toronto, 2003.