Population, Urbanization, and the Environment

1
Population, Urbanization, and the Environment

• Demographic factors, changes, and theories
• Spatial patterns
• Environmental issues and debates research,
  ideologies, and theories

2

• Demography
• Urban Sociology
• Environmental Sociology
• All interested in physical/material backdrop of
  social life

3
History of the World Population

• Until 1750
• Slow population growth
• After 1750
• Population explosion, particularly since the
  early 19th century
• The world population growth peaked in the 1970s,
  and has declined since

4

• Expectations for the 21st century
• Most of the population growth will take place in
  developing countries
• Annual increase between 2.6 and 2.5
• Population growth in the developed countries will
  be 0.1 annually

5
The Future of the World Population

• Even if current fertility rates decline below the
  replacement rate (2.1 children per woman), the
  population will continue to grow because of
  population momentum
• Because of past high fertility and mortality
  decline, the proportion of population in
  reproductive ages will continue to grow

6

• Because of decline in fertility, the population
  will grow older
• The potential support ratio will decline
• Potential support ratio the number of persons of
  working age per one older person

7
Theories of Population Change

• Two opinions regarding the interrelationship of
  population and resources
• Curbing population growth is essential to the
  balance between humans, resources, and the
  sustainable environment (Malthus)
• Population size is a minor factor in this
  interrelationship (Marx)

8
Demographic Transition Theory

• Developed on the basis of changes in birth and
  death rates in Western Europe in the context of
  socio-economic modernization
• Applicable to developing countries, although
  their vital rates have been changing in different
  structural conditions

9

• Stages
• Pre-transitional high birth and death rates
• Transitional high fertility and declining death
  rates
• Final low fertility and mortality

10
Demographic Transition of Western Europe

• What is the populationchange in each of the
  phases of transition?

11
Modifications to Demographic Transition Theory

• The original theory posits that economic
  development, urbanization, and decline in
  mortality preceded the decline in fertility
• Coale fertility declines when
• Fertility decisions are left to choice (i.e.,
  cultural and religious norms do not forbid
  fertility control)
• Reduced fertility is viewed as economically
  advantageous
• Effective methods of fertility control are known
  and available

12

• Declining mortality rates in developing countries
  have been achieved through family planning and
  public health programs offered by the
  industrialized countries

13
Malthusian Theory of Population

• Malthus (1798) believed that
• Humans are strongly motivated by sexual desire
• Humans are highly fertile.
• Therefore, population follows geometric
  (exponential) progression
• Economic resources, particularly food production,
  follow arithmetic progression

14

• Population can be controlled by
• Positive checks (famine, war, and disease)
• Negative checks (postponed marriage and
  abstinence)
• Malthus considered contraception immoral

15
Criticism of Malthusian Theory

• Failure to consider problem-solving capacity of
  humans
• Agricultural and industrial revolutions were
  responses to population growth
• Optimal population size depends on the level of
  economic activity and consumption

16
Criticism of Malthusian Theory, cont.

• Reversal population does not put pressure on
  economy
• Economy presses the population to consume
• Unacceptability of birth control is inconsistent
  with the goal of population control

17
The Marxist Perspective on Population

• Population is a secondary issue to the problems
  of economic inequality and poverty
• Large families arise from poverty
• Scientific and technological solutions progress
  geometrically (as does population) and can be
  used to alleviate poverty
• Marxist view about the relative unimportance of
  population is now largely rejected

18
Contemporary Perspectives on Population

• Neo-Malthusians
• Neo-Marxists
• Revisionists

19
Neo-Malthusians

• Accept family planning
• View population in conjunction with consumerism
  and overproduction

20
Neo-Marxists

• Neo-Marxists emphasize the role of consumerism
  and dependent development
• The underdevelopment of development
• Major powers control the developing countries
• Development serves the interests of the powerful
  countries

21
Revisionists

• Populations are the ultimate resource
• Population growth has been beneficial to humanity
• Many non-demographic factors are causes of
  poverty
• e.g., Ineffective or misguided government policies

22
Urbanization The First Cities

• All cities contain some non-agricultural workers
• Therefore, they require technology and a social
  structure that enables the rural sector to
  produce stable agricultural surplus
• The city is characterized by both vertical and
  horizontal division of labour
• Its population is heterogeneous

23

• The relationship between the city and the rest of
  society was coercive

24
Paths to Urban Development

• Industrialization caused a significant shift in
  population from rural to urban
• Surplus agricultural labour moved to cities
• Urban population grew by multiplier effect
• Several times the number of actual factory
  workers

25

• Measure of urbanization the proportion of
  population living in settlements of a certain
  size (usually 5,000)
• Urbanization has sped up in the recent decades,
  with the pace of technological change and the
  social adaptation to it

26
Urbanization at the Beginning of the 21st Century

• Many of the largest cities in the world are found
  in less developed/less urbanized regions
• Overurbanization growth of cities beyond their
  economic base
• Urban population in the West is distributed
  across a range of settlement sizes (since capital
  and technology are diffused)

27
Global Cities

• Key sites of control, coordination, and
  distribution of knowledge
• i.e., corporate organization, finance and
  communication
• Large cities based on manufacturing do not attain
  global status
• Globalization as a modern form of imperialism
• Profits and consumer goods flow from around the
  world to the home country

28
Urbanism Classical Approaches

• Determinism an assumption that urban context
  causes certain behaviour directly
• Urban life involves rational, universalistic,
  impersonal, logistically-oriented behaviour

29

• Urbanism as a Way of Life (Wirth) three
  characteristics of cities influence the urban way
  of life
• Large number of inhabitants leads to anonymous,
  superficial, and transitory social contacts
• High density fosters diversification, social
  distance, and formal social control
• Heterogeneity leads to change, mobility, and
  feeling of instability and insecurity

