Effects of Urbanization in the United States - Term Paper Example

Effects of Urbanization in the United s HERE HERE E-MAIL ADDRESS HERE HERE Urbanization can be defined as the creation of various factories, housing developments, increases in population, and even various infrastructure improvements. The impact of such development can be noticed in terms of human lifestyle and in local ecosystems. This paper describes how urbanization creates specific outcomes for different regions of the United States. Effects of Urbanization in the United States Introduction Whenever particular regions of the country experience urban development, such as the completion of various infrastructure projects and commercial improvements, this is considered regional urbanization. Population increases leading to mass transit systems and a wide variety of employment locations represents the contemporary urban landscape. However, when urbanization occurs, the development of commercial and residential projects (amongst countless others) can alter the landscape in a variety of ways. This paper identifies both the human-related outcomes of urbanization and the impact of such development on the external environment. Urbanization and its Effects Kocak and Carroll (2008) offer that when areas of the country experience high population levels, church attendance and religious devotion tend to increase. This is likely due to the fact that as population levels increase, community issues become more and more prevalent such as the increase in criminal behavior and incidents of poverty and homelessness. This is supported by Henslin (2003) who offers that urban regions maintain the most measurable crime statistics. With this having been offered, the church provides a forum in which community members can work together to combat criminal behaviors and secure the plight of the impoverished, allowing the church to act as a medium for better community relations and community improvements. Though the aforementioned effect of urbanization involves the church, the research does tend to point toward higher levels of community and citizen respect being borne of urban development. Higher concentrations of population would likely create a situation in which people are drawn together, based on theories of human psychology and the motivation to interact socially. This would provide opportunities to discuss community-related issues and work, as a diverse community, to solve these issues. In essence, urbanization simply creates a forum by which community members can establish positive relationships and discuss improvements to the urban region and the human condition. From another human perspective, urbanization also increases the frequency by which individuals change job careers. A recent study measuring job turnover ratios in a variety of urbanized and non-urbanized regions discovered that job mobility is linked closely to urbanization (Finney and Kohlhase, 2008). When urban regions maintain a wide variety of educational facilities and business environments, this creates a broader series of job-related opportunities. The development of more businesses, more commercial outlets and the development of a positive, total infrastructure simply provides superior choice to today’s workers. Changing jobs frequently would be a sizeable problem for companies who are often forced to dedicate significant financial and labor-related resources to provide adequate training to employees (Mathis and Jackson, 2005). This would represent a negative outcome, from the business’ perspective, as urban regions provide higher turnover ratios and cost the company more financial resources. However, from the worker’s perspective, having multitudes of choices in job role is likely a very positive motivation to succeed as an outcome of urbanization. Outside of the human condition, urbanization maintains the ability to affect drinking water supplies and impacts aquatic life (Coles, Cuffney, McMahon and Beaulieu, 2004). When land has been developed, to include homes, parking lots, highways and other infrastructure projects, precipitation is unable to penetrate into the deeper ground levels, providing an inferior groundwater and natural drinking water system (Coles et al). This would represent a significant problem in today’s urban areas when issues of the region’s watershed make development agencies wonder whether the region will be able to provide adequate drinking water for the local citizenry. From a rather common sense point of view, urbanization also provides the convenience and quality necessary for people to live rewarding lives. Urban areas often are planned according the Concentric Zone Model which essentially describes the desired relationship between the human being and their environment. The Concentric Zone Model considers a city concept as the center of business and commercial activities, expanding outward to create viable living areas of a city or metropolis (Henslin). The distance between the center of activities and the residential area, as one example, determine the necessity for mass transit systems or the development of inter-connecting highways. In this Concentric Zone Model, urbanization creates the various infrastructure improvements necessary for people to live, commute, and enjoy recreation by planning an entire city with specific concentric areas from the city’s center. This provides citizens with the tools necessary, unlike their rural counterparts, to maintain a fulfilling life with opportunities for business development