Chapter 9

Question 1

Why does housing urban populations leads to negative environment impacts?

Answer 1

Cities consume huge quantities of natural resources to meet the needs of large and growing urban populations, such as water for domestic use and sanitation, space for waste disposal and open spaces for recreation.
Cities can have a very serious impact on the natural environment, not only on its immediate surroundings, but also faraway places due to the nature of global supply chains.

Question 2

How does the space needed for urban populations affect nature?

Answer 2

Often, the natural environment such as forestland is cleared to make space for urban uses such as housing.
It is estimated that 18.7 million acres of forest are lost each year due to general deforestation.

Question 3

What raw materials are needed from the natural environment to support increasing urban population?

Answer 3

Food
Water
Building materials
Fossil fuels

Question 4

How does the increasing need for food impact nature?

Answer 4

With more mouths to feed, more land is needed for agriculture.

Question 5

Why are many countries experiencing shortage of water?

Answer 5

Water is extracted to support domestic and industrial needs. Large cities generally obtain 80% of their water from surface sources and use an estimated 540 billion litres of water a day.
Roughly a quarter of the cities worldwide are experiencing water stress due to geographical and financial limitations.

Question 6

How does the extraction of more building materials lead to negative environmental impacts?

Answer 6

Wood is taken from trees for the construction of housing, doors, and other furniture. Iron and aluminium are mined from the ground, and mining can bring about wide-ranging negative environmental impacts.

Question 7

How are fossil fuels bad to nature?

Answer 7

Fossil fuels are consumed to generate heat and electricity for households, and this consumption releases greenhouse gases.

Question 8

When shortages of materials occur, how do cities manage it together with other cities, like Singapore?

Answer 8

Some cities extract resources from beyond their physical boundaries, such as importing from other places around the world.
For example, Singapore imports its chicken from Malaysia, Brazil, USA, Denmark and Australia.

Question 9

What are the types of pollution cities generate?

Answer 9

Water
Land
Air
Noise
Light

Question 10

What is light pollution?

Answer 10

Light pollution is excessive, misdirected or obtrusive artificial light.

Question 11

How is light pollution caused and what are its harmful effects?

Answer 11

It is caused by artificial lights from traffic, street lights, buildings and advertisement billboards.
It can have serious effects on human health through stress and anxiety, ecosystems that are disrupted and astronomical research, as it obscures natural moonlight and starlight.

Question 12

How can light pollution be managed?

Answer 12

light pollution can be managed by laws and regulations, the use of timers and the use of directed light.

Question 13

What is noise pollution?

Answer 13

Noise pollution is regular exposure to sound elevated above a certain threshold.

Question 14

How is noise pollution caused and what are some of its harmful effects?

Answer 14

Many activities in a city are producers of noise, such as street traffic noise, construction noise, airports and industrial sounds.
Exposure to constant noise beyond 85 dB for more than eight hours may be hazardous to health. They may cause hypertension, hearing loss, sleep disturbances and stress and anxiety.

Question 15

How can noise pollution be managed?

Answer 15

They can be managed by laws and regulations and separation of land use. For example, proper planning can ensure airports are located far away from housing zones.

Question 16

Why is a high concentration of people in one area disadvantageous to the results of pollution?

Answer 16

Urbanisation brings large numbers of people together in cities. This concentrates the waste and pollution produced in a single area.

Question 17

How is land pollution caused and what are its harmful effects?

Answer 17

Land pollution can lead to the long-term damage of land, making it unsafe for human use. There are two types of land pollution, which are soil contamination and improper disposal of waste, which comes from general waste and industrial waste.

Question 18

How can we manage waste disposal, and what are some real life examples from other countries?

Answer 18

Build landfills to bury the waste
- For example, the USA has 2,200 acres of landfill sites. However, landfills have a tendency to leak and the toxic substances buried inside will contaminate surrounding soil and eventually, groundwater supplies.

Incinerate the waste
- Incineration means less land will be expended on building landfills, the resultant ask from Incineration, however, still needs to be disposed of safely. Land-scarce Singapore incinerates its waste and uses the ashes for its land reclamation projects.

Export the waste elsewhere
- Japan exported an estimated 535,840 tonnes of waste in 2019.

Question 19

How can cities reduce pollution all together, and what is one real life example?

Answer 19

In some cases, cities can create efficient control points for pollution as there is infrastructures in place to manage the waste and pollution generated.
For example, New York City has one of the lowest environmental footprints in the USA. The high-density living in the city can only support smaller homes and its well-connected public transportation network encourages widespread use of public transportation.

Question 20

How does the quality of housing affects people?

Answer 20

It can affect people’s health, access to amenities and communities, where positive interactions with our communities can create a sense of belonging and a feeling of security whereas negative, hostile interactions with our communities can create fear and insecurity.

Question 21

What does formal housing provide people with?

Answer 21

[ACESS]
Access to infrastructure
Clean water
Electricity
Sanitation
Shelter from the elements

Question 22

What are amenities in housing?

Answer 22

Amenities are desirable or useful features of a place that provide comfort, convenience or enjoyment to its residents.

