1st Assignment

1. Urban density and per capita petroleum consumption.

As an engineer I was trained to understand and explain mathematical correlations; functions can have weird behaviours, but mathematically, they are easy to map and understand.
It never occurred to me that in social science you could do the same with behaviours, you can find explanations for surprising correlations by developing theories, and well developed theories, much as mathematical functions, can explain and predict how this correlation came about and how would it behave when variables change.

A study of 32 cities by Newman & Kenworthy in 1989 concluded that there was a strong link between urban development densities and petroleum consumption.

Figure 1. Source [1]

The above projection suggests that there is a correlation between the petroleum consumption and the density of a population, more specifically, that the more densely populated a city is, the least amount of petroleum will that particular city consume per capita.

What would be a good explanation for this correlation found in 1989?

Some possible explanations may be:

1. Density of population refers to the amount of people per hectare of territory, a more densely populated region has more people living in a smaller area which means that work spaces, services and housing would be all closer together, making people living in these cities less likely to use the car.

Compared to less dense cities where the population is spread out in a larger territory, the use of the car in densely populated cities can become impractical and inconvenient, too many people taking out their cars to cover small distances can cause unnecessary traffic jams and people most likely choose  walking or using the bicycle instead of moving around by car.

Since cars and motorcycles run mostly on fossil fuels, a generalized reduction of the use of these means of transportation in a city, would contribute to lower the average petroleum consumption per capita.

2. Densely populated cities usually have a better-developed network of public transportation; out of the need to move so many people around and avoid traffic and consequential CO2 emissions from the use of cars public administrators usually manage to set up an efficient, comprehensive and accessible public transport system.

A well organized public transport, would make people more inclined to make use of this facilities instead of taking their own cars to move around the city, which also contributes to lower the petroleum consumption per capita related to the use of fossil fuel powered individual transportation.

3. Densely populated cities usually also tend to make housing spaces smaller and more practical than the houses in cities with a lower population density where they have more space for their living accommodations.

Take for example Tokyo, where people live in very small studios or tiny apartments (more people to accomodate in a small area means their individual or family living quarters need to be smaller) , these small houses won't require as much electricity and would also have less or more efficient electric home appliances, this makes the electrical needs of an average household in Tokyo or in other densely populated cities lower than less dens cities where they have more space to light up and accumulate more possessions that need to be powered by electricity.

The higher electricity requirement per household also raises the petroleum consumed per capita (asuming some electricity is generated by direct combustion of crude oil).

4. Since this particular study analyses cases of mostly cities in developed countries, where people are better educated and usually have a better quality of life, living in densely populated areas may in turn make people more conscious of their limited space and resources, which can contribute to making people either by self recognition or by governmental policy to be more careful with their resources, as such, this consciousness might lead to a better management of recycling, search for alternative energies, concern for CO2 emissions and as a hole, a reduction of the petroleum consumption per capita.

This relation studies the behavior of major metropolis in the world, cities in developed countries that have more resources and their urban planning is more efficient than in underdeveloped cities. These are “smart cities” that have planned their growth and in some way keep it under control and as such conform with the reasoning explained above.

Note about post modification: This post was updated december 2014 to include a more clear listing of the possible theories (for clarity, explanations were included as a list instead of a run on text) . The introduction was changed to include my understanding about finding correlations after reading the teacher's post and has more clarity than the initial draft incorporating a better understanding of the role of theory and  causal and intentional explanations, the analogy X equals Y helped a lot and made this assignment a lot more clear. The correlation was used since the first posting of this blog and I believe it fits with the x-->y puzzle)

 2. "The business of business is to increase its profits"

The business of business will always be to increase its profits; this is what businesses are set up to do. However, I do not think monetary gain should be the only way to monitor profit; can’t profit be defined outside money? Can’t profit be also measured in the good to the community, or the environment or in the positive social impact a company may have?

When we think of corporations, we cannot isolate the business from the social context; corporations are players in a community and as such have the same responsibilities as any other social player, even more so because they are, in most cases, influential social players.

Managing social responsibility might not really be the business of business, but it is a way in which the business “survives” and strives in order to keep generating monetary profit and aside from monetary profit, which is very important to every corporation, businesses can also be socially and environmentally profitable.

Corporations are not charities, they will only generate employment, give back to their community and have a positive impact on our society as long as they remain profitable, but monetary profit does not have to be in dispute with a social conscience, on the contrary, giving back to the community, caring about the environment or promoting a good work environment, can contribute to make a company profitable.

Companies and corporations that show their values in action will attract partners that align to their values, appeal more to their community, attract costumers that are interested in consuming the products or services of a responsible enterprise and thus giving the company a solid consumer pool based on trust for their products and cause.

A company that shows values and responsibilities and can prove they live up to them, can be easier to trust and thus have more costumers.

Companies are not isolated and if they seek to increase profit, they will need to be active and accepted players in their community.

Of course there are only few corporations who adhere to this way of thinking, I’m not saying this is the way it is, rather the way it should be.

Corporations should have responsibilities because they are a part of the community and they have an impact over it and it is the responsibility of the corporation to ensure this impact is a positive one.

However, just like with individuals, corporations not always choose to be responsible, some take very literally the idea that their business is just to generate profit; making money just for the sake of making money as a top priority, casts a shadow over any other value.

Reference:

[1] Newman, P. W. G. and J. R. Kenworthy. 1989. Cities and Automobile Dependence: 

An International Sourcebook. Aldershot, UK: Gower.