and social interaction. It is important to identify the various effects of urbanization on people as psychology often understands people as beings who are motivated by both culture and the drive for positive socialization (Morris and Maisto, 2005). Most psychological models recognize that cultural influence can impact healthy personality development, thus the largest impact of urbanization is the provision of better social and recreational areas to fuel healthy, adult psychological development and growth. Essentially, urbanization can serve to satisfy the self by providing opportunities which are not commonly found in under-developed regions of the country. The replenishment of groundwater systems relies on the ability for natural precipitation (snow, rain, etc.) to permeate the deeper layers of the Earth. When concrete infrastructure developments are designed to move natural water away from populated, urban regions, such as into the local sewer system, there is no opportunity for the water to naturally seep into the ground. Even though many urban regions have systems which recycle sewage into drinking water, the process of water re-routing in urban systems will serve to deplete the natural watershed. From a cost perspective, it would seem that sewage redevelopment would be much costlier than allowing natural activities to occur in order to provide drinking water. From a habitat and wildlife perspective, urbanization is decreasing the amphibian populations by tremendous amounts (Riley, Busteed, Kats, Vandergon, Lee, Dagit, Kirby, Fisher and Sauvajot, 2005). In fact, a recent survey of the Los Angeles invertebrate habitats in 35 community streams indicated a decrease in the watershed and fewer species of indigenous wildlife such as the California newt (Riley et al). Additionally, the survey identified that the volume of water flowing through the streams had been reduced, which was likely due to the diminished groundwater caused by urban development and water re-routing in the city areas. The changes to wildlife and the removal of amphibian creatures in California tend to illustrate that urban development maintains the ability to throw off the balance of nature. For instance, streams in highly urbanized regions in California were shown to have several varieties of exotic crayfish and fish (Riley et al), illustrating that urbanization efforts also maintain the ability to change the prevalence of certain species in urban regions. When foreign species are driving out the domestic and indigenous creatures, this would be of considerable concern to ecological advocates as a long-term problem with the environment. If local ecosystems rely on indigenous creates to sustain a healthy environmental balance, the development of foreign amphibians and other aquatic creatures will likely lead to further problems as the food chain is affected or restructured. Whenever animal life is affected in a region, there are sure to be consequences which are not immediately recognizable. Urbanization has led to the development of various watershed testing procedures and stream ecology projects which likely would not have existed if the regions were under-developed and not fully urbanized. This would suggest that another effect of urbanization is the development of more quality tools to assess the human impact on the external environment. This would be a positive research and development guide for any urban region. Conclusion Clearly, urbanization maintains a wide variety of both positive and negative impacts both on the human condition and the external environment. Ground water problems and animal population decreases appear to be the more prominent effects of urbanization while improvements to the human psychological condition and the provision of job opportunities are positive outcomes of urban development. Additionally, when people are given more quality infrastructure from a social perspective, such as church involvement or personal recreation facilities, the ability to coordinate efforts to combat urban problems becomes a positive outcome of urbanization. There are likely a wide variety of additional effects of urbanization all across the United States, however those described in this project would appear to be the most primary benefits and pitfalls of the urban development model in today’s society. Bibliography Coles, J., T. Cuffney, G. McMahon and K. Beaulieu. 2004 The Effects of Urbanization on the Biological, Physical, and Chemical Characteristics of Coastal New England Streams. (http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/pp1695/pp1695_report_new.pdf) Accessed 23 Nov 2008 Finney, M. and J. Kohlhase. 2008 The Effect of Urbanization on Labor Turnover Journal of Regional Science, Heightstown. 48(2): 311. Henslin, James M. 2003 Sociology: A Down to Earth Approach, 2nd ed. A&B Publishing, Chicago. Kocak, O. and G. Carroll. 2008 “Growing Church Organizations in Diverse U.S. Communities”. The American Journal of Sociology, Chicago. 113(5): 1272. Mathis, R. & J. Jackson. 2005 Human Resource Management. 7th ed McGraw-Hill Irwin. Morris, M. and A. Maisto. 2005 Psychology: An Introduction, 12th ed. Pearson Prentice Hall. Riley, S., G. Busteed, L. Kats, T. Vandergon, L. Lee, R. Dagit, J. Kerby, R. Fisher and R. Sauvajot. 2005 Effects of Urbanization on the Distribution and Abundance of Amphibians and Invasive Species in Southern California Streams. Department of Biology, U.S. Geological Survey. (http://www.wsu.edu/~storfer/pdfs/Riley2005.pdf). Accessed 24 Nov 2008 Read More