Our Air! It’s Getting a Little Polluted

March 2, 2015March 4, 2015 dspiro

Air pollution is a major problem that can ruin an entire city’s, let alone the world’s, health very rapidly. It can cause heart and respiratory illnesses such as asthma in children and elderly in significant numbers. However it is not only a health hazard. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, air pollution can also damage trees, crops, other plants, lakes, animals, buildings, monuments, and statues. Needless to say, clean air needs to be a top priority.

In the U.S. Congress passed the Clean Air Act, giving the federal government authority to clean up air pollution in this country. Other countries, China for example, do not have the current needed efforts to compete with the rising pollution dominating their most industrialized cities. The rates of asthma and other illnesses have soared over the last few decades. Fortunately political and nonprofit efforts have managed to curb the increase in pollution which is a good start to solving the problem. One particular nonprofit effort to combat air pollution in China is called Greenpeace East Asia to where you can donate or find more information of their efforts here.

Combating Gentrification

February 20, 2015March 4, 2015 dspiro

Does urban growth automatically mean more gentrification? Not necessarily. Here’s some sure fire ways to avoid gentrification from coming to fruition.

1. More low-income housing!

This one seems almost too obvious of an answer. By making providing low income housing at an equal rate as high cost areas grow, displacement may still happen but at the poorest of a city are not literally losing ground in their city. Making sure that low income housing projects don’t disappear in the future is crucial to preventing gentrification from taking place.

Going back to our previous example of Rosewood Courts. While I agree that the land value of Rosewood has increased in value over the years, that does not given developers the right to tear it down and rebuild for the incoming upper to middle class families, thus displacing the previous residents.

However, there are various programs in place for those who do get displaced or just need low income housing today. The City of Austin has many different programs to choose from, therefore I cannot argue that the displaced residents will automatically become homeless. Most of the problem gentrification brings is the displacement of people from their homes that they’ve lived in for decades.

That being said, according to Roger Valdez from Smart Growth Seattle, neighborhoods have notoriously shifted from wealth to poverty to wealth again within the decades since it’s been around. The process of a changing area is not something new and cannot be solely blamed on gentrification. However, one it becomes to the point that only minorities are being displaced and there are no new low income housing areas to go along with the growth of the city’s wealthy metropolitan area, then that becomes a gentrification problem.

2. Protect existing low income housing areas

Again, this one seems too obvious of answer as well. Protecting existing areas will slow down the process of gentrification and it will keep families in the homes they’ve owned for the last couple of decades. It makes sure that families stay in the areas they want to, regardless of their income. Sadly, there are not many programs out there to help families keep their home as much as ones to help them find a new one. I suggest demanding a program for the families who do not wish to move out of the area so they can keep their home.

For more good reads on the subject, I suggest Kalima Rose’s blog post on Race, Poverty, and Environment.

What is Population Pulse and why should you care?

February 2, 2015April 20, 2015 dspiro

This blog is brought to you by St. Edward’s students Alex, Debbie, Rebecca, and Sydni. We believe that our world’s rapidly growing overpopulation is a major problem that needs to be addressed. We think we can combat this by spreading awareness of the subject, so feel free to subscribe and share our blog to every one you know!

In this blog, we will discuss why overpopulation matters and how it effects everyone in the planet not just people in dense cities. We will give you tips on how to live life in a crowded city in more sustainable way. Every week our blog will post about a way overpopulation effects the world. We will then give you a solution to that effect in a separate post.

Who are we, you may ask? The four of us are current students at St. Edward’s University taking a class on social media with Dr. Corinne Weisgerber. Our blog is our semester long project focused on the issue of overpopulation. We picked overpopulation as our topic because it is one we are all passionate about because it is an issue that effects everybody.

Overpopulation is a big problem that effects us in ways that most people don’t realize. Population has an effect on us environmentally, sustainability, and socio-economically. Environmental issues include, but are not limited to, pollution, overcrowding, and deforestation. Sustainability issues include over consumption of natural resources like natural gas, coal, and oil. Socio-economic issues include urbanization and poverty.

Over the next few months, we will go in depth on how you can help combat the world’s overpopulation problem. Every little thing you do to help will be a push in the right direction. If you have any blog ideas or concerns, feel free to comment down below and we will address it as soon as possible. Thank you for visiting our blog today!