more vulnerable to natural hazards and climate change than large cities and megacities (Birkmann et al. 2016) and tend to have a lower capacity for recovery (UNEP 2019a).


Size, however, is not the only measure of the diversity of cities and the processes by which they change. For instance, the growth of sprawling suburban and peri-urban regions – a significant trend spanning several decades in both higher- income and lower-income countries (UN-Habitat 2016) – can be linked to multiple processes, including: v evolving rural–urban linkages; v land markets; v the absence of a regulatory environment for development; v lifestyle preferences.


Such factors are locally specific and connected to both long-term urban growth dynamics and its environmental consequences.


Population density is another key feature of urbanization, with environmental implications. In 75 per cent of countries, both the urban population and the spatial extent of the built environment have grown. In others, however, urban population growth and built environment growth are decoupled (Pesaresi 2016). In regions like Europe, built-up areas have doubled, while the population has remained stable (Pesaresi 2016, p. 6). In 2015, 65 per cent of the global built environment was concentrated in high-income countries, around 30 per cent in middle-income countries, and just 6 per cent in low-income countries (Pesaresi 2016, p. 35). This is in stark contrast to the distribution of global urban population changes. Meanwhile, the increase in high-rise developments on the outskirts of cities in China, India, Turkey and Brazil means suburbanization is no longer characterized by low population densities. Moreover, the spatial configurations and lifestyles of the suburbs are developing independently of city centres (Keil 2018).


While these trends vary, the net effect is that cities with a higher population density tend to have lower per capita environmental impact within the city’s boundaries.


The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to influence these trends, albeit in ways that are yet to be understood. The pandemic may accelerate the expansion of suburban and peri-urban patterns of urbanization in some regions, as remote working makes residential settlements more independent from workplaces in urban cores (Sharifi and Khavarian- Garmsir 2020). This has a potential impact on biodiversity loss (Rastandeh and Jarchow 2020; Connolly, Ali and Keil 2020). However, the pandemic may also do little to diminish the attractiveness of city centres in the long term (Price Waterhouse Coopers 2020). Regardless of the outcome, the pandemic is generating new conversations and prompting us to reassess many of our assumptions about the dynamic relationship between cities and environmental sustainability.


2.2.2 Escalating inequality and implications for the environment


While there is no single urban growth projection or dominant urbanization pattern, across the world there is a consistent pattern of growing inequality, both within and between cities. In many places, the pandemic has shone a spotlight on these inequalities. For two-thirds of people who live in cities, income inequality increased between 1980 and 2010 (UN-Habitat 2015b). This social inequality is reflected spatially: many cities have neighbourhoods with contrasting infrastructure, services and amenities (Graham and Marvin 2001; International Resource Panel [IRP] 2018). Urban inequality operates through multiple and intersecting factors such as race, class, gender, ethnicity and caste. It is reflected in highly unequal access to opportunities, such as education, jobs and material goods, including housing, city services and infrastructure.


24


GEO for Cities


© Shutterstock/JUNOH


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