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From Bangalore to the Bay Area

By Mark Shwartz

從班加羅爾*到美國矽谷海灣地區

 Mark Shwartz

在50年代後期，南端的舊金山灣充滿了農場和牧場。但10年後，南灣已成為從零開始的高科技革命，最終將改變世界。蘋果園讓位於蘋果電腦和無數的其他信息技術公司，矽谷誕生了。

近年來，中國，印度和其他發展中國家都試圖模仿美國矽谷的成功故事，同時也應忽略有關的環境影響產業快速擴張。班加羅爾，印度和深圳，中國，是兩個大的城市地區已經成為新興都市工業在過去的30多年，但在什麼的環境成本？

為了找到答案，兩個前斯坦福大學的研究，克倫瀨戶和瑪格麗特奧馬拉，提出了一個獨特的項目，將匯集地理學家，歷史學家，城市規劃者，科學家和地球系統文件的急劇變化，已經改變了深圳，班加羅爾和矽谷。 “低密度，汽車依賴城市增長模式體現在美國，在過去的半個世紀中已經上調消耗土地，水和化石燃料，能源和氣候影響全球系統”瀨戶和奧馬拉說。

 “發展國家目前採用西式生活的方式和增長模式，明顯地類似美國什麼全球化的美國郊區意味著全球環境？”

瀨戶和奧馬拉提出利用衛星圖像，實地研究，攝影，並實地採訪，制定全面的數據庫和互動地圖，顯示城市化的影響隨著時間的推移。

2006年，其創新性的建議成為現實時，被授予環境風險的項目（EVP）的補助金由斯坦福大學的伍茲研究所環境。

“對於十多年來，我一直在研究深圳，一個城市的爭奪已成為中國的下一個矽谷，”瀨戶回憶說，前伍茲研究所研究員，現在是副教授城市環境耶魯大學。

“瑪格麗特奧馬拉是矽谷的專家，她也稱為‘’;">城市的知識。早在我們的交談中，很明顯，一些我曾經觀察到的模式在深圳仍然非常類似矽谷。瑪格麗特和我都讀到班加羅爾作為‘’;">印度矽谷‘’;">，因此成為該項目的比較研究北美的城市發展模式，在矽谷，深圳和班加羅爾。“

衛星圖像 因此，在執行副總裁金，瀨戶，奧馬拉，和他們的同事產生了三個時間序列“地理數據庫”，生動描繪了矽谷的轉變自1950年以來，深圳市自1972年以來，自1980年以來的班加羅爾。每個數據庫包含了豐富的信息主要指標的變化，包括人口增長，交通基礎設施，農業土地利用，甚至主要的購物區。

“這三個研究地點的環境條件，如天氣良好，自然資源和綠色空間，使他們呼籲地點的國際企業和高科技人才需要搬遷，”瀨戶說。

“之前，矽谷的發展，該地區是一個農業生產中心。但最首要的農業用地已被轉換為高科技園區及住宅的發展，加快綠色空間的損失。我們的研究表明，相同的模式舉辦如此班加羅爾和深圳。“

該項目還產生了新的見解對快速城市化的影響在地方一級。

“的執行副總裁團隊能夠制訂說明的政治歷史，這些大城市的日益重要的作用跨國公司在大都市景觀，以及潛在的可持續性的途徑，可能是適當的每個位置，”週墨儒說，現在助理教授史的華盛頓大學和斯坦福大學附屬學者的條例草案裡中心的美國西部。

大部分的視覺數據的項目中使用來自美國宇航局的土地遙感衛星（Landsat）計劃。權力的陸地衛星圖像可以看到在網站的兩個新的研究小組領導瀨戶和奧馬拉的發展給予的執行副總裁。這兩個群體包括跨學科研究隊伍組成的教師，學生和工作人員從耶魯大學，斯坦福大學和華盛頓大學。城市環境集團在耶魯大學網站提供驚人的衛星圖像的轉變，深圳在過去30年。知識城市研究小組的網站提供詳細的，交互式的地圖記錄已經發生變化，在所有三個城市地區。

“我們的研究揭示了有用的比較調查對空間和時間，其意義的政治經濟環境變化，”週墨儒說。

“在所有三個研究場地，環境變化是加速時期的快速增長，國內生產總值和隨之而來的城市擴張。在矽谷的20世紀中葉，在班加羅爾和深圳20世紀90年代和2000年代，經濟自由化和重大公共投資，導致城市，城市化的速度非常緊張放在基礎設施和資源，並在經濟發展優先事項莫須有可持續的城市和區域規劃的重點。“

