Imagine, a huge piece of land with only about 10 families.

Each family can have their own peace

of housing space and live comfortably. Fast - forward to another day, with the population levels
increasing and now about 50 families on land of the same size. You could still have comfortable
houses, maybe, smaller ones with less open space. Add few more years and now, you have 250
families and land of the *same size*. What do you do? You cannot increase the size of land
available but you can increase the number of floors each building has, right? Soon, you have
huge high-rise concrete buildings reaching the sky because, there is no limitation to the height.

This is called a jungle, precisely concrete jungle. Cities are usually known a human zoo, but when
the people increase and you need other ideas to accomodate everyone, you end up creating
jungles of buildings, or rather concrete jungles. This is the whole idea behind how concrete
jungles came to the picture and now have risen to the levels where it might not even be safe
anymore.

The mud hovels here slowly transform into brick-and-mortar affairs and then, one-floor flats. In
keeping with the new motto of up, up, up, the structures rise more than one floor. “I just woke
up one day to find building materials on the land next to my compound,” he remembers. “A few
months later, the monster was towering over my house.” This is what John Syombua, a
commoner living in these jungles had to say to the Washington Post. “Maisonettes and
bungalows are being slowly kicked out of the picture by highrise blocks,” he says, adding that the
real estate industry, just like others, is motivated by profits. “Logically, you would make more
money if you put up a highrise building that can accommodate 20 households or offices on a
piece of land that would ordinarily have only one house,” he says. While the population keeps
growing, land does not, and that means the value of any piece of land in the country will forever
keep appreciating. The easier way to address this problem, at least for commercial developers, is
densification, which means increasing the vertical height of buildings to accommodate more
people per piece of land.

In the quest to improve their living standards, however, people forgot to look into the future,
and now that oversight has come to haunt them. If you put up a 35-floor skyscraper, where will
all the sewerage and grey water be channelled to? Where will all the household waste be taken?
How will traffic in and out of these blocks be managed?

As a metaphor, "Concrete Jungle" evokes the worst aspects of modern urban life. Cold structures
of concrete and steel, with manmade towers casting the earth into shadow by blocking out the
sun. Bleak and unnatural landscapes, with the earth paved over and living greenery nowhere to
be found. People behaving like animals, competing with each other over scraps while struggling
just to survive.

Every time a new apartment is being built we are causing irreparable loss to the ecosystem.
Animals and birds, being one with nature, may even survive this as they have their valuable
instinct to guard them. But we human beings will suffer. Machines cannot quench thirst. Will
rainwater harvesting compensate the loss of a waterbody that served as a water bowl? The
apartments we are seeing now were once beautiful green spaces. Now that there is no space
within the city limits, we are expanding outwards and there is no limit, every inch of available
space is being converted into high-rise buildings.

Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect on the city has been talked about for long but now researchers
from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Kharagpur have quantified the UHI impact on
Hyderabad and the results have surprised quite a few.

Satellite-based thermal remote sensing images of area under Greater Hyderabad Municipal
Corporation (GHMC) limits were used. Continuous storage of heat in surfaces of urban
conglomerates leads to a rise in mercury. As a result, areas outside its boundary are relatively
cooler, turning the city into an urban heat island, explained Srikanta Sannigrahi, lead researcher
of the study and PhD scholar at Department of Architecture and Regional Planning, IIT
Kharagpur.

The IIT researchers found UHI Intensity data for area under GHMC limits and divided it into five
intensity classes - green island (GI), weak heat island (WHI), medium heat island (MHI), strong
heat island (SHI) and extremely strong heat island (ESHI).

The study reported that area under ESHI intensity increased from being just under 1 per cent in
2002 to almost 6 per cent in 2015. Area under SHI increased from 4 per cent to almost 24 per
cent. City under MHI increased from 19 per cent to 48 per cent. Land use and land cover changes
(LULC) were also noted in the research.

