Urban and Regional Planning in the Philippines

Urban and Regional Planning: For Better or For Worse? In my opinion, urban and regional planning are solutions to what our society is facing right now. It is not unusual to hear from specialist that both planning promotes the best quality of life for the people. What I get from the purpose they have stated is that urban planning and regional planning are just like technologies. Technologies made the lives of people easy but they can also do harm. Both urban and regional planning could turn a city or a society into a beautiful one. Where people have good houses, better way of living, there would be an increase in tourism and foreign investors. But we don’t see the bad effects it can also bring. One current issue is the solar city that they are planning to build in Manila Bay. It is called land reclamation—creating new land from oceans, riverbanks and lakes. It may give more jobs, houses and resources to the people but have we questioned ourselves, what are the things at stake? First thing is habitat destruction; aquatic animals residing there would lose their home. The place where they get their food would be gone. Second thing is that it is very susceptible to soil liquefaction during earthquakes. It can damage the buildings severely. Another issue are the resettlement issues or housing projects. The people residing in the urban areas that are near the rivers, under the bridges, near the railways and other dangerous places are transferred to a much better place commonly in rural areas where they can live in peace. They may have a better home than they have in the urban area but are they happy of their situation? Common news I heard when it comes to housing project is that utilities are not yet well-organized. They bring people already there when in fact there is still no life in the place where they should be calling “new home”. Crimes and gambling are high. They even go to other municipalities just so they can do those bad stuffs. Why do they do those? Because they still do not have jobs. They just transferred the people whom they think would ruin the image of a perfect city. They should point out the real cause why these people tend to live in these areas. It is because they are poor! They were not able to finish their education and so they don’t get to have good jobs that would made them poor for the rest of their life. Government should act like a government. We are a democratic country where the cries and shouts of the mass are the priority but I don’t think it shows. According to Rick Riordan, the author of the hit novel series Percy Jackson and the Olympians, humans see what they want to see. In the video shown, the positive side the urban and regional planning can bring us were stated but in this paper I’ve stated the other side of the story. It’s like looking things in a different perspective. I guess.