深圳市為例

深圳市提供了一個最好的例證，因為這個區域的快速增長產生了重大影響的環境。

“在70年代後期，中國南部城市深圳還是一個漁村的約2萬人，”注意到知識城市的網站。

“今天，這是一個蓬勃發展的大都市多達1200萬美元。選定於1978年在中國的網站後的第一次試驗，1949年市場的開放，建立經濟特區在深圳這個以農業為主，降雨量珠江三角洲成一個中心的低成本，面向出口的製造業。“ 在執行副總裁的研究，瀨戶和奧馬拉發現，增加機動在深圳已經導致排放增加二氧化硫和二氧化氮氣體，兩個有害污染物。   在2007年研究由美國國家科學基金會（NSF），瀨戶，另一個研究小組利用陸地衛星圖像顯示出城市發展之間的聯繫和降雨模式[見所附視頻]。雜誌中寫道，氣候，研究人員得出結論認為，深圳的快速增長，自1980年以來的實際造成乾燥的冬天，在珠江三角洲。在先前的文件，瀨戶和她的同事發現，城市地區三角洲增加了3倍以上88年至96年。研究人員比較這種快速增長，月溫度和降水資料，來自16個氣象觀測站。他們的分析揭示了城市化之間的直接關係和降雨減少，冬季乾燥季節。

“主要是它是由植物轉化瀝青土地，道路和建築物，”瀨戶解釋。

“因此，土壤已大大減少水的吸收能力，所以在冬季沒有那麼大氣中的水分，因此，降水減少。我們沒有看到同樣的影響在夏季，部分原因是影響亞洲季風的影響掩蓋了城市化。當城市還比較小，我們看不到這種模式出現。它發生在城市變得非常大。但這的部分，我認為這是令人震驚的，因為我們看到大城市發展規模都超過中國和整個發展中世界。“

為了接觸到地方和區域的決策者，執行副總裁隊舉行了一次公開論壇，題為“新的城市景觀：增長，更改和規劃未來矽谷”，清華大學在深圳。研究人員還建議深圳本地官員的新戰略，結合經濟發展的舉措，更可持續的土地使用方法。

城市與環境

除了擴大自己的知識城市和城市環境的研究團體，瀨戶和奧馬拉正計劃寫一本書的成果的基礎上合作的執行副總裁。研究人員也被邀請谷歌參與討論有關如何使用繪圖和建模軟件，告知政策決定，從而實現可持續城市化和土地保護。

“主要目標的執行副總裁金人的長處結合起來的歷史與現代的地理分析功能來分析土地利用的問題在三個不同的地區，”瀨戶說。

“這個項目一直非常成功，在這方面，”週墨儒說。

“城市的政策，過去和現在，有著深厚的對環境的影響，從運輸方式的能源消費和碳排放，但在雙方的學術和政策對話‘’;">環境‘’;">和‘’;">城市‘’;">，往往是相互排斥的類別。這項研究表明，密切相關的環境可持續性之間的聯繫和城市形態，以及為什麼有意義的步驟，對不同類型的城市增長模式，是至關重要的未來經濟和社會的成功，全世界的城市。“

*班加羅爾（卡納達語：ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು) (國際音標 /‘bɛŋgəɫurʊ’; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;" lang=“ZH-TW”>）(English: Bangalore)是卡納塔克邦的首府，印度第5大城市，人口約650萬人。

In the late 1950s, the southern end of the San Francisco Bay was filled with farms and pastures. But a decade later, the South Bay had become ground zero for a high-tech revolution that would eventually change the world. Apple orchards gave way to Apple Computers and a myriad of other information technology companies, and Silicon Valley was born.

In recent years, China, India, and other developing countries have tried to mimic the Silicon Valley success story, while paying little heed to the environmental impact of rapid industrial expansion. Bangalore, India, and Shenzhen, China, are two large urban areas that have become industrial boomtowns in the last 30 years, but at what cost to the environment?

To find out, two former Stanford researchers, Karen Seto and Margaret O’Mara, proposed a unique project that would bring together geographers, historians, urban planners, and Earth systems scientists to document the dramatic changes that have transformed Shenzhen, Bangalore, and Silicon Valley.

“The low-density, car-dependent urban growth patterns evident in the United States during the past half-century have spiked consumption of land, water, and fossil fuels, affecting energy and climate systems worldwide,” Seto and O’Mara wrote. "Developing nations are now adopting Western-style ways of living and growth patterns measurably similar to the U.S. What does the globalization of the American suburb mean for the global environment?"

Seto and O’Mara proposed using satellite imagery, field studies, photography, and on-the-ground interviews to develop comprehensive databases and interactive maps showing the impact of urbanization over time. In 2006, their innovative proposal became reality when they were awarded an Environmental Venture Projects (EVP) grant from Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment.

"For more than a decade, I had been studying Shenzhen, a city that has been vying to be China‘s next Silicon Valley," recalled Seto, a former Woods Institute fellow, now an associate professor of the urban environment at Yale University. "Margaret O’Mara is an expert on Silicon Valley, what she has called a ‘city of knowledge.’ In our early conversations, it became clear that some of the patterns I had observed in Shenzhen were remarkably similar to those in Silicon Valley. Margaret and I had both read about Bangalore as ‘India’s Silicon Valley,’ so the project became a comparative study of North American patterns of urban development in Silicon Valley, Shenzhen, and Bangalore."

