Infrastructures in Different Countries
When workers cannot travel fast from the suburb areas into the city the labour markets will deteriorate. Having faster travel will give more supply of the labour available and less time spent being stuck in traffic meaning they have more hours to work. Making improvements to the transportation system will gain more potential for future economic growth. Similar air freight and shipping bottlenecks will end up imposing drags within the manufacturers and the goods will not get to the customers and raw materials will not get to the factories.
Real estate impacts
The economic benefits to the infrastructure are clear unlike the areas of private and public investments but the investment on infrastructure in cities around Australia acts as a catalyst and has a big impact to real-estate in the surrounding area and the investment infrastructure also leads to the GDP growth and more job creations.
The city transportation projects tend to show us where the next real estate hot spot will be, and it has been the rail and road projects but with evidence to show the investment in the public transport representing a bigger value investment. The consensus is growing worldwide for high capacity, good quality public transport and is the way that congested cities accommodate for the already sustained and sustainable economic growth.
The transport system along with high-speed internet with affordable energy are fundamental to real estate developments whether for industrial, commercial and residential. The impact, however, is not always positive and the influence that can be created with infrastructures on the real estate is a more complex one.
Upgrading airports is a big gain by business communities within the logistics industry but may actually impact negatively on the residential areas with the noise and extra air pollution. This is why industrial companies, as well as engineering companies in Australia, are put next to airports, not residential areas. When it comes to the real estate benefitting from infrastructures the biggest issue is the time. Hot spots are created when an announcement about new infrastructure developments are heard. Even when such an investment gets the go-ahead, the government still needs to support this with their mechanisms such as rezoning to allow investors to capitalise on each impact of the newly built infrastructure.
If you are increasing a height limit of a development when an airport is retiring or allowing logistics or data centres to use the space that is now adversely impacted and buildings that need to be repositioned as information centres or business properties when the main port facilities are outside the central city area. We can agree that impacts on the real estate investment from infrastructures are mainly positive it is still undetermined whether the impact brings about negative complications. Without the one size fits everything solution, the key to evaluating real estate investment opportunities is with business care that is made to deliver and execute plans with the bespoke operation strategies that are mainly focused on increasing the value. Of course, other factors (such as the presence of bigger buildings such as these conference venues in Melbourne) contribute to the increase of value, but infrastructure remains to be one of the most important factors.
Urbanisation is growing rapidly and is quickly advancing so the chances of investing with the real-estate development will end up being impacted by infrastructure investment rises. Investors are going to need innovative strategies in order to aid them in responding to the changing surroundings or urban regeneration all through the asset repositioning. Hong Kong is a good example here where their industrial buildings are being changed into business properties, data centres, hotels, car showrooms, and even corporate event venues in Melbourne.
Now, one of the biggest challenges of infrastructure construction more commonly seen in developing countries is the open sewers. Good sewage infrastructure is one of the fundamental requirements for an advanced country. In developing countries such as parts of Asia, Africa and South America, however, the presence of open sewers brings about several concerns, which will be discussed below.
Open Sewers in Developing Countries
In recent times, the parade of open sewers or sewage has been a growing habit among the people particularly in developing countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This, in turn, has resulted in water pollution among others.
In modern-day developing countries, over 3.2 million children usually die each year as a result of unsafe drinking water and poor sanitation. More, unfortunately, access to adequate wastewater treatment facilities has become scarce and rare due to open sewers.
It was exclusively reported that only 209 of India’s 3,119 towns and cities —less than one in ten— have partial sewage systems and treatment facilities. To this end, water bodies are usually used as open sewers for human waste products and garbage in developing countries.
It should be noted that the factors often responsible for the absence of adequate water treatment facilities and regulations in developing countries is usually due to lack of finances for funding infrastructure that can regulate water pollution. To this end, the amount of clean water for human consumption, sanitation, agriculture, and industrial purposes, are limited in supply.
Consequences of Open Sewers in Developing Societies
The adoption of open sewers in developing nations should not only be decried but urgently addressed due to the number of catastrophes it has caused. This is especially more severe when a sewer blockage happens and the water becomes still. These include but not limited to:
- Environmental and Human Health Costs
The increasing rate of open sewers has led to the prevalence of unsafe water, lack of sanitation facilities and poor hygiene in the developing countries. To this end, there is an unabated increase in mortality and morbidity rate. In a similar vein, the tendency of contracting diseases such as cholera, intestinal worms, and diarrhea are high.
More, unfortunately, it is estimated that up to half of all hospital beds in the world are occupied by victims of water contamination. However, dirty water that indiscriminately accumulates in puddles has become a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes which in-turn spread diseases such as malaria and encephalitis. According to the United Nations (UN) estimates, 60% of the global cases of malaria and 80% of malaria deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa (nearly 1 million per year) are related to inadequate water storage facilities.
- Sanitation and health
This is another endemic problem that open sewer has caused in developing countries. It is reported that 842,000 people in low- and middle-income countries die on an annual basis as a result of inadequate water, sanitation, and hygiene. It should be noted that 58% die of diarrhoea while poor sanitation is reported to be the major cause of 280,000 deaths. Other problems include airborne diseases from the open sewers, which is why governments in these countries are suggested to urge their people to clean the drains regularly to avoid these complications.
Worthy of note, however, is that open defecation perpetuates a vicious cycle of disease. In any given country where open defecation is most widespread, there is always a high number of deaths of children less than 5 years old as well as a high level of malnutrition and big disparities of wealth in areas with open sewers and without.
Benefits of Overhauling Open Sewer
In the light of curbing the menaces that are associated with open sewer, the following are some of the benefits of overhauling open sewer:
- It reduces the spread of intestinal worms, schistosomiasis, and trachoma which are neglected tropical diseases
- It reduces the severity and impact of malnutrition
- It promotes dignity and boosts safety, particularly among women and girls
- It fosters the availability of clean and potent water.