Underground space use with urban sustainability Essay

Underground space use with urban sustainability - Essay Example Underground Space Use with Urban Sustainability Moreover, city planners are faced with a huge task of ensuring that services in urban areas are not disrupted; despite the high number of people streaming to urban centers, the quality of life in cities has to remain unchanged. Moreover, today, there is increasing advocacy on sustainable developments especially with regard to built environment. With increasing awareness on the need to preserve the environment, people are demanding stringent sustainability measures in built environment. Therefore, city planners face a daunting task of deciding the best way to come up with city master plans that ensure sustainability. An approach that has remained untapped in the development of many cities; the approach  promises great opportunities for expansion of cities within sustainable limits is underground urban infrastructure development. Bobylev (2009, 1129) observed that, in order for investors to develop private housing, they require enough transport infrastructure and enough energy supply , which depends on the transport available in such cities. This calls for the need to have proper integration of urban infrastructure development and sustainable development in cities. Therefore, to ensure sustainability despite the growing of urban cities, underground urban development promises potential opportunities, if proper city master plans are prepared to highlight proper urban underground infrastructure designs. Chow et al (2) noted that the ability to maximize space in towns and urban cities would be the greatest challenge for engineers and architectures in the near future. One of the benefits of urban underground infrastructure is that it offers city planners opportunities and space to relocate infrastructure projects such as railway lines, roads, recreational facilities, stores, sports facilities among other amenities. The need for mass transportation services and modern infrastructural development requires new and innovative ways to use the available dwindling space in cities (Chow et al, 3). As a result, efficient use of underground space will ensure planners, developers, landowners and other parties have exciting and untapped opportunities to expand construction projects. Many cities have managed to save huge spaces by designing efficient underground master plans for their transport systems, which has helped not only in reducing congestion but also in maximizing utilization of space in cities. One of the best examples of the huge impacts of underground urban master plan is the London underground station, an underground facility that has managed not only to reduce traffic in the city but also has reshaped the city and utility of space to the best extent possible. The design and the emergence of the London underground station challenged the limits of engineering and city master planning across the globe. The station is an excellent benchmark of what would become of many cities in the future. Space is rapidly becoming scarce while demand for sustainability and the demand for transportation services have increased. Therefore, the London station is an excellent case of typical modernism (Wright, 2011). The tube as it is commonly known made it possible for people to travel between several stations within London at record speeds. As a result, people were no longer willing to live in the city but opted to live away from the city where they can spend a few minutes to get to London (Wright, 2011). T