Student: Justin Ketzler
Graduation date: May 2015
Type: Concentration (single major)
Date approved: November 2012
Summary
Deserts are characteristically low in resources, and due to this, the environment itself does not allow for widespread habitation. Nevertheless, humans inhabit deserts, and in some cases they contain huge, rapidly growing cities such as Phoenix, USA, and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. These cities grow because technology (such as air conditioning and elaborate water supply and conservation systems) permits it (Logan 2006). Additionally, they are attractive to people and businesses. They offer a cheaper consumer lifestyle, and at the same time, they have unique benefits, such as warm winters and open air (Darity 2008, Logan 2006). And, since the land is cheap and without significant geographical boundaries, these cities continue to expand outward without any significant long-term plan to control such growth (Squires 2002). This creates an archetypical case of suburban sprawl, hence my concentration’s relation to the theme of suburbia. However, since these cities are situated in resource-scarce deserts, they require abnormally large amounts of imported resources to function (Kahn 2000). This is especially due to the fact that, aside from the increased rates of consumption that are characteristic of suburbias, the residents of desert metropolises expect the same resource allocations that they would in any other city, such as water and electricity (Squires 2002).
The modes of urban development in the world’s deserts have differed between countries. In the deserts of Western Australia, there are no major cities, which suggests that the growth of cities in Australia is based on the availability of surrounding resources. The most obvious and critical resource in this case is water. That is to say, since water is scarce, the existing Australian cities remain within this confine. However, in the US desert Southwest, there are cities of over a million inhabitants, such as Phoenix, AZ. Phoenix has a reasonable amount of groundwater, along with occasional surface water flow, yet this itself is not enough to support its large and expanding population (Steiner et al. 1999). To obtain additional water, city utility agencies (such as the Salt River Project) must take it from surrounding rivers, including the Verde, Salt, and ColoradoRivers, or overdraw their groundwater reserves (Jacobs 2012, Steiner et al. 1999). Coupled with air conditioning, the extensive development of water sources has enabled over a million people to live in the Sonoran Desert, with all of the good factors (warm winters) and less of the bad (water scarcity or hot summers) (Logan 2006). This growth is also encouraged by government subsidies, city boosters, US economic trends of consumerism, and cultural trends of expansionism (Logan 2006, Knox 2005). Urban expansion is regulated and organized through zoning ordinances and a municipal urban planning division; however, according to Phoenix’s official website, these exist to promote utility and convenience rather than limit growth. The city of Riyadh, in Saudi Arabia, exhibits similar trends of limitless growth. Except in this case, there is a lack of the controlled urban planning that exists in the Phoenix. Riyadh is a city of 4.5 million people, but loose government policies and inefficient planning resulted in half of the city’s land being unsuccessfully subdivided (Mubarak 2004). Huge portions of land were subdivided by land developers (they developed lots and roads), even though they were not needed at the time. This contrast with Phoenix is a result of the different political makeup of the city. Traditionally, Muslim cities like Riyadh are not governed by a central political body. Rather, the cities are a conglomerate of neighborhoods, which are each governed by their own appointed official (Mubarak 2004). Any regulation is done to varying degrees within specific neighborhoods, which leads to the city’s dysfunctional sprawl. In terms of supplying water to its increasing number of residents, Riyadh has also had to reach beyond its environments’ natural supply of fresh water. Except in this case, they have turned to desalination, which provides more than half of the city’s drinking water (Alabdula’aly 1997). It is another situation in which a desert metropolis has had to resort to extreme measures to meet its residents’ perceived entitlements to drinking water.
References
Alabdula’aly, AbdulrahmanI. 1997. “Fluoride Content in Drinking Water Supplies of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.” Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 48 (3) (December 1): 261–272.
Darity, William A., ed. 2008. “Suburbs.” In International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 8:210–212. 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA.
Jacobs, Katharine L. L. 2012. Arizona Water Policy: Management Innovations in an Urbanizing, Arid Region. Routledge.
Kahn, Matthew E. 2000. “The Environmental Impact of Suburbanization.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 19 (4): 569–586.
Knox, Paul. 2005. “Vulgaria: The Re-Enchantment of Suburbia.” Opolis 1 (2) (June 30). http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/5392f4vq.
Logan, Michael. 2006. Desert cities: the environmental history of Phoenix and Tucson. University of Pittsburgh.
Mubarak, Faisal A. 2004. “Urban Growth Boundary Policy and Residential Suburbanization: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.” Habitat International 28 (4) (December): 567–591.
Squires, Gregory D. 2002. Urban Sprawl: Causes, Consequences, & Policy Responses. The Urban Institute.
Steiner, Frederick, Laurel McSherry, Dean Brennan, Mark Soden, Joe Yarchin, Douglas Green, James M. McCarthy, Catherine Spellman, John Jennings, and Kirsten Barre. 1999. “Concepts for Alternative Suburban Planning in the Northern Phoenix Area.” Journal of the American Planning Association 65 (2): 207.
Questions
- Descriptive: What have been some prominent trends of growth of large urban centers in deserts, and how have these affected local resources and ecosystems?
- Explanatory: What are the specific economic incentives that spur rapid urban growth in the middle of some deserts? How have desert cities managed water scarcity up to this point?
- Evaluative: What are the ecological consequences of damming major desert rivers, or withdrawing increasing amounts of groundwater, to provide water for desert metropolises? What are the foreseeable environmental and economic consequences of continued urban growth in deserts?
- Instrumental: Could larger land preservation efforts serve as a means of planning and controlling future urban growth in the desert? Could growth be better managed by implementation of water rates that more accurately reflect the amount of water currently available in the region?
Concentration courses
- ECON 103 (Statistics, 4 credits), fall 2013, or spring 2014. Statistical analysis will be one of the most important tools in my concentration, since it will allow me to analyze and characterize aspects of desert cities, based on descriptive statistics. At that, I feel that it will be very beneficial to obtain an in-depth understanding of statistics through this course
- HIST 336 (Wilderness and the American West, 4 credits), spring 2013. This history course lists “environmental history” as one of its aspects, since it deals with the historical conflicts of progress vs. preservation of land in the American West, where my concentration is situated.
- ECON 332 (Urban Economics, 4 credits), fall 2013. ECON 332 analyzes the "economic aspects of urban areas" and their varying patterns of land use, both of which are dominant focuses of my concentration.
- GEOL 280 (The Fundamentals of Hydrology, 4 credits), spring 2014. This class focuses on water, including its behavior in man-made environments, which is relevant since it is the most crucial natural resource in desert cities.
- IA 238 (Political Economy of Development, 4 credits), spring 2014. IA 238 focuses on economic development, including the development of urban areas, along with the role that government and policy play in such development
Arts and humanities courses
- HIST 261 (Global Environmental History, 4 credits). Pre-approved A&H course; no justification required.
- PHIL 215 (Philosophy and the Environment, 4 credits). Pre-approved A&H course; no justification required.