Controlling urban sprawl: the Greenbelt alternative

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Controlling urban sprawl: the Greenbelt alternative.

Summary

Greenbelts are a good option to control Urban sprawl under given circumstances. In

developed countries with low disparity in income distribution and low poverty, the belt

gives incentives to use more efficiently the available space. But in developing countries, if

the previously mentioned conditions are not met, the belts increase the spatial divide and

create a social divide as well.

This paper will analyze the definition of sprawl, its characteristics and what can be

the consequences of a bad implementation of this policy in developing countries without

other types of complementary policies.


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According to the UN Habitat 2010 Report,by 2030 all developing regions,

including Asia and Africa, will have more people living in urban than rural areas (UN

Habitat 2010). The problem involved in this forecast is the limited amount of space we

have currently in the cities and the way we are using it. In some cases the urbanization

process expands the boundaries of the city in an unwanted way (hillside constructions,

highly populated areas or in unstable geological locations) and we face the urban sprawl as

a public problem.1

To define the term sprawl we can say that is the outward movement of the urban

boundaries, but there are additional implicit features including low average density and

uniformity in housing in comparison with older centres, widespread strip commercial

developments along roads (in some cases these are big commercial developments with big

parking lots), major auto dependence, fragmented and zoned open spaces, separation of

land uses, lack of public spaces and community centres and finally, wide roads and large

financial inequalities among localities (ICB 2010). In theory, sprawl sounds like a normal

transition from the urban developed to the undeveloped rural, but this phenomenon is more

complex, involving different shades and supporters: some academics, urban planners,

citizens and others state thatUrban sprawl is widely acknowledged as an undesirable form

of development, due to its economic, social and environmental disadvantages (). (Razin

1998, 1). For example the fiscal costs may include sanitation facilities (Sewage and water

pipes), road construction, schools, and security facilities (police and fire stations). The

social costs might include segregation and environmental damage.

1 Urban sprawl has always been a pejorative term for the uncontrolled expansion of urban areas, characterized by

voracious consumption of land for the purposes of low-density development. Under the many forms it takes in variouscities of the world, sprawl happens when population growth and the physical expansion of a city are misaligned. (UNHabitat 2010).


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Urban sprawl mostly carries negative connotations but some scholars defend them

as a good signal of economic growth; thus we must know what type of progression we are

facing to balance the positive or negative impacts in the community. In most of the cases in

developed countries with adequate and low disparity among income, sprawl has a positive

connotation: it means that cities are growing because they are receiving more people and

the space is necessary to offer them housing, open spaces to enjoy their free time and new

locations for new companies, factories or other kind of infrastructure. When it comes to

developing countries with middle income and high disparity among its distribution,

undesirable effects are very common. Poverty, violence, low political power or in general

how is it expressed in the UN ReportSocial distance, is commonly observed. For

example we can take the case of San Jose, CA that saw its population growing

exponentially after becoming a part of the epicenter of high-tech companies today known

as Sillicon Valley . In the 1990s, the high economic growth during the tech bubble caused

employment, housing price rose for the excessive demand, and therefore traffic congestions

were a common denominator. The transformation of theold andrural San Jose (from a

small farmers town founded by the Spanish) to the highly developed and rich cities in the

USA2, happened in less than 50 years3. In the other hand, we can discuss the Brazilian case

of theFavelas 4, where recently the local government had to intervene because drug dealers,

smugglers and other criminals were taking the power in these areas causing the population

live in fear. Thats only one of the cases but we can see also how the unplanned growth

2 According to the 2010 US Census, San Jose lists many renowned companies with more than a thousand employees, andaccording to other publications, they household in the periphery have the highest disposable income of any city in USAover 500.000 residents. (San Jose, Capital of Silicon Valley: #1 Community for Innovators in U.S.". City of San Jose.March 27, 2008)3 San Jose started changing its economic activities as the WWII began. They used to haveDel Monte cannery and withthe war ahead, the US War Department placed Landing vehicles factories replacing the cannery.4 A poor area in or near a Brazilian city, with many small houses that are close together and in bad condition. (OxfordAdvance dictionary, 2010)


