Reader Response on "Developing Sustainable Infrastructure in New Cities" Draft 2

In the article “Developing Sustainable Infrastructure in New Cities”, Cho (2014) mentions that enhanced infrastructural development is vital in considering the economic, social and environmental issues in urban cities. She further asserts that the key factor of a nation’s competitiveness to unite and incorporate cities to greater serves the resident is by having sustainable and competent infrastructure. The writer explains about the Envision Rating System which is a tool to evaluate the performance of an infrastructure. Cho mentions about her involvement in the Impact King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) that would bring positive impact on the community in the future. The writer believes that infrastructure must improve the aspect of life of the society while preserving energy resources as well as considering the natural environment and climate change. While I agree with Cho that both government and the private sector need to agree on sustainability, she lacks in explaining why it is essential to have good governance and firm decision from the government for sustainable development.

At the start, sustainable development can be hard to implement. There might be many obstacles to go through to achieve sustainability especially in developed countries due to the rapid urban growth. In order to prevent sustainable ideas not to be short-lived, a firm decision made by the government is vital. As stated in the article “Sustainable Development” from Legrand website, the author affirms that governance is needed in decision making process. The author also claims that all members of the society including the private and public sector companies, associations, unions and citizens need to come to an agreement for sustainable development. This is also true to what Cho had mentioned in her article that government and private sector have to work hand in hand towards sustainable development.

In addition to support that good governance plays an important role towards sustainable development, Clark (2012) reports that “effective governance is a prerequisite for putting in place the integrated policymaking capacity which is needed to drive sustainable development.” Clark further states that the government of Singapore set up a plan called “sustainable development blueprint” which brought all relevant ministries to analyze urban challenges and ways to tackle the problem. Personally, I feel that The Sustainable Singapore Blueprint project signifies great effort by the Singapore government to further instill a positive mindset of the public and private sectors towards sustainable development.

For example, Singapore was awarded the intelligent city award for its smart transport system and achieves to be one of the least congested major cities in the world.  The success was led by the Singapore government, who understood the importance of efficiency and affordable transportation system. (Reyes, 2013) Reyes remarks that Singapore Land Transport System Authority will further invest in transport infrastructure. In my opinion, Singapore’s Ministry of Transport made the right decision to invest on the transport infrastructure so as to achieve “car-lite”. This way, the public would not have to rely on cars as they can take the public transport to get from one place to another conveniently. Moreover, there would be lesser emission of carbon dioxide and other harmful greenhouse gases to the Earth’s atmosphere.

In conclusion, I strongly believe that the government plays an important role by setting the first step in sustainable development. The government should be transparent, open to sustainable ideas and responsible. Not only infrastructure engineers need to think about improved approach for infrastructure, they need to communicate to the society about the significance and worthiness a sustainable development can bring to a society. Therefore, I feel that the government can help to convey and convince the public for a good change. The government have the power to make law and adopt policies that are more approachable to people and the environment.

(622 words)

References

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

Clark,H. (2013 March 13). Helen Clark: the importance of governance for sustainable development. United Nations Development Programme. Retrieved from

http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/presscenter/speeches/2012/03/13/the-importance-of-governance-for-sustainable-development.html

Reyes,E. (2013 September 9). Singapore,Tokyo among top ten best cities for urban sustainability. Eco-Business. Retrieved from http://www.eco-business.com/news/singapore-tokyo-among-top-ten-best-cities-urban-sustainability/

Sustainable development. (n.d.).Legrand. Retrieved from http://www.legrand.com/EN/sustainable-development-description_12847.html

-Edited on 02/10/2015 at 1925 hours

Reader Response on "Developing Sustainable Infrastructure in New Cities" Draft 1

In the article “Developing Sustainable Infrastructure in New Cities” Cho (2014) mentions that enhanced infrastructural development is vital in considering the economic, social and environmental issues in urban cities. She further asserts that the major factor of a nation’s competitiveness to unite and incorporate cities to greater serves the resident is by having sustainable and competent infrastructure. She also mentions about her involvement in the Impact King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) that would bring positive impact on the community in the future. The writer beliefs that infrastructure must improve the aspect of life of the society while preserving energy resources as well as considering the natural environment and climate change. I agree with the writer that if the right and well planned infrastructure is built, it would bring positive impact for the nation.

