The Impact of Overpopulation on the Sustainability of Urban Areas - Essay Example

Introduction Overpopulation has become a major menace to both developing and developed nations. Increase in population is normally in major towns and cities. It normally occurs either through migrations, especially rural-urban migration or through increased birth rates, or both. Overpopulation directly leads to a number of problems within the given area. Overpopulation has influenced the sustainability of the increased population in the affected urban areas thereby prompting the discussion of the sustainability of resources, social and economic amenities, the authorities, and the people in general given instances of overpopulation in urban areas. Discussion One of the direct causes of overpopulation is overcrowding. With an increase in population, people fill public and social areas. This means that the public areas will not adequately cater for the needs of the people. Close to this are the increased cases of traffic jams. More people will not only imply congestions on the streets, but also on the roads. It emergence due to the need of people wanting to move from one place to another, but at the end of it all efficient movement is hampered (Evans 17). As the population of people increases in a given area, the quality of life depreciates as housing and living conditions are immensely affected. This slowly leads to the emergence of shanty housing and slums (Evans 141). The case of poor housing emerges because the current plans of a certain city are not able to handle an unexpected explosion of population. Both increase in population and its derived effect of poor housing put a strain on infrastructure. City planners face waking challenge of laying necessary infrastructure to cater for necessary needs of the people (Evans 160). These include electrical cables, water pipes, and well accessible roads. The government faces a huge problem of providing services to its citizens in an efficient manner. The issue of inadequate provision of piped water draws another problem. Increase in population in this case limits access to clean water by most people. This practically means that provision of water services from the relevant authorities lowers. On the other side, an increase in the number of people will imply that in order to cater for everyone, there will be water rationing and water shortages. There is increase in water shortages in cases where the country’s water resources cannot serve the particular city or town appropriately (Evans 38). Along with the water resources, other resources of the country’s economy become strained. These include energy resources, basic needs, and more importantly sources of food. As more people increase in a given urban area, demand for food increases proportionately. Agricultural and food processing counter this increase by increasing their capacities (Evans 147). If the country cannot provide food for the population well, then it implies that both quality and pricing of the food become affected. Low quality food and food products will enter the market along with an increase in their prices. As the general prices of food and other items increase, the inflation of the area also increases. Inflation, described as the constant and general increase in the price of items in a country, is a serious problem. Inflation makes goods within a country’s borders expensive while the currency depreciates (Evans 231). Overpopulation is an indirect contributor to inflation as it only affects the economy in this state if the country itself cannot match the growth in terms of increased production. In order to curb a looming case of inflation, the government increases its expenditure in the agricultural, manufacturing, and production industries. Though essential to a government’s cause, increase of expenditure in these areas will either mean diversion of funds or external borrowing (Evans 236). Borrowing would imply that a nation’s debt increases. In addition, this is indirectly cue to increased population. Increased debt by a country implies that the country will not be able to provide social amenities well. Coupled with the fact that an increase in population is also experienced, the people will experience poor service delivery (Evans 135). Inflation also affects the wage rate prevailing in the nation. As inflation increases, the wage rate decreases implying that levels of unemployment will be on the rise. Apart from inflation, overpopulation also directly adds to the problem of unemployment as the population surpasses the employment requirements (Evans 143). Increase in unemployment rates leads to an increase in social ills. The moral decay of individuals leads to high levels of unemployment, especially in low class dwellings. As more and more youths become idle due to the absence of employment opportunities, they embark in immoral activities such as alcohol and drugs (Evans 154). Use of these substances retards the users and many become addicts. There are other ills such as prostitution and child labor experienced as more individuals try other avenues for income generation. Increase in the social ills lead directly to higher levels of insecurity. Unemployment through increased population leaves other members of the society to embark on violence, robbery, and even incidences of rape. Some of the perpetrators justify themselves by claiming that it is a source of income. Insecurity also becomes a concern more so because the criminals can easily get away and are hard to track them down. This has played an important role in the development of organized crimes with presence of gangs 223-224). Overpopulation is a particular menace to law enforcers, as tracking the criminals as seen above is difficult. In addition, provision of police officers and police posts per a certain number of people becomes a challenge. Increase in population therefore stretches the work and efforts of the local police (Evans 225). Poor policing and law enforcement strategies paint a generally bad picture on the governance of the area. Overpopulation makes it hard for the authorities to amply govern and direct the people. Poor governance has many negative implications especially in terms of the economy (Evans 228). Still on the economy, government authorities embark on exploitation of natural resources to sustain the increased population. In most instances, there is usually overexploitation of these resources. Exploitation of these resources is high at the expense of regeneration (Evans 60). Provision of education to an overpopulated area is a big challenge. The government of the day is faces a challenge of ensuring quality education to the citizens. Teachers and teaching facilities become necessary in order to ensure a proper learning process. In an overgrown population, service delivery is a challenge as in most cases the number of students overwhelm the teaching capacity. Specialized attention to some students is also limited. This eventually leads to half-baked students (Evans 150). Overpopulation over a given period leads to negative implication on the environment. In most cases, people are concerned with the state of the environment given an increase in population. From the point of view of housing activities, forests become cleared to make room (Evans32). One of the major areas of concern when it comes to the environment is air pollution. This is contribution by the increase in number of vehicles on the roads. The carbon emitted by these vehicles lead to air pollution and global warming. Increase in manufacturing industries to counter the growth of population has also contributed largely to air pollution. Air pollution kills an estimate of an average of 3 million people yearly (Evans 42). As the population increases, there is increase in vehicles and brings about overcrowding. These aspects lead to noise pollution (Evans 42). Land pollution is another form of pollution that is poorly in areas with high populations. Poor waste disposal and management leads to the poor unsanitary conditions of an area and serves as breeding site for diseases (Evans 45). Poor water and drainage mechanisms have led to a decrease in the standards of sanitation. This is a concern more so since it is part of water pollution. If unclean water is improperly discarded the likelihood of having waterborne diseases increases. Waterborne disease kills an approximate number of 12 million people each year. Most of these are slum dwellings that crop up in urban areas (Evans 168). Apart from waterborne diseases, other diseases can easily occur when there is an increase in population. National pandemics become a reality with an overblown population in an area. Since there are many individuals per square area, there is ease of spread. This has led to an increase in deaths (Evans 169). The more people become infected; it makes it harder to treat them. Hampering of timely treatment is due to the increased in number of patients owing to the fact that there is an increase in population. Sustaining the people with the available medical facilities and personnel becomes a challenge. In order to ensure proper care for the population, the government of the nation increases medical facilities (Evans159). An overburden medical service leads to a high child mortality rate and poor prenatal health services. Increase in infant death is a concern for any nation. Cases of adequate medical provision coupled up with poor dieting leads to high cases of malnutrition especially among the children. This has also led to increase in child mortality rates (Evans145). Overpopulation has had negative impacts on various aspects. Absence of medical facilities, food, and employment has significantly led to high poverty levels. Though the population is living in an urban area, high levels of poverty brought about by an increase in population are experienced (Evans230). Conclusion Overpopulation has taken a toll on the sustainability of urban areas in a number of ways. This unexpected increase has led to strain on a number of social and public amenities as seen. Overpopulation is a burden that is borne by most cities in developing nations. However, some steps can minimize these cases. Taking the case of limited number of births per couple in China, other areas can borrow from this. Family planning and encouragement of smaller families is one way of curbing overpopulation. Another option would be development of rural areas and better management of resources and infrastructure to ensure the urban areas are equipped to handle overpopulation. Works Cited Evans, Peter B. Livable Cities? Urban Struggles for Livelihood and Sustainability. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Print. Read More