Depleting Water as a Resource

When I hear the word "city" I think about my hometown. I grew up in the small city of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Our city was known as a medium to larger size city since we have over 200 plus cities with less than 1,000 people. Wisconsin was filled with a lot of land and nature; this is what was normal for me. A city thrived on it's attractions, it's recreational activities and open parks. This was not the case when I moved to Southern California.

When I first came to California, I was very surprised to be fairly landlocked with a small stream in the canyon next to our school. In Wisconsin I grew up across the street from the lake, and we spent our time traveling to rivers to go kayaking and the Great Lakes to go sailing. Here, I had to drive 15 minutes to reach the ocean, which is then densely crowded with hundreds of people. When I read "The Town-Country Magnet" by Ebenezer Howard and he talked about the management of a city and how people tend to go about issues in separate scenarios. We can't separate the town and the country because if they don't work together, no one person's voice can be heard. 

I was never exposed to environmental issues such as heavy air pollution. In our "average" sized city, we had maximum of two lanes on the road going each way. In Aliso, there are four or five lanes in a city of 40,000. I believe that the environment is a huge reason why a city will thrive and grow. In an article I read about the New York Watershed, it tested quality of water in areas where population would grow versus the spread where people did not settle. Overtime as infrastructure grew around the rivers, so did the population, so did the cities. Even when designing our city during class, our group naturally put houses and infrastructure around a lake and had a river running through the city. This is the mentality that I have had all my life.

Recently I read an article about the depleting water in Cape Town. It is the second most populous city in South Africa with about 4 million inhabitants. They are predicted to run out of water on April 16th; they are calling this day, "Day Zero" and it will present hardships of water monitoring stations in designated locations for hundreds to share. City and nature cannot be separate. If we cannot maintain our own resources, we will drive our cities into the ground because it will continue to become a hub-spot for the poor.

Finally, LeGates states in The City Reader that theory is not enough to study what will work and what will not work in the city. Sometimes our predictions are not always correct. We thought by adding another lane on the freeway, it will create less traffic, however we didn't take inconsideration that if people believe it will work faster, everyone will migrate to it. We have to get right into the action of it all to really understand it. I'm so fascinated by all the readings that we have and all the information about the growth of a city that I still do not understand. Growing up in Wisconsin already makes me look at the differences between my city versus a small Orange County city to as big as a city like Los Angeles.

-Valerie

References

Brown, L. R., Gray, R. H., & Hughes, R. M. (2005). Effects of urbanization on stream ecosystems.               Bethesda, MD: American fisheries Society, 23-35.

Howard, E. (1898). The Town-Country Magnet. To-morrow, 12-19.

Kane, D. (2018, February 01). Running Dry in Cape Town. Retrieved February 16, 2018, from                    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/opinion/cape-town-drought-day-zero.html

LeGates, R. T., & Stout, F. (2000). The city reader. London: Routledge.