Satellite imagery

As a result of the EVP grant, Seto, O’Mara, and their colleagues have produced three time-series “geodatabases” graphically depicting the transformation of Silicon Valley since 1950, Shenzhen since 1972, and Bangalore since 1980. Each database contains a wealth of information on key indicators of change, including population growth, transportation infrastructure, agricultural land use, and even major shopping areas.

“All three study sites have environmental amenities-like good weather, natural resources, and green space-that make them appealing locations for international businesses and high-tech professionals to relocate,” Seto said. "Prior to the development of Silicon Valley, the region was a productive agricultural center. But most of the prime agricultural land has been converted to high-tech parks and residential developments, accelerating the loss of green space. Our study shows that the same patterns hold true for Bangalore and Shenzhen."

The project also has generated new insights about the impact of rapid urbanization at the local level. “The EVP team was able to formulate narratives of the political histories of these metropolitan areas, the growing role of multinational corporations in the metropolitan landscape, and the potential pathways to sustainability that may be appropriate for each location,” said O’Mara, now an assistant professor of history at the University of Washington and an affiliated scholar at Stanford’s Bill Lane Center for the American West.

Much of the visual data used in the project comes from NASA’s Land Remote-Sensing Satellite (Landsat) Program. The power of the Landsat imagery can be seen at the websites of two new research groups led by Seto and O’Mara that evolved from the EVP grant. Both groups include interdisciplinary research teams made up of faculty, students, and staff from Yale, Stanford, and the University of Washington. The Urban Environment Group at Yale University website offers striking satellite images of the transformation of Shenzhen over the last three decades. The Knowledge Cities Research Group website provides detailed, interactive maps documenting changes that have occurred in all three urban areas.

“Our study reveals the usefulness of comparative investigation over space and time, and the significance of political economy to environmental change,” O’Mara noted. "In all three study sites, environmental changes have been accelerated by periods of rapid increase in gross domestic product and attendant urban expansion. In the Silicon Valley of the mid-20th century, and in the Bangalore and Shenzhen of the 1990s and 2000s, economic liberalization and significant public investments resulted in cities where the speed of urbanization put extraordinary strains on infrastructure and resources, and where economic development priorities trumped sustainable urban and regional planning priorities."

Shenzhen example

Shenzhen offers a prime example of a region where rapid growth has had a significant impact on the environment.

"In the late 1970s, the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen was a fishing village of about 20,000 people," notes the Knowledge Cities website. "Today, it is a booming metropolis of as many as 12 million. Selected in 1978 as the site of China‘s first post-1949 experiment with market liberalization, the special economic zone created in Shenzhen turned this largely agricultural swath of the Pearl River Delta into a hub of low-cost, export-oriented manufacturing."

In the EVP study, Seto and O’Mara found that increased motorization in Shenzhen has lead to increased emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide gas, two harmful pollutants.

In a 2007 study funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Seto and another research team used Landsat images to demonstrate a link between urban growth and rainfall patterns [see accompanying video]. Writing in the Journal of Climate, the researchers concluded that the rapid growth of Shenzhen since 1980 had actually caused drier winters in the Pearl River Delta. In an earlier paper, Seto and her co-workers found that urban areas in the delta had increased more than 300 percent from 1988 to 1996. The researchers compared this rapid growth with monthly temperature and precipitation data from 16 meteorological stations. Their analysis revealed a direct correlation between urbanization and decreased rainfall in the winter dry seasons.

“Primarily it is caused by the conversion of vegetated land to asphalt, roads, and buildings,” Seto explained. "As a result, the soils have significantly less ability to absorb water, so in the winter months there is less moisture in the atmosphere and therefore a reduction in precipitation. We don’t see the same impact in summer months, in part because the effect of the Asian monsoon masks the effect of urbanization. When cities are still relatively small, we don’t see this pattern emerging. It happens when cities get very large. But that’s the part that I think is alarming, because we see large-scale city development all over China and throughout the developing world."

In an effort to reach out to local and regional policymakers, the EVP team held a public forum entitled “The New Urban Landscape: Growth, Change, and Planning for the Next Silicon Valley,” at Tsinghua University in Shenzhen. The researchers also have advised local Shenzhen officials on new strategies for combining economic development initiatives with more sustainable land-use practices.

Cities and the environment

In addition to expanding their Knowledge Cities and Urban Environment research groups, Seto and O’Mara are planning to write a book based on the results of their EVP collaboration. The researchers also have been invited by Google to engage in discussions about how to use mapping and modeling software to inform policy decisions that lead to sustainable urbanization and land conservation.

“The primary goals of the EVP grant were to combine the strengths of history and modern geographic analysis to analyze land-use issues in three disparate regions,” Seto said.

“The project has been hugely successful in this regard,” O’Mara added. “Urban policies, past and present, have profound effects on the environment, from modes of transportation to energy consumption and carbon emissions, yet in both scholarly and policy conversations ‘the environment’ and ‘the city’ are all too often mutually exclusive categories. This study shows the deeply intertwined connections between environmental sustainability and urban form, and why meaningful steps toward different types of urban growth patterns are critical to the future economic and social success of cities worldwide.”