Question 23

Why does formal housing allow access to services and amenities?

Answer 23

It is important as residents do not need to travel long distances to have their needs met and their well-being is improved.
It also reduces the environmental footprints of people in formal housing as they do not need to travel to have their needs met, so less fossil fuel is consumed for transport.

Question 24

Why are social needs of residents important?

Answer 24

People need places to interact and develop friendships, bonds and ties.
Social interactions build a strong sense of community, sense of inclusivity, sense of belonging, community spirit (Singaporean Kampong Spirit) and resilient community. [CIBCR]

Question 25

Where are some places in neighbourhoods that allow for social gatherings?

Answer 25

Void decks, playgrounds, exercise parks, community centres

Question 26

Why is managing housing sustainably crucial?

Answer 26

As the urban population is projected to continue increasing globally, cities around the world need to manage housing more sustainably to ensure that the needs of the urban population are met while limiting negative environmental impacts.

Question 27

What are some strategies cities can pursue for sustainable housing of adequate quality?

Answer 27

[3IE)
Integrated land-use planning
Inclusive public housing
Improvement of slum conditions
Environmentally friendly buildings

Question 28

Why is it important for stakeholders in building housing to come together?

Answer 28

This is so that they can decide how the city should be developed and manage and coordinate different activities sustainably.
As a result, developments can be sustainable, experience less conflict between stakeholders and meet the different economic, social and environmental needs of stakeholders. As such, the development of an area should never be done in isolation or independently.

Question 29

Who can stakeholders be?

Answer 29

[PBPIC]
Planning authorities / government
Businesses
Property developers
Industries
Communities

Question 30

What is the purpose of integrated land-use planning?

Answer 30

It helps HDB towns to be more sustainable and suitable for living in.

Question 31

Why is integrated land-use planning hard to achieve?

Answer 31

This is because it requires coordination between the stakeholders and conflict resolution as stakeholders often have competing or different interests, needs and perspectives.

Question 32

Why is inclusive public housing needed?

Answer 32

This is so that they can cater to the needs of different households, for example, large homes for extended families and smaller homes for singles and couples.
Building inclusive public housing creates a strong sense of belonging and allows residents to feel at ease.

Question 33

What does inclusiveness mean?

Answer 33

It means that everyone would have access to housing that meets their needs, and all ages and physical conditions are considered.

Question 34

What are some challenges to building inclusive housing?

Answer 34

• Building inclusive housing is costly.
• A one-side-fits-all approach to building cannot accommodate everyone’s needs. For example, having only steps to access different places at different heights limits the mobility of people who are physically challenged and is not considered inclusive.
• More time and effort are needed to understand the needs of the community to customise town design.

Question 35

Describe a real life example of inclusive housing.

Answer 35

Inclusive playgrounds can be found in neighbourhoods around Singapore. It is a special playground that is friendly to children with special needs, and stimulate child development, like sensory, cognitive, physical and social. Some common features found at inclusive playgrounds include merry-go-rounds with wheelchair locks, contrasting colours for playground equipment and the ground and wheelchair-friendly swings.

Question 36

What are some common environmentally friendly buildings features?

Answer 36

• Using alternative energy to reduce the use of fossil fuels, like solar panels.
• Using LED lights to reduce the consumption of electricity.
• Using water-efficient fittings to reduce overall water usage.
• Designing green roofs and walls reduces the temperature of surrounding areas, creates a softer outlook for the building and generates more oxygen and helps to reduce carbon dioxide.
• Setting up recycling stations to encourage residents to recycle and reduce their environmental footprints.

Question 37

Why is it difficult to implement friendly buildings features?

Answer 37

• Environmentally friendly technologies are costly to implement initially, like solar panels.
• Retrofitting older buildings with environmentally friendly technologies can be complicated and expensive.
• Public education on the importance of such measures is not widespread. For example, people see recycling as time-consuming and inconvenient. It is easier to simply throw away things compared to spending time to sort recyclable materials and take them to recycling stations. To solve this, more campaign and outreach programmes need to be implemented.

Question 38

What do governments do in order to enhance the living conditions in slums?

Answer 38

They try to give access to basic services like water and sanitation, upgrade the construction quality of informal housing and involve local community in housing policies.

Question 39

What results in the improvements of slum conditions?

Answer 39

Residents will have an increased motivation to invest in their own homes, make improvements to the community infrastructure, have better levels of health and a reduction in the spread of waterborne diseases and have a stronger sense of belonging and community.

Question 40

What are the difficulties in enhancing informal living conditions?

Answer 40

• Enhancing informal living conditions or slum improvement schemes are not considered a long-term city development plan as the plots of land may not be zoned or planned for housing and this can create problems in the long term.
• Some problems will continue to be present within informal housing communities, such as high unemployment rates, high crimes rates and the stigma of living in such conditions.

Question 41

Why is sustainable management of housing difficult?

Answer 41

This is because its success depends on a variety of sources, which are the functions, economic, location and demographics of the city [FELD].
Each city needs its own unique plan, and a variety of strategies are often utilized to work towards the sustainable managements of housing.