Under vegetation area in GHMC limits decreased from 21.3 per cent in 2002 to just 10.18 per
cent in 2015. The area with infrastructure rose from 41.35 per cent in 2002 to 62.87 per cent in
2015. In the same period the area under Urban green space decreased from 11.45 per cent to
6.15 per cent. Area under water bodies decreased from 1.86 per cent to 1.33 per cent.
Moreover, farmland temperatures decreased from 20.26 per cent to 5.17 per cent. While fallow
land heat rose from 5.66 per cent to 14.3 per cent.

While maximum temperatures did not show an increasing trend, the mean LST in built up areas,
increased from 25.5 degree Celsius in 2002 to 26.2 degree Ceslius. A reason behind it is the
increase in minimum LST. In built up areas, minimum LST increased from 16.1 degree Celsius to
18.7 degree Celsius. In areas covering aquatic vegetation, it rose from 16.3 to 19.1 degree
Celsius.

Farmland heat saw an increase from 17.1 to 19.7 degree Celsius. Under fallow land, mercury
rose from 16.5 to 19.4 degree Celsius. Green spaces became hotter from 16.6 to 19.0 degree
Celsius.

Land Surface Temperature up

The IIT study also found that Land Surface Temperature (LST) increased by a whopping 1-1.5
degree Celsius, in just 13 years between 2002 and 2015 in various areas of Hyderabad

What is UHI?

Urban Heat Island (UHI) is a man-made phenomenon. It occurs when land under concrete
increases while land area under vegetation, farms and water bodies decreases. As a result there
is a decrease in evaporative cooling in the process of heat exchange between earth and
atmosphere. This results in excessive storage of heat in surfaces which increases Land Surface
Temperature(LST).

http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/hyderabad/2017/jun/05/hyderabad-too-hot-to-
handle-as-concrete-jungle-expands-1612987.html

With cities being the home of over half of Earths inhabitants, it is safe to say that we are living on
an urban planet. Earth's population has been and is growing. This year alone, 75 million new
people are expected to be added to the population, which means 75 million new people will
need a place to live.

These realities lead us to consider the question: Where can we find space on this planet to call
our own?

As the worlds urban population continues to grow, so to must the area of the cities that contain
them. Necessary infrastructure such as roads, sanitation and water treatment facilities must be
constructed to support a cities inhabitants. Where growth occurs on the outermost perimeter of
the urban area, continual expansion of this infrastructure is a must and surrounding
communities may become absorbed by larger neighbouring cities. This phenomenon is
collectively referred to as Urban sprawl.

The Population Density Problem

Drag the spyglass to see how population density varies across the city of Tokyo, you will see that
more densely packed neighbourhoods are brighter shade of red whereas less dense areas are
lighter shades of orange. Tokyo relies on effective planning practices to prevent overcrowding,
but not all cities are as successful.

As more and more of the population see cities as desirable locations to live and work, so to are
they confronted with the cost of an urban life style. In such densely populated settings, space is
a luxury and thus comes at a premium. Cities are often home to some of the highest housing
costs in the world.

Despite this obvious drawback, living in a city does have its benefits. On a national average,
residents of American cities typically enjoy more disposable income and have higher paying jobs
than those living in non-urban areas.

These attributes all make the city seem extremely appealing, and it is easy to see why cities
continue to swell today with new inhabitants seeking to build a better life.

But what happens when a rapid influx of new inhabitants outpaces the cities ability to economic
capabilities or its ability to maintain support infrastructure?

What happens when rapid expansion and poor planning leads to uneven distribution of
resources and accessibility for some residents?

Slum Settlements: Consequences of Rapid Growth

Send keyboard focus to media

This is Dharavi, one of Asia's largest slums. It is located in the city of Mumbai, a mega-city home
to over 20 Million inhabitants. Formerly a mangrove swamp, the area saw a massive increase in
formerly rural workers flocking to the area to seek jobs in the textile industry. Now, with a
population density nearly 11 times that of the surrounding city, it is one of the largest slums in
the world. In fact, the area shown in red at left contains the residences of nearly 1 Million people
within an extent of about 2.5 km2!

