Plague of urban development

Political conservatives believe that urban development endangers the natural serenity and self-sufficiency of a community. They might be right. Undoubtedly, some of us would buy the idea and would prefer a simple, undemanding, and uncomplicated community.

Look at Pagadian today. Business is booming. More and more investors flood over commercial areas. Even residential areas are transforming to business zones to cope with the growing demand for trade and industry. The city is busy. The people tolerate the daily inconvenience of the construction processes of buildings and streets.

We experience traffic chaos particularly during rush hours. The city is becoming beautiful and fertile for business – a factor that holds residents within it or attracts people to it. Population grew at stunning 9% yearly. Migration and tourism is increasing as people from neighboring towns and cities move in to grab opportunities of all sorts.

This saddens the conservative who chooses passive lifestyle. He claims urban development can be a plague to any community, especially if such development is anchored on dense population due to migration, growth rate, and tourism.

For instance, urban development poses problems on the environment. As population grows, so do various industries. We further pollute the air as more people drive more cars and as more industries use much fuel. Water, used for cleaning, heating, cooling, and even cooking are poured back to water resources filled with contaminants.

Another, a densely populated community may have problems on employment. More people would mean fewer jobs available. And some employed individuals may opt to move their unemployed family members to the urban area. If many are unemployed, poverty and crime will rise.

In addition, problems on education, health and social services, among others, will continually hang around. Food insecurity and rising cost of goods and services add more troubles. Eventually, the less productive and financially challenged group may not cope with progress.

But we do not bother to think that urban development is disadvantageous to a community. We have to leave behind old-fashioned lines of thinking. And as we think of development, we think of finding new ways to balance and consider everything.

We can build healthier economy by providing steady jobs and by opening up more business opportunities to keep unemployment rate low. We have to extend more livelihood financial assistance to cooperatives and other sectoral groups to ease poverty and to lessen the number of urban poor.

Fortunately, Pagadian City and Zamboanga del Sur is blessed with fertile lands, clean water resources, and promising tourism areas. The agriculture sector is doing more than we expect. For example, rice production of the entire province is exceeding by almost 50% last year. Aquatic and marine resources are also soaring high. Business industry is doing remarkable progress.

This can only mean that the more we progress, the more we generate funds for the government to provide better health and social services, to lend more assistance to small and medium enterprises, and to venture more on untapped technologies that Zambosurians can benefit from. Thus, we cannot sit back and relax. We have to move forward and embrace development and progress not only for ourselves but also for our local government. (By Neil Michael B. Dablo)