Topic: Impact of Urbanization
Country: Denmark
Delegate Name: Malaynah Leach
School: Vicksburg High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Denmark position papers GLIMUN 2015 committees
With an 86.9% urban population rate Denmark is ranked 23rd out of the 196 countries in the world for highest urban population rate. That is due to Denmark being a small country with a small population of only 5.614 million people where most of their population live in their three major cities, Copenhagen, Aarhus, and Odense. People are attracted to Denmark’s cities because of the quaint size and because of Denmark’s attempts at turning their cities into “greener” cities. These attempts are referred to as green urbanization. Green urbanization is the practice of benefiting humans and the environment by trying to shape more sustainable places, communities, and lifestyles while not harming the environment. The ways in which Denmark wishes to create more green cities would not only help the environment, but they would also create more job opportunities in its cities. The creation of more jobs and the idea of living in a close community that is eco-friendly are a few concepts that attract people to Denmark’s cities and raise their urban population.
Although Denmark is not affected majorly by the negative aspects of urbanization growth due to its small size, high urbanization rates are still a worldwide issue. Even though urbanization in cities can have positive effects such as growing GDP rates and more opportunities for services, they don’t outweigh the growing concerns. As urbanization rates grow, crime rates grow, making cities unsafe for living. Along with growing crime rates, unemployment and poverty rates are growing due to poor communities that develop in cities not being able to escape poverty. Another growing concern caused by urbanization is the growing obesity issue in cities. Cities advertise unhealthy food and are easily accessible to unhealthy food options that lead people to make unhealthy life choices. This is due to cities being poorly designed and not fit for people to live a healthy lifestyle in. These reasons are only a few reasons why urbanization is hurting over half our world’s population. It is important that countries are able to find a way to create better designed cities so that the majority of their population is not living in unhealthy conditions and cities are contributing positively to the world.
