Reader's Response to Cho's Article -Draft 3

Reader’s Response to Cho’s Article title page:

Developing Sustainable Infrastructure in New Cities – Draft 3

Nicholson Yeo

Singapore Institute of Technology

In the article “New Cities Foundation”, Cho (2014) states that urban challenges must be considered in developing  sustainable infrastructure. She mentions that the 'Envision  Sustainability Rating System' is designed to assess the performance of infrastructure. Infrastructures in this era should efficiently serve our communities by improving the quality of life. She further shares her focus on the assessment on King Abdullah Economic City (project) (KAEC) and how it helps the communities in certain ways. Cho explains that the right projects will be able to help the communities and cities to function more efficiently as a whole. She shares that through Envision, it helps her own projects in Mexico to be successful. Although the writer does talk about urban challenges, however she does not clearly provide sufficient coverage of the challenges that surround future infrastructure, such as population growth and rising cost of living. If these issues are not addressed properly, this might affect communities as a whole, therefore more substantial support needs to be offered on the writer’s part in order to justify her claims.

The first claim that makes Cho’s article insufficiently justified is when she mentions "I’m excited to be able to address what I believe is one of the key challenges of urbanization this century: the role of infrastructure sustainability in the context of rapid urban growth, especially in new cities."(as cited in Cho's, 2014) In another article, “Explosive growth in Asian Cities”, Khanna (2015) proposes that the trend seems to be that Asian cities are now leading in urbanization. In fact, Asian cities are facing large population growth, which can result in poor utilization of infrastructures if the authorities are not making the right plans and decisions. For instance, he mentions that in Jakarta, the traffic congestion are much worse when compared to congestion in most European cities. He also emphasizes that the authorities ought to adapt to these arising problems. However, in Cho’s article, she did not analyse in depth in her article as to how important the Saudi authorities’ flexibility and decisiveness, can impact her project in KAEC roads against the rising population growth. In this way, the article could leave readers with superficial understanding that rapid population growth is indeed a challenge in future, but not how it affects the communities in other parts of the world, in terms of urban challenges such as transportation congestions, housings and more, thus causing her debate as insufficient.  

In another explanation, however Cho did shared that because of Envision rating system, her projects in Mexico, Peru and Saudi were able to create a difference by improving the lives of the communities, as it focuses on the right areas to work and improvised on, which are decided from Envision. She also observes that through sustainable road infrastructures in her projects as mentioned, how accessibility of transportation can contribute to access to education, local business opportunities, and how it can boost housing, in return benefiting the communities, as she included links of detailed explanation in her article. In another article, “Advancing Sustainable Infrastructure with Envision”, Nelson (June 2015) claims that Envision puts forward designing sustainable infrastructures, it not only assists in judgement, but the system also enriches funding plans. Therefore with the introduction of Envision, it further assures the decision makers and end users that the project will be the most appropriate and that it will benefit everyone in the right areas.

In conclusion, Cho’s article does not emphasize on possible problems which urban challenges could pose to the development of infrastructure in the long-run. However she asserts that through Envision rating system, it is proven effective as it gauges how well her projects can benefit on the respective areas that were discussed. Apart from acknowledging that issues such as natural disasters, explosive population growth, economy factors are real, developing sustainable infrastructure should be implemented from the very beginning if possible so as to reduce future problems, and the ability to advance with technological growth.

(657 words)

References

Cho, H. (2014, December). Developing Sustainable Infrastructure in New Cities. Retrieved from http://www.newcitiesfoundation.org/evaluating-sustainable-infrastructure-development-new-cities/

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

Nelson, D. (2015, June). Advancing sustainable infrastructure with Envision. civil + structural Engineer. Retrieved from http://cenews.com/article/10098/advancing-sustainable-infrastructure-with-envision