Reader Response Draft 3

In the article, “Developing Sustainable Infrastructure in New Cities”, Cho (2014) states that sustainability needs to be ranked first for cities to adapt to the extreme urban context in the 21^st century. The author mentions that “Envision Sustainability Rating System” is a pioneering rating system designed to monitor the performance of an infrastructure through the ability, flexibility and the usefulness to last from a present project. The writer states that both Mexico and Peru are using sustainable techniques to construct their highways developments that have been evaluated by the Envision Rating System, which has served the community well by overcoming these challenges such as “rising energy prices, water shortages, traffic congestion and etc. At the same time, the writer plans to implement the sustainable techniques and using Envision Rating System for the upcoming Impact King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) Fellowship in order to achieve a holistic vision for sustainable infrastructural development in the new city.

There are both pros and cons for using the Envision Sustainability Rating System. However, in the article, Cho fails to adequately explain in depth on to how the Envision Rating System is being implemented and the cons that it will bring to the cities during development. Cho only concentrates on pros of the rating guideline, she lacks out on the challenges that people will be facing during the process of developing on infrastructure.

In order to get awarded for the Envision, the project have to meet 60 sustainability criteria which is divided into five sections, namely Quality of life, Leadership, Resource Allocation, Natural world and Climate and Risk.

Envision Sustainability consists of two phases. Before starting on a project, there will be an Envision Checklist for the users, helping users to get familiar with the sustainability aspect of the infrastructure project and design. The checklist consists of five categories and fourteen subcategories of a series of Yes/No question based on how the award is being awarded. Later on, the project will be further review by the ISI verifiers. The verifier is an independent, third party that works with the ENV SP to validate their assessment of a project.

At the same time, during the development of infrastructures, I believe that cities will also face negative impacts such as natural habitats, agriculture and logging is being destroyed. Neighboring country such as Cambodia rely heavily on their agriculture for living. According to Perowne (2003), Agriculture accounted for 50% of GDP for Cambodia economy and employed approximately 85% of the work force. Hence, with the increase in developments, agriculture will be destroyed. At the same time, citizens in the countries will eventually lose their job with no source of income.

In conclusion, Envision Sustainability Rating System can be a good approach in the developments of project and also enhancing the quality of life of communities and serve the citizen better. However, I also believed that Envision Sustainability Rating System could be further elaborate in Cho’s article to give readers a better understanding of the Envision Sustainability Rating System.

Reference

Institute For Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI): Rating System. (n.d.). Retrieved October 16, 2015.

Cho, H. (2014, December 17). Developing Sustainable Infrastructure in New Cities. Retrieved October 16, 2015.

Perowne, C. (2003, March). Country profile – Cambodia. Retrieved October 16, 2015.