Importance of Infrastructure in Human Geography
Urban geography is a subdiscipline of geography which concentrates on the parts of earth with a high concentration of both infrastructure and people. Today, over 54% of the world's population lives in urban centers across the globe. Although they vary in size, scope, and scale, they are very important to the human race as centers of culture, politics, and economics. Currently, the global population is shifting towards cities, but there are many things that need to be changed about them in order to successfully and sustainably hold this mass influx of people. Sadly, many cities are stuck in the last century by having poor infrastructure, transportation, sustainability, and employment. As John Wilmoth, Director of UN DESA’s Population Division said, “Managing urban areas has become one of the most important development challenges of the 21st century. Our success or failure in building sustainable cities will be a major factor in the success of the post-2015 UN development agenda.” This is where urban geography comes into play. We can study the spatial interactions between people and their surroundings to further improve our cities in ways that could further humanity as a whole.
Because the world is growing fast, we need to begin to consider how we can make urbanisation sustainable. Without the study of urban geography, this task would be deemed almost impossible. In semi-periphery and periphery countries, providing education and basic health services to its citizens is of utmost importance. Without proper education and health services these densely populated cities would sufferer in dramatic ways including epidemics and being denied access into the global market. Through sustainable urbanisation, we can alter the way that people plan and build cities so that they are both less environmentally damaging and better to live in. Through changes in social, political, and economic processes, cities can provide a better, more sustainable life to its inhabitants.
Most people reading this don't think about how they are reading this. The mass amounts of electricity, time, and resources spent to make these words appear in front of you would not be possible with out infrastructure. It is defined as “the basic physical and organizational structures and facilities (e.g., buildings, roads, and power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or enterprise”. Steel, concrete, and cables line our roads and make our buildings. They are at the heart of our society and they provide the backbone to a healthy economy. So, why does this matter? Without infrastructure it would not be possible to build towns, muchless cities. Every day almost everyone in the world utilises some form of infrastructure, and it is of utmost importance to our continued existence on earth. There is also a network behind infrastructure, as over 14 million people in the United States alone have jobs directly related to infrastructure. This includes truck drivers, train operators, electricians, and countless others that provide employment for over 11% of our nation's workforce. Infrastructure is everywhere. The world's economy is entirely dependent on infrastructure for communication, manufacturing and distribution of goods, transportation, and millions of other things. Business interactions around the globe generate around 2.5 billion gigabytes of data every day, and this number is growing as people in developing countries are quickly gaining access to technology. Innovations in infrastructure can lead to increased efficiency, productivity, and disruptive change in the world's social order and global marketplace. Without infrastructure humanity has no functioning society.