30
Modern Social-psychological Approaches

• A World of Strangers (Lofland) people in cities
  minimize interpersonal interaction to maximize
  public order (safety)
• Milgram city life leads to sensory overload.
  People adapt to it by
• Tuning out
• Avoiding strangers who need help
• Removing themselves from contact with strangers
• Developing coping procedures for public spaces

31

• Cities also provide opportunities for positive
  interaction with strangers with similar interests
• Cities can be sources of identity
• Personal credentials provide a basis for secure
  interaction without previous acquaintance

32
The Subcultural Theory

• Anonymous, segmented, and impersonal relations
  reflect occupation, rather than residence
• Compositional perspective (Gans) behaviour is
  explained by the composition of the population
  (class, ethnicity, religion, age, sex) and not
  the physical nature of the area

33

• Fischer the size of urban population provides
  basis for various subcultures
• These subcultures influence urban lifestyles
• Functionally diverse cities support varied
  subcultures
• Personal contact patterns are concentrated in
  subcultures

34
Ecology Cities, Suburbs, and Metropolitan Areas

• Physical structure of cities reflects and
  reinforces subcultural cleavages
• In developed societies, population builds up in
  suburbs
• Cities and their suburbs may belong to separate
  municipalities, but they form metropolitan areas

35

• Census metropolitan areas (CMAs) urban cores and
  surrounding areas that are economically and
  socially integrated on a daily basis
• Two-thirds of Canadian population lives in
  metropolitan areas
• It is highly concentrated

36
Metropolitan Population and Land-use Patterns

• Burgess concentric ring land-use and
  stratification pattern
• The central business district (the most
  accessible part of the city, serviced by public
  transit)
• Zones in transition (short-term affordable
  housing and anonymitythe poorest, new
  immigrants, criminals)
• Residential zones (working class, middle class,
  upper class)

37

• Park ethnically or religiously homogeneous
  natural areas exist within zones
• Multiple nuclei theory each land use or
  subculture locates according to unique criteria
  and proximity of other land uses

38
Ecological Scarcity

• Scarcity results from
• Overuse and exhaustion of natural resources
• Waste and destruction of resources by
  contamination or misuse
• Questions of scarcity
• Population growth
• Global carrying capacity
• The relationship between development and scarcity

39
Population Growth

• Global population in 2003 6.3 billion
• Consequences
• Resource exhaustion
• Destruction of species and habitat
• Pollution
• Inability of agriculture to provide food

40

• The theoretical limits of food production will be
  reached in 2100, when global population is
  projected to be 11.2 billion
• Experts agree that population can only be
  controlled if birth rates of developing countries
  are reduced

41
Sustainable Development

• The accepted doctrine of the UN
• Popularized by the 1987 Bruntland Commission, and
  the 1992 and 2002 Earth Summits
• Calls for conciliation of
• Environmental integrity
• Protection of ecosystems and biodiversity
• Meeting of human needs
• Economic growth
• Equitable distribution of environmental benefits

42
Human Ecology

• Explanation of human spatial organization by
  processes of
• Competition
• Succession
• Symbiosis
• Durkheim idea that growth and density of
  population lead to competition over scarce
  resources

43

• Human adaptation to this situation is competitive
  co-operation
• Co-operation is used to increase production
  through
• Technology or division of labour
• Change distribution
• Lower consumption

44

• Ecological complex societies are constituted by
• Population
• Organization
• Environment
• Technology
• Critique environment is primarily understood
  as socio-cultural

45
The Environment and Social Movements

• Environmental movement among the most successful
  and enduring social movements in history
• Diverse strands within it

46
Progressive Conservation

• Appeared in the late 19th-century US
• Concern private use of land endangers natural
  resources
• Two approaches
• Preservationists protection of wilderness (e.g.,
  national parks)
• Consumptive wildlife users conservation by the
  state for utilitarian ends

47
Mainstream Environmentalism

• Advocate balance between environmental
  preservation and economic growth
• Working as partners with government and
  developers in reaching compromise on
  environmental issues
• Well organized and reliant on political tactics
  (lobbying, consultation)

48

• Critiques
• Too accommodating to development interests
• Elitist (staffers are middle-class and well
  educated)
• Advocate policies that have most adverse effects
  on the working class and the poor (loss of
  resource and manufacturing jobs)

49
The New Ecologies

• A range of approaches with shared features
• Critical of mainstream ecology and its failure to
  address issues of social equality and
  self-determination
• Non-hierarchical organization
• Ecocentric and preservationist (reject
  anthropocentrism and management of the
  environment)
• Specific principles for environmental reform
• Unwilling to compromise

50

• Eco-feminism patriarchy and exploitation of
  nature are based on the same ideologysupposed
  superior rationality of men
• A feminist must by definition be
  environmentalist, and vice-versa
• Social ecology the goal is to build an
  ecological society, which would combine
  sustainable settlement, ecological balance,
  community self-reliance, and participatory
  democracy

51

• Deep ecology biocentric emphasis and inspiration
  by personal experience in nature
• Humans should have the least possible effect on
  the planet
• Use of ecological sabotage (ecotage)

52
Grassroots Environmentalism

• Focus on industrial pollution and placement of
  pollution sources in residential communities
• The toxic waste movement focuses on perceived
  health threat
• Typically organized by formerly uninvolved
  citizens, less educated than members of
  mainstream environmentalism and the new ecologies

53
Toxic Waste Movement, cont.

• Little communication between the groups
• Have few resources
• Ideology is not prominent

54
Environmental Justice

• Focus on inequitable distribution of
  environmental hazards
• Low-income and racial-minority populations in the
  US (low-income population in Canada) are
  disproportionately affected
• This is explained by market dynamics, the
  political path of least resistance or
  environmental racism