Introduction
Urban planning could be referred to as the art involved in designing places for the purpose of settling urban population. The various methods used in design processes present one of the vital elements of urban planning.
The planning process should encompass various aspects such as health and aesthetic value of buildings based on the intended functions. In addition the design should incorporate construction of passage areas capable of enhancing easy movement of people and traffic (Australian Bureau of Statistic, 2001).
Improvement in the nature of social status through communication plays an important role in linking crucial centres within the towns.
Urban planning and design incorporates healthy frameworks capable of providing quality outlook of the development formats hence accommodating comfortably higher percentage of population and developmental activities and at the same time maintaining socio-cultural activities (Susan and John, 2004).
Mining activities within the outcasts of potential cities presents big threat to sociological issues. The process usually begins with exploration which is considered as very technical and expensive task. The process helps in finding potential mineral deposits before the actual mining process (Bridge and Watson, 2002).
Excavation that accompanies the whole process is considered a potential source of health hazard. Mineral deposits after extraction are considered non-renewable resources contrary to other natural resources, hence new deposits of minerals should constantly be found.
Mining is found within many countries of the world with London being referred to as the capital of global mining houses. The level of consumption of minerals within the world is attributed to high population growth rate. The level has considerably increased placing the demand at higher level in the 20th and 21st century.
Such increase is attributed to higher dependency on automobiles within the transport sector amongst the city dwellers. At the same time the use of heavy machinery for production amongst other human and industrial services.
The United States is considered major importer of minerals and large producer of mineral products. However, the conservation on mineral resources has become a crucial issue within the society making the mining industry endorse policies favouring extraction of minerals (National Mining Association, 1998).
Contemporary social issue
Recent crises within public health reveals the extent to which coordinated activities within government ensures efficacy of public policies aimed at enriching population’s health. The need for well-coordinated intervention activities within areas of intense human activities faces various challenges based on responsibility allocation, power and jurisdiction required for public administration.
Great concern has been voiced on the physical and psychological illness found amongst various city populations within Australia (ABS, 2007b). There are increasing rates in juvenile diseases, epidemic of depression and emotional stress reflecting decline in lifespan owing to lifestyle related diseases. Research reveals that urban planning go hand-in-hand with current health patterns within Sidney.
Most cities share almost same urban set-up whereby there is car dependency, separation of home and work with poor health patterns. Such scenario presents extensive evidence with demonstrations on how city dwellers are becoming increasingly insensitive towards health. Those living in suburban environments are always relaxed from undertaking regular physical exercises owing to heavy traffic and unpleasant environment.
Single family dwelling further has got pronounced challenges since they are considered isolated from the general population hence do not have time to interact with their neighbours. This leads to reduction in social capital as well as human compassion.
Such scenarios of urban planning and development are common to Australian cities due to lack of integrated health facilities, equity amongst the social classes (Butterworth, 2000; Johnson, 2004; Knox, 2003).
Various scenarios underpin the existing living patterns in Australia such as; loss of biodiversity, loss of habitat, increase in suburban areas, marginalization of low income earners and competition on privatization of public land.
However, previous researches revealed the role of the physical environment in addressing various social issues on isolation and mental sicknesses such as depression (Victorian Department of Sustainability and the Environment, 2005).
Urban planning and Public health
Urban planning is normally considered due to the attention given to the general health of urban inhabitants. This led to the separation of industrial sections from residential areas, process referred to as zoning. In the process of creating the City Beautiful Movement, suburb emerged.
The suburb was considered one of the appropriate places for raising healthy families since its location was a little far from the densely packed inner city (Alexander, 2000). This also considered separation of work and family life and at the same time development of infrastructure including transport network. Availability of transport means purposefully fuelled suburban expansion.
Such increase in the use of cars and suburban expansion has complicated the issues on health posing major risk to city dwellers. However, these issues are addressed through planning with health aspiration as major core concern. Rapidly urbanizing nations are faced with complex health issues which can only be tackled through healthy urban planning (Victorian Department of Sustainability and the Environment, 2005).
Metropolitan plans play an important role in the process of creating as well as developing healthy cities. They are responsible for setting frameworks for various plans within the cities giving detailed and specific guidelines concerning urban construction.