Investing on infrastructure can lead to the economic growth. According to the article “Infrastructure for economic and social development, and a more sustainable world” English (2015) states that investment in infrastructure leads to economic growth and improve the well-being of the people in a country. Cross referencing to another article “Singapore, Tokyo among the top ten best cities for urban sustainability” Reyes (2013) claims that Singapore was awarded the intelligent city award for its smart transport system.  Singapore achieves to be one of the least congested major cities in the world.  The success was led by the Singapore government, who understood the importance of efficiency and affordable transportation system. Reyes asserts that Singapore Land Transport System Authority will further invest in transport infrastructure.

Similar to Cho’s article, English’s article also emphasized that climate change is one key challenge to overcome. English further asserts that suitable sustainable infrastructure is needed to adapt the consequences of climate change by installing clean energy technologies to reduce emission of greenhouse gases to earth’s atmosphere.

A good example of sustainable infrastructural development is in Masdar City in Abu Dhabi. The city will be the world’s first sustainable city to have zero carbon waste. The city will be power driven by solar, wind and geothermal energy. From here, we can see that extra efforts for an improved infrastructure can help preserve energy resources and contribute less to global warming.

Lastly, in English’s article he affirms that for an enhanced, greener, harmless and more sustainable world the infrastructure community must unite at national, regional as well as global level to bring comprehensive sustainable infrastructure for the people.

Overall, after reading Cho’s article and other articles, I found a lot of similar ideas were discussed. I have a better understanding why sustainable infrastructure is important especially in this 21^st century. I feel that in order to achieve sustainable infrastructural development, a good planning in building designs, the construction methods, using environmental friendly materials need to be adopted. Although it may be very costly it is a worth investment in a long run.

References

(English, 2015) http://www.infrastructure-intelligence.com/article/jul-2015/infrastructure-economic-and-social-development-and-more-sustainable-world

(Reyes, 2013) http://www.eco-business.com/news/singapore-tokyo-among-top-ten-best-cities-urban-sustainability/

PS: this is really the draft version posted on 25/11/2015 at 1120 hours

Summary on "Developing Sustainable Infrastructure in New Cities"

In the article “Developing Sustainable Infrastructure in New Cities”, Cho (2014) mentions that enhanced infrastructural development is vital in considering the economic, social and environmental issues in urban cities. She further asserts that the major factor of a nation’s competitiveness to unite and incorporate cities to greater serves the resident is by having sustainable and competent infrastructure. The writer explains about the Envision Rating System which is a tool to evaluate the performance of an infrastructure. Cho mentions about her involvement in the Impact King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) that would bring positive impact on the community in the future. The writer believes that infrastructure must improve the aspect of life of the society while preserving energy resources as well as considering the natural environment and climate change.

Posted on 24/11/2015 at 0800 hours

Edited on 24/11/2015 at 2355 hours
Edited on 26/11/2015 at 1500 hours

My English Language Learning Journey

Being born in Singapore, I was introduced to English language at a very young age.  My parents would read to me bedtime stories from various English storybooks. Coming from a Malay-speaking family, my parents were vigorous in encouraging me to read more English books.   I remembered clearly how dreadful it was to go to the library and was forced to borrow a minimum of 4 English books!

When I entered primary school, English language was just another subject that I have to pass in order to move on to the next level.  I have yet to understand the importance of grasping English language.  Hence, English language was never my forte subject back in primary and secondary school. I had difficulties tackling the comprehension questions, doing summaries and my most hated component of all; composition. I hated composition because my vocabulary is limited and I do not know how to express the story well in an essay writing form. However, with a lot of guidance from my teachers and intense practices from the ten year series, (trust me that book helps a lot) I managed to scrape through the o-levels’ English with a C5. Of course, it was not a fantastic grade but it was a great achievement for me.

At tertiary levels, English language is no longer a compulsory subject and in Singapore there is also a slang called “Singlish”.

Singlish has become a habitual routine for me and this affected my proper command of English by using the wrong grammar and poor sentence structures.

However, my English language learning journey does not stop at tertiary level as I am constantly broadening my vocabulary through reference books while doing school assignments and occasionally read the newspaper articles online.

Edited on: 11/11/2015 at 0052 hours.

Edited on: 16/11/2015 at 2133 hours.
Edited on: 21/11/2015 at 2200 hours