ASSIGNMENT: SUSTAINABLE CITIES

What are sustainable cities?

Sustainable cities are the cities outlined with thoughts of social, financial, natural affect
and strong environment for existing populaces, without compromising the capacity of
future eras to encounter the same. They are dedicated to achieve sustainability in three
areas: green sustainability, social sustainability and economic sustainability. The UN
Environment Program calls out that most cities nowadays are battling with
environmental debasement, traffic clog, and insufficient urban infrastructure, in
expansion to a need of essential services, such as water supply, sanitation, and waste
management. A sustainable city ought to promote economic development and meet the
essential needs of its tenants, whereas making sustainable living conditions for all.

Example: The most prominent efforts in making the cities sustainable are of Singapore.
With a populace of more than five million individuals, Singapore is prominently
recognized as one of the foremost forward-thinking green cities in Asia. The city-state
has created a Sustainable Development Diagram, which traces sustainability goals
driving up to 2030. The targets incorporate progressing energy effectiveness by 35
percent, guaranteeing 80 percent of its buildings are certified green, and having 80
percent of family units be within a 10-minute walk to a train station.

Importance of sustainable cities: Making cities sustainable implies making career and
business opportunities, secure and reasonable housing, and building versatile societies
and economies. It includes investment in public transport, making green open spaces,
and moving forward urban planning and management in participatory and
comprehensive ways.

Problems affecting sustainability of cities: Some of the basic problems affecting

sustainability of cities are pollution, global warming, over population, Natural resource
depletion, Water disposal, Climate change, Loss of biodiversity, Deforestation, Ocean
acidification, Ozone layer depletion, Acid rain, Water pollution, Urban sprawl, Public
health issues and Genetic engineering.

MAJOR SUSTAINABILITY PROBLEM IN KARACHI:

Pakistan is a developing country and Karachi is its biggest city. There are a number of
problems in Karachi which are an obstacle in moving towards a sustainable approach
among which Air pollution and Land pollution is the biggest of all. People in Karachi
don’t have access to clean land and clean water which makes our people unhealthy.
The main reason for this is the lack of concept of recycling, reuse and reduces. Air
pollution is also at its peak in Karachi and that is due to the lack of greenery in our city.
So, to overcome the Land and Air pollution and to work towards making Karachi a
sustainable city some steps should be taken.

STEPS TO BE TAKEN:

Following steps can be taken to make Karachi a sustainable city:

 Educating people about the concept of recycle, reuse and reduce.

 Green roofing initiatives should be taken. For e.g., building green house on roofs
of buildings etc.
 Setting green incentives for businesses and consumers.
 Promoting activities to increase forestation and planting in city.
 Initiative to clean all the openly dumped wastes.
 Chocked drains in some areas of our city give rise to different diseases. So they
must be cleared.
 Strict action should be taken for people throwing waste/ garbage on roads and
footpaths.

CONCLUSION:

Above mentioned problems are quite big and will require a timeframe of around 10-20
years to be handled. This might seem impossible but it is not. We have great examples
of some big cities who worked hard to move towards a sustainable approach and are
now prospering. For e.g. San Francisco, USA and Vancouver, Canada.