With respect to Australian culture, high standards of living are mandatory irrespective of whether an individual lives in the city or country side. This is supported by quality economic provision from the government enabling good employment conditions and ownership (Beck, 1992; Victorian Department of Sustainability and the Environment, 2005).
Despite robust economic productivity, there is still existence of inequality amongst different population groups from different locations. The disparity in lifestyle between the disadvantaged and most advantaged group shows the nature of inequality existing amongst the Metropolitan community.
The nature of equality and opportunity determines possibility of access to health services, quality housing and means to healthy wellbeing. Social inclusion within Australian cities is considered moderate (Australian Social Inclusion Board, 2010).
The differences experienced between wealth and income distribution are also used to reflect the total individual accumulated wealth. However, in such large cities as Sydney there is greater imbalance since high income earners are the majority contrary to other smaller cities
Inequality within Sydney
Sydney is characterized by relatively moderate to high levels of inequality (Miranti et al, 2009). Such levels of inequality have resulted into suburbanization of poverty amongst those living in suburban areas. This has made majority to move towards the outer suburbs allowing for city regeneration.
National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling revealed on the nature of inequality within Sydney by reporting the presence of many distinct pockets of people having high income (Victorian Department of Sustainability and the Environment, 2005).
Socio-economic disparities are caused by lack of accessibility towards education, social amenities, health and employment. The various labour markets within western Sydney are unable to provide adequate jobs for the existing population (Cuthill, 2003).
The planning should also consider development of modern quality attraction centres which ultimately requires the use of modern technology capable of producing attractive designs and at the same time maintaining healthy environment.
The study on Sydney aims at scrutinizing the available urban planning methods and ultimately present preferable designs capable of maintaining the expected healthy standards within the urban natural environment.
The kind of infrastructural development does not always define an urban metropolis; main definitions are always derived from the expectations and ambitions of the cosmopolitan community alongside the associated challenges (Anderson and Jacobs, 1997, pp. 12-22). The kind of background portrayed by Sydney and various communal practices form the key foundation of the city’s existence and maintenance.
However, owing to disparity in social class there is need for effective administration of the city’s populace, community as well as educational resources. Effective management of the available resources assist in revealing the administrators’ abilities of initiating exclusive strategies for growth.
These include processes basically meant for dealing with poverty levels. According to structural-functional sociological perspective improvement of political dispensation and corresponding reorganization of the societal set up would help in upgrading the social levels.
The necessary available resources should be gathered for the purposes of balancing city’s growth pattern (Vinson, 2009). However, the main objective should be geared towards attaining such objectives under various domains such as; discrepancies within the City’s population, dissimilarities in the metropolis, negative ecological impacts and development (Scott 2000).
Sydney urban and environment planning should be in correspondence to modern health standards. The infrastructure should encourage the use environmentally friendly means such as vehicles with low levels of greenhouse gas emission. The design should be capable of accommodating pedestrians and other transport means such as use of bicycles, train and vehicles (Holmes et al., 2012).
“The value of human life is elevated with good urban planning that reflects accountability and far sightedness on the side of the administration. The global benchmark advocates for provision of clean water, observation of hygiene, permanent housing structures and adequate residential room”.
The government should be capable of encouraging the use of environmentally friendly energy fuels capable of constituting a good living environment. All city dwellers irrespective of their social class should be capable of accessing important services without crossing over to other outside boundaries (Scott 2000).
Several key environmental impacts arise during construction activities which ultimately impacts the environment in several ways. The impact of emissions on the air quality could be related to dust and gaseous emissions emerging from the construction machinery.
Major activities from the construction site leading to such emissions site formation, construction of buildings, digging of water recreation Centre, excavation of roads and construction of railway lines. Fuel combustion from the heavy machineries contributes higher percentage of health hazards alongside, odour emissions from sewage stations (Gleeson and Randolph, 2002).
According to social perspective equitable planning for urban development usually follows the nature of environmental need to be fulfilled. The city’s development standards require international levels on sanitation, improved water supply, good housing schemes and decongestion processes granting sufficient operation spaces.