Slums like this are an unfortunate phenomenon that often accompany the rise of a megacity.
When massive population growth occurs over a short time, infrastructure is not developed fast
enough to support it. Particularly prevalent in developing countries or economically strained
areas, slum settlements present not only a poverty issue, but an environmental issue as well.

As cities continue to attract more and more inhabitants away from non-urban regions, the
continued presence of slums will act as a dark reminder of the effects of unregulated rapid
growth.
Slum settlements are found in large cities around the world.

Click to view slums settlements in Mexico City or Nairobi.

Cities of the Future

Send keyboard focus to media

We are living in an age where cities dominate. As global population steadily rises, we must
consider planning for an increasingly urban future. By 2025, the UN projects that Earths
population will have increased by 1 billion people and an additional 10 megacities will take form.
Of these cities, most are expected to arise in economically developing nations in Asia.

Projected distribution of the worlds population by continent in the year 2050.

To mitigate the detrimental effects of rapid urban expansion, careful planning must be
considered at each phase of a cities growth. Infrastructure must be strategically designed to
promote sustainable growth and economic prosperity of the city and its inhabitants. With these
considerations in mind, we can mitigate the consequences so commonly associated with
urbanization and vastly improve the quality of life for future urban inhabitants.

The Map at right shows the locations and populations of current and expected megacities that
will be formed by the year 2025. All population estimates are calculated based on projected
trends outlined by UN Populations reports.
http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/files/2015/08/Urban-Animal-Sprawling-City-web.jpg

Mexico Slums

http://www.thisisplace.org/contentAsset/image/2a4c9723-e008-4b4b-b713-
cfe3e3424b01/multimediaFileUpload3/byInode/1/filter/Resize,Jpeg/jpeg_q/69/resize_w/1230

Kibera Slums

http://c7.alamy.com/comp/BX55E3/kibera-slum-nairobi-kenya-BX55E3.jpg

Projected Population Distributions

http://worldpopulationhistory.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/06/wp_graph_distribution_urban_pop_011.png

Information Gathered From

United Nations World Urbanization Reports

https://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2013/04/08/the-worlds-fastest-growing-
megacities/#5991f79324cd

http://www.prb.org/Publications/Lesson-Plans/HumanPopulation/Urbanization.aspx

http://webs.schule.at/website/Megacities/problems_en.htm

https://www.chapman.edu/wilkinson/_files/MegaCitiesUPDATED%20VERSION.pdf

http://www.who.int/gho/urban_health/situation_trends/urban_population_growth_text/en/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_by_population

http://borgenproject.org/5-largest-slums-world/

http://www.archives.go.jp/english

The concrete jungle overheats

CEMENT kilns contribute more to the world’s output of carbon dioxide than

aircraft and could soon be responsible for 10 per cent of all emissions of the

greenhouse gas. New calculations by an industry scientist reveal that cement

manufacturers already produce 7 per cent of global CO2

emissions—almost three times previously published estimates—and that

CO2 output is increasing faster from cement works than from any other

industrial source.

he UN’s

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change puts the industry’s total contribution

to CO2 emissions at 2.4 per cent; the Carbon Dioxide Information

Analysis Center at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee quotes 2.6 per

cent.

Now Joseph Davidovits of the Geopolymer Institute, a research institution

based at the University of Picardy in France, has for the first time looked at

both sources. He has calculated that world cement production of 1.4 billion

tonnes a year produces 7 per cent of current CO2 emissions. This puts

it behind power generation and vehicle exhausts as a source of the gas, but

ahead of aircraft, which have excited huge attention from politicians concerned

about curbing global warming. It is growing fastest in the “tiger” economies of east Asia,

where construction of buildings, roads and other infrastructure is booming.