My trip to HongKong

My trip to HongKong

Friday, October 2, 2015

Reader response draft 2.1



In the article “Explosive growth in Asian cities: Bright ideas to Seize the Urban Moment”, Khanna (2015) argues that South-east Asian capital are the next reference model of “urban development” in the current era. The author states that these mega-cities’ population are increasing rapidly due to migration from within the nation, and from other regions. He also emphasizes that due to this massive influx, these cities are expanding their reach for more infrastructures to be built to house its citizen. The writer reports that when providing basic necessities such as water, housing and reliable transport; the magnitude of these mega-cities are posing complicated problems for their local governments. Khanna reports that South-east Asian capitals are taking on the issues posed with "flexible governments, resourceful citizens and local infrastructure innovation." I believe South-east Asian cities need to develop at a much quicker pace, as the population to these cities are ever increasing. There are already cases of cities saturated with its population. Such cases usually lead to pollution, congestion and many other more issues.



First of all, I would like to talk about an issue in Bangkok, which is the air pollution the city has faced for many years. Bangkok has long faced the issue of air pollution, dated as far back as 1970s.Transportation sector contributes the most to the pollution situation in Bangkok. Dr. Bhichit Rattakul (2007) reports that many of the buses used in Bangkok are outdated, but are still driven by private operators. These buses produce more pollutants. Bhichit also states that about half of the 14,000 buses in Bangkok, they do not fulfill air quality control standard. According to worldbank (2015), the government of Thailand has implemented measures to combat the issue of air pollution; such as adopting emission standards, phasing out lead in gasoline and reducing polluting rickshaws in the streets. Bangkok also encouraged a conversion from the old two-stroke engines to the cleaner four-stroke engines for the city’s motorbikes. Thailand Energy Minister Piyasvasti Amranand states that “the air has improved a lot over the past 15 years.” Bangkok has a population of about 8.5 million. Due to poor planning in the past, air pollution issue in Bangkok has been around for many years. This could have been prevented if Bangkok had planned ahead, and prepare contingency plan.



Next, I would like to talk about the transportation issue in Jakarta. Jakarta currently has one of the most congested traffic in the world. According to Hamer (2014), he reports that during peak hour, five-kilometer journeys by car can take up to an hour or more. This congestion is caused by the large amount of car ownership and the unreliable public transportation. Businesses in Jakarta are badly affected due to the lack of mobility. To combat this issue, the public works office from Jakarta plans to build 10 elevated roadways, and some have already been completed. According to Prabandari (2014), the new elevated roadway that she uses to travel from her home to work takes only “matter of few minutes”. Previously, the journey would have taken her about an hour. However, Prabandari mentions that during peak hour, traffic condition is still congested as the road merges with other streets. Jakarta is currently reviving plans to construct a monorail system (LRT). The traffic condition in Jakarta was made worse by their government. Their government did not implement any measures to control neither car population nor traffic condition. Therefore, the situation in Jakarta has snowballed up till today.



In conclusion, I believe that planning ahead is very important. In today’s world, cities have a huge population. With such a huge population, it is no doubt there will be problems and issues that come with it. Therefore, my belief is that these cities need to keep up with the pace by building infrastructures to withstand the load of its population.





References


Can Jakarta Build Answers to Its Transportation Problems? (n.d.). Retrieved September 30, from http://jakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/can-jakarta-build-answers-to-its-transportation-problems/ 

From Santiago to Bangkok, Cleaner Air Brings Healthier Lives. (2015). Retrieved September 30, 2015, from http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2015/04/13/from-santiago-to-bangkok-cleaner-air-brings-healthier-lives 

Gluckman, R. (2007). Bangkok breathes easier. Retrieved September 30, 2015, from http://www.gluckman.com/BangkokPollution.html 

Hamer, A. (2014). Jakarta’s Troubled Infrastructure. Retrieved September 30, 2015, from http://thediplomat.com/2014/01/jakartas-troubled-infrastructure/ 

KHANNA, P. (2015). Explosive growth in Asian cities: Bright ideas to 'seize the urban moment'. Retrieved September 30, 2015, from http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/explosive-growth-in-asian-cities-bright-ideas-to-seize-the-urban-moment

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