Despite these, creation of high standard cities requires well developed plans and sufficient financial resources traffic (Australian Bureau of Statistic, 2001). In addition, security levels should be hiked with aim of preventing environmental hazards and ensuring the availability of adequate and affordable social services.
The various deposits of clean energy should be reserved as discussed earlier for the purposes of reducing environmental footprint and impact within Sydney. Creation of harmony within these cities is possible through the practice of integrated spatial development and committing resources towards attainment of social equity (Ang et al., 2002).
Socio-cultural Dimension
Sydney City is developed within a rich environment which consists of various cultural backgrounds. The city’s design was based on careful planning and robust international management style. The level of maintenance within public areas should signify high sensitivity to health matters. This demands that cleanliness should be of high standards and available structures maintained in seemingly orderly manner.
The structures used on daily basis such as footpaths, restaurants and bridges should portray high efficiency levels (Gleeson and Randolph, 2002). Such organizations makes it possible to control and coordinate crown influx. The presence of parks should be seen as means for regulating crowd movement within cool and relaxed environments.
Such organization makes it easier for the management to control public movements and behaviours extended to social sites. Visitors coming into the city experiences lots of ease especially when it comes to travelling in and out of the central business district (Anderson, 1999).
The kind of approaches utilized in urban planning and development has experienced great innovation over time. Such changes involve the use of local governments in the processes of planning, developing and maintenance of cities. The processes at times allow for public opinions before any major construction activity.
Experiences on rapid growth of urban centres within developing nations are largely marred with various challenges such as traffic congestion, pollution, and overcrowding and high crime rates. However, utilizing appropriate strategies within governance and visionary leadership can assist in overcoming the stipulated challenges (Scott 2000).
Sydney is one of the cities experiencing rapid increase in environmental problems. This is well attributed to rapid increase in urban population creating some strains within the recommended carrying capacity. Overcrowding leads to unhealthy standards such as poor provision of health services and vital resources within the required places.
The change experienced due to rapid population increase provided disruptive scenarios to the entire environment. Such scenarios include cases such as; industrial pollution, deforestation and land excavation. Environmental pollution results from extreme exploitation of the limited natural resources which ultimately creates irreversible situations.
Air pollution is recorded as one of the major sources of diseases as reported by World Health Organization. According to United Nations approximately two million people die every year from diseases associated with air pollution (Badcock, 1997, pp. 243-259).
Conclusion
Sydney as one of the tourist cities places several barriers which act as hindrances to travel activities in and out of the region. Accessibility is one of the crucial considerations found within tourist destinations such as Sydney. This is because there is need of facilitating information between different points.
Due to the nature of luxury involved the city is expected to be one of the major tourist destinations in the near future. However, the major challenge still remains on the kind of environmental maintenance to be adopted for the purposes of achieving the stipulated millennium goals. Sustainable development of the entire city is a requirement which can only be achieved through candid planning from the government.
Pollution levels and environmental exhaustion determines the capacity that can be supported by the city at a given point of time. Owing to such considerations the government should focus on empowering various development sectors for the purpose of overcoming environmental demands.
Decrease in resource base prevents anticipated growth of countries. This calls for great concern over sustainable development which is a prerequisite to economic growth (Victorian Department of Sustainability and the Environment, 2005).
Mining industry has provided most cities from different nations with alternative and ways of boosting investor confidence. Countries are focusing on minerals with a bid of helping them cope with the prevailing volatility within the financial markets.
At the same time, Central banks seeking diversification of their foreign exchange resorted to gold purchase. The purchase of gold in the third quarter of 2011 was over 148 tones. Gold is also playing an important role in the diversification of foreign exchange reserves within the Asian and American countries.
Countries with emerging markets on gold have recorded low percentages of holdings in gold trade, for example countries such as Brazil rates at 0.5%, China 1.7%, Mexico 4% and Peru 3.8% (Zeal LLC, 2010; United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-HABITAT), 2008).
The mining industry in Australia is done in large scale hence inclined towards large multinational companies. The industry is considered to operate on two major sectors with one specializing in exploration and the other in mining of the explored resources.
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