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moves the poor people to the outskirts of the city. Rocinha is a well know favela that

embraces 100.000 inhabitants in Rio di Janeiro, and become famous because in one side we

found one of the richest neighborhoods in Rio, where the luxury hotel franchise Sheraton-

has one of their hotels, and next to it we find the well decorated and rusted roofs of the

rocinhan houses, and in some cases we have found bad critics about the hotel for the bad

smells coming from the poorly implemented sewage system of the favela , or the security

issues in the area. Colombia and its cities are also a good example of sprawl under bad

planning policies. Bogot, the capital city had recorded prices in some of the most

exclusive zones, a price per square meter is around $5.200, which can be comparable with

Madrid in Spain but infrastructure and per capita income in both countries differ

significantly. Another problem that can be found in Bogot is that the public transportation

is based only in Bus Rapid Transit5 and old bus routes. Private cars and motorcycles are the

main transportation systems which increase the traffic congestion and pollution around the

city.

As I mentioned before, with the world population growing and relocating to the

urban areas, with high environmental pressure on the surrounding ecosystems, efficient

ways to interact with the environment, the city sustainability and inclusiveness must be a

priority to policy makers. Over the time, many alternatives to contain the sprawl have been

designed and implemented, but one of the proven ways that has shown its effectiveness is

theGreenbelt. 6

5 Is a term applied to a variety of public transportation systems using buses to provide faster, more efficient service thanan ordinary bus line using dedicated lanes. 6 An area of contiguous open land close to a city or village and might be a narrow stretch of land or a broad swath of countryside (Daniels 2010) that physically avoids the expansion of the urban landscape.


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During the post-war period, the idea of using greenbelts to hold the physical

expansion of cities was adequate, but with the evolution of cities and the dynamics of

economies, the belts have been categorized as an integrated solution to the concept of

sustainable urban architecture. That is something like re-thinking cities not as

agglomerations of buildings and roads but as green and live spaces, where people have the

adequate space to relax, have fun and sometimes generate economic resources.

From the urban planning theory about concentric cities7, the belts are the ideal

choice to contain sprawl but in practice, in some cities the belts are contributing to major

problems: shortage of development space, pressure on housing prices, segregation and in

some cases the sprawl over the belt only increases logistics and transportation costs for

some of the inhabitants. This phenomenon is more common in developing countries and

still public policies dont address the problem properly and triggers only other social

problems. One example to make this clear is daily transportation from home to work. In

developed countries, city sprawl has moved the location of the houses from the city center

to the peripheries but as many of the home owners have their own transportation and can

afford it the only problem is the road congestion. In the other hand, the non-wealthy or the

resident in low or middle income countries face a different story. The urban center is

cheaper and has few housing options; the people with more resources move to the periphery

and build bigger houses according to their expectations, but we are also going to find

people that cannot afford living in the centre and have to move to the outskirts of the city,

in some cases to land without basic utilities (potable water, sewage systems, electricity, gas

7 Even if the theory had lost some power for the new spatial designs in urban planning as the compact cities, the mono or

polycentric cities are still applicable. In terms of costs in transportation and concentration of relevant industries, thescheme is very efficient. One recent case of a planned city which is based on this figure is Sejong City. The newadministrative city of the South Korean Government. For more information visit http://www.sejongcitykorea.com


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and so on). This disparity causes problems like higher transportation costs, low

governmental presence, poor or non-existent educational facilities, women unable to go to

work because they have to take care of the kids among other big issues. These differences

cause theSocial difference above mentioned.

AlthoughGreenbelts have been implemented successfully over time and over the

entire globe, the debate always remains open about the social and economic costs of this

kind of policy. Can the implementation by itself eliminate the problems of inequality? Do

they really stop the sprawl? Are there unseen side effects on this kind measure? Can the

difference among developed and underdeveloped/developing countries affect the policy?

