PDK Vignette 'Concrete Jungle' Dl

Title: Concrete jungle Y our name: Duncan Hawley Institution: Th e Geographical Association, Shefel !"#" Description If the human occupation of planet Earth is geography’s object of study then ‘Cities’ and ‘Urbanisation’ are core topics in geography. The city is sometimes referred to as a ‘concrete jungle’. This is not surprising as almost all infrastructure of cities, that is the built environment from skyscrapers to seers and housing estates to storm ater drains, is constructed using concrete. Concrete is produced fr om cement. !s a conse"uenc e, rapid urbanisation calls for the manufacture of cement in large volume. T o make cement re"uires the supply of vast "uantities of limestone rock together ith huge energy inputs to roast the crushed limestone. The resulting chemical reaction creates lime # the core component of cement # by driving o$ carbon dio%ide. This escapes into the atmosphere. Cement manufacture in recent years has contributed appro%imately &'( of China’s annual carbon emissions. These impacts of ‘concrete jungle’ construction ar e easily overshadoed by the everyday e%perience of living in a city # hich may even take the built environment for granted )it is just ‘there’*. +eographical thinking can help develop a ay of thinking that deepens understand of the built environment and the ider relationships and impacts on ‘e%ternal’ )global* environments.

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PDK Vignette 'Concrete Jungle' Dl