The City Grows

Landscape cleared on the outskirts of Princes Town for urban sprawl.

            Here lies a vast space of nothingness, cleared, such that in a few years it can be cultivated with urban infrastructure. This is the urban process and this is how it is degrading our environment. Located just on the outskirts of the commercial of Princes Town this area has been cleared to facilitate urban growth. It has become an all too common trend in all of Trinidad. Urbanization's urban sprawl is taking away our natural surroundings.

            Urban areas draw the population into them since they concentrate numerous amounts of useful services and activities within their boundaries. However, with increasing population there is always the need to expand to accommodate such growth. Hence urban sprawl is usually inevitable as seen here in Princes Towns attempt to expand. This sprawl includes the building of new urban infrastructure or suburban development in order to reduce the clutter of the central town or city.

            Be this as it may sprawl is quite harmful to our environment. As seen, large plots of land need to be stripped of their natural vegetation for this growth to proceed. This removes our natural carbon sinks, the plants, allowing carbon dioxide to build in the atmosphere. Hence, it promotes the greenhouse effect and climate change (Chiotti 2004).

            In addition clearing the land also affects our water supply, where runoff of rainfall increase while at the same time infiltration of water into the soil decreases. This reduces the speed at which our underground aquifers are restored. While at the same time, water running of this land erodes materials into our natural waterways, thereby increasing pollution in those systems.

There effects of urban sprawl:

            Apart from this, more urban space only promotes more of the negatives originally related to the city. Therefore, more cars, consumption and pollution are allowed to perpetuate on a greater percentage of our environment (Chiotti 2004).

            In the end, urban sprawl is a necessary output of the urban process. However, it promotes degradation in multiple ways. Therefore, in places like Prices Town and other urban areas in both Trinidad and elsewhere, urban sprawl should be controlled and planned to reduce its environmental impact.

References

            Chiotti, Quentin. 2004. "Toronto's Environment: A Discussion on Urban Sprawl and Atmospheric impacts." Pollution Probe.