Cool cities

While modern cities are contributing to global warming, there are methods to build cool cities that provide less polluting buildings and transportations as Masdar city. In this essay I will write three reasons why these cities are not practical for everyone.

First, it is impractical to build enough new cities for everyone. Let’s take Masdar as example of these cool cities. Masdar is a great project with great methods to reduce the big percentage of CO2 that is produced by our modern cities right now. But Masdar can only contain maximum of 50,000 people (Masdar’s green dream is not for all). The world population reached to approximately 6.6 billion people (World POPClock Projection). What will be the population in 2050? So more cities are needed with more space.

Secondly, these cities are hugely expensive. Masdar costs about $22 billion (Masdar’s green dream is not for all).Building one city with this huge price might be a problem around the globe. Many countries cannot afford building these cities unless they were rich and full with oil. So it looks that cool cities are considered as unique cities or just showing off the ideas of reducing CO2 on the rich countries.

Third, it is impossible for everyone to live zero- carbon lifestyle. People have various life styles that depend on the place they are living in. Masdar is a small place that will help to walk to work, GYM and groceries (Masdar’s green dream is not for all).Some people used to live in big places with big gardens so it will be difficult to change their lifestyle. Moreover here in the UAE, due to the hot weather for the most years we cannot live without cooling cars or use bicycles as alternative transportation. Although in the cool cities there is much great transportation, still it is hard to do.

In conclusion, it is foolish to suggest that cool cities are for everyone. I think that cool cities are a great method into a clean future that will reduce CO2 60%. But they should consider the most suitable conditions to fit with the most cities in the world so that the plan and the purpose of these cities will success.

Bibliography:-

"Masdar’s green dream is not for all." The National. 4 May 2009 http://www.thenational.ae/article/20080424/BUSINESS/919451504.

"World POPClock Projection." International Programs. 4 May 2009 http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/popclockworld.html.