Global Challenges - Research Paper Example

Urban Planning and Future Challenges The issue of urban planning has always been a challenge to urban planners and policy makers. Urban cities are sprouting each day due to different factors such as population increase and the changing demands of urban migration and ecological effects (Levy, 2011). This is a brief outlook at the challenges facing urban centers planners and policy makers as well as how these challenges will affect the US in the near future.One major challenge that policy makers need to address is the rapid urban migration and sprouting slum population.

This is due to the rapid increase in rural urban migration, which affects most cities in the third world countries, such as India, South Africa, and Kenya. Migrants into urban centers believe that there are many job opportunities in the urban centers hence necessitating the need for migration into towns to look for jobs (UN-Habitat, 2008). Secondly, there is a rapid increase in the demand for housing, basic infrastructure and social services. Infrastructures in this case include, water, electricity and sewerage systems.

The rapid population increases in slums have resulted to a hindrance in delivering the services in those areas (Sexton, 1979; Levy, 2011). Thirdly, cities are faced with scarcity of food and world energy. The scarcity of food is because of the declining weather conditions affected by the climatic changes in the world. For instance, deforestation in many third world countries have caused decreased levels of rainfall which most farmers rely on for farming in order to supply the cities with food (Levy, 2011).

In the near future, the US will face challenges that are different from other countries. Such challenges include how to address the problems resulting declining population growth and aging population, which have resulted to shrinking cities and deterioration in buildings and infrastructure (Levy, 2011). The second challenge will be how to address problems of urban sprawl and preservation of inner city heritage buildings. This arises from the growing demands of housing and facilities due to an emerging wealthy class and from international investors (UN-Habitat, 2008).

ReferencesLevy, J. (2011). Contemporary Urban Planning (9th ed.). London: Pearson Education.Sexton, D. (1979). Evaluating Urban Growth Policies with a Systems Simulation. Management Science. Vol. 25, No. 1, January 1979. UN-Habitat. (2008). Meeting the Urban Challenges. UN-Habitat Donors meeting, Printed in USA. P .2-15. Seville, 15-16 October 2008. p. 1-5.