To address the role that greenbelts can play to close the urban divide, first we have

to analyze the implications of the sprawl in developing countries. As the UN Habitat report

explains,

From a social and spatial perspective, urban sprawl contributes to the urban divide.

It has a negative impact not only on the infrastructure and sustainability of cities,

but also on social cohesion, often exacerbating social segregation and

segmentation. (UN Habitat 2010, 11)

The urban divide caused by urban sprawl occurs mainly because of the uneven

spatial distribution. In other words, the urban periphery in the developing world reflects the

inefficient land and housing markets, creating the conditions for slums and other

infrahuman living conditions that at the same time creates a poverty trap and finally ends in

a governance and legitimacy issue. To understand this, we should point some

characteristics found in Latin-American cities that are present not only there but also in


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Africanand Asian cities. Lets suppose that the city is beginning to grow, and the city

centre concentrates all the resources as city government, prominent companies and other

amenities that make the demand to rise. When this happen, the city center becomes a very

expensive place to live in and for that reason poor people are excluded, but their demand

for housing still remains. The alternative for those people is to move out of the city centre,

where housing prices are lower, but in some cases it represents also a new settlement; this

means that the new land lacks basic infrastructure. In some cases, the government can

support this expansion and the taxes paid by the people are used to extend the sewage

system, the potable water lines, some roads and probably some electricity. When the city

government faces a high debt or low tax collection, the new dwellers just create their

houses without caring the planning policies, land usages, the deficiency of utilities or

worse, the risks associated with the location8 for some of them is the only thing they can

afford.9 When the cities begin to grow in the periphery with that king of pattern, the state

start to lose control and cant accomplish one of its objectives, rule the people. New

criminals appear trying to gain control of the territory and to perform other illicit activities.

If we add the inconvenience of living far from the economic activities, the transportation

cost increases for those who earn less money and ends representing a high cost for them

and also forcing to stay overnight close to their jobs as happen in Rio de Janeiro.10These

previously mentioned conditions are condensed in the termPoverty Trap.

8 In Colombia for example, poor people lives in the banks of the rivers or in some mountains with high probability of floods or landslides in the rainy season.9 In Brazil, the extension of these new settlements has gained so much weight that they become complete neighborhoodsand governments cant afford relocates all the people living there so the only option is try to regulate and avoid further constructions. 10 (UN Habitat 2010, 83)


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The section 2.3 in the UN Habitat Report notes that the poverty trap involves a

combination of six factors: poor job opportunities, living conditions and social interactions;

and high rates of gender disparities, social exclusion and criminality. The definition of each

factor is listed below:

a) Severe jobs restrictions: Find employment around the slum settlement is very

difficult, leaving the residents vulnerable to unemployment.

b) Gender Disparities: Women have to take care of the rest children and rest of the

family. Taking a job outside a fair distance from the house is not probable. Jobs

close to the house are not easily available for the previously mentioned reasons.

c) Worsening living conditions: Inhabitants of these remote locations prefer to sleep

close to their jobs to save time and money on transportation. This creates unhealthy

living conditions for them.

d) Social exclusion and marginalization: Necessary infrastructure like schools and

health centers are out of reach due to transportation costs and those that do exist are

of poor quality.

e) Lack of social interaction:Physical segregation in terms of distance, time and

costs reduces the opportunities for members of different income groups to interact.

As a result, social capital in its various forms is built only among the poor, or based

on other affinities such as ethnicity. In such conditions, the positive effects of social

capital are neutralized, because interaction among unemployed people for instance,

does not increase employment opportunities (UN Habitat 2010, 84).


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f) High incidence of crime: With low state presence, the outlaw groups create their

own rules and commit crimes.

As we can observe, the sprawl in developing countries is more negative than positive and

the policies to attack this undesirable outcomes when implementing the greenbelts must

aim to promote the inclusiveness of the people and the presence of the state and its

institutions. The greenbelts must be used as a tool to control the unbalanced growth of the

city, to promote the interaction of the residents of the cities, and as a place of enjoyment

and education.


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Controlling urban sprawl: the Greenbelt alternative