Urbanization has, without a doubt, improved the lives of many around the world. It has brought about industrialization, which has made our lives easier with access to technology. Communication has been more than enhanced – we used to rely on snail mail, now information can be transmitted in the space of a second across continents. With that came the rise of multinational corporations, which have brought about life to the economies of many countries.
Urbanization is of course not entirely beneficial to us. First of all, it has resulted in large-scale degradation of the environment. Forests are being depleted at an alarming rate, either to make way for more cities and industrial sites, and the trees to supply us with more of what we need as consumers – furniture, paper, whatever. With the arrival of more cities and industrial sites, the natural outcome would be more pollution – exhaust from cars, industrial fumes, all for things that were never once essential to our survival, now pivotal to our lives because of the change this world has seen.
With this environmental degeneration, many companies would naturally take advantage of it to come up with sales gimmicks, all to increase their revenue. Car companies have come up with allegedly environmentally friendly cars. There are certainly cars which aim to reduce carbon emissions, but there are some car companies which have put out models, claiming them to be environmentally friendly when they emit just about as much environmentally harmful gases as normal cars, albeit in different ways. One example would be the Toyota Prius, which boasts a fuel-cell hybrid engine. At low speeds, the car makes runs on electricity, and as a result there will be zero carbon emissions. However, in the production process of the car, the environment is just as much harmed. The mining of nickel, a process which is extremely polluting, is done in America, with the nickel then shipped on an enormous tanker to Europe where the batteries are made. These batteries will then be shipped to China, where foam (another polluting material) is added to the batteries. All the components of the car are then shipped to Japan, where they are assembled. The finished products are then shipped to the rest of the world. All the shipping and transporting of the car and its components no doubt harm the environment more than it really should, given that what is in production is supposedly environmentally friendly.
Urbanization by far has only benefited economically well-off countries. The same cannot be said of most third world countries. These countries, most of them formerly under colonial rule, were rich in natural resources. Their former rulers, all affluent countries such as Britain, still feel the need to ‘intervene’ in their former charges’ affairs, especially economically. What they do is exploit these countries, making use of their cheap labor and taking away as much natural resources as they possibly can for the former’s benefits, leaving the latter to fend for themselves. Affluent nations and multinational corporations take natural resources such as coal away for a minimal sum. What is left behind is nothing but barren and infertile land. They have also set up production sites in these countries to utilize – or exploit – the cheap labor offered due to the extremely low standards of living there. Workers are paid barely enough to even meet subsistence, all the while tolling 18 hours a day on products, which will finally be sold to rich consumers at 50 times the labor cost. Because of the exploitation these poor countries face, they do not have the chance to be properly modernized, for the only people who can help them improve their domestic economy are the very people exploiting them and leaving them with nothing. Such inequality is definitely here to stay.
In the future, resources will of course become increasingly scarce, and increased competition among corporations and nations will result. Consequently, conflict among people will add on to the conflict between people and nature. That one day nations may resort to war just for resources to expand and sustain their urbanized cities is a scary but extremely probable occurrence.
Urbanization
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