Urban Trees

Urban Trees
(Join the movement “Plant 1 million trees on your neighborhood”- launched by our first lady, Ibu Ani SBY”)
If you are traveling from one city to others, you will notice the different between one city and others. With the unique of welcoming entrance or street with green boulevard in the middle of it, you will impress. You will feel the difference and notice which city is manageable or unmanageable.

Recently, not many cities have a boulevard with good quality of street and trees along side the road. In our country, some old cities have boulevard, such as Malang and Bogor. Nowadays, not all new cities have boulevard. Some boulevards are built by developer and maintained by communities. On the other hand, trees along road have removed because road need widen.

Which area on your city has boulevard like this picture?
What do you feel if you walk through?

Trees are an important element of the city. Are there any places where you live without trees? Without trees, cities looks like a desert that you want to leave as soon as possible. Based on brochure “Urban Trees” from United States Department of Agriculture Southern Region, there are some benefits of trees:
1. Trees add beauty our city and improve personal health. Creating a relaxation and well-being.
2. Trees reduce air pollution, through absorb CO2 and other dangerous gases and, in turn, replenish the atmosphere with oxygen.

There are seven major pollutants and their primary sources:

(“Benefit of Urban Trees”, United States Department of Agriculture Southern Region, page 6)
Trees in the country like Indonesia actually are easy to plant. Water is abundant, soil are fertile. It is very different with desert country like Saudi Arabia. Trees in several cities are very well maintained. My tour guide in my pilgrimage journey mentioned that if you destroy the trees whether not on purpose, such as an accident, you must pay an expensive penalty (dam) even higher than the price of
used car.

So, why do not we plant trees in our small garden, our community area, our neighborhood and our road. You can see the benefit.

Do you have a dream that all road in your city looks like this?

Urban Quality

HOW TO ENRICH THE QUALITY OF YOUR CITY
Case: Urban Quality Management in Kuala Lumpur

One of the cities that I observed during my course in Malaysia, is Kuala Lumpur City. As the capital city of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur managers face grave challenges in managing the metropolis.

ISSUES OF URBAN QUALITY IN KUALA LUMPUR REGION

Urbanization in Malaysia is nevertheless, very rapid growth. KL is the focus of employment opportunities and as a result, rural-urban migration is fueling the growth of KL. Poor living conditions associated with squatter settlements; under supply of waste disposal facilities and portable water. Air pollution and high lead levels in exhausts are already generating health hazards in KL;

CURRENT STANDARDS

Some standard to measure the urban quality are (a) Malaysia Urban Quality Life Index (MUQLI); (b) Quality of Life; (c) Water Quality (Sewerage Management); (d) Air Quality.
(a) MUQLI
Malaysia defines a measurement call MUQLI (Malaysia Urban Quality Life Index). Some basic area of the MUQLI are working life, housing, transport & communication, health, education, social participation, income & distribution, culture & leisure, family life, environment and public safety.
(b)Quality of Life
Selected indicators of quality of life are life expectancy (in years), infant mortality rate/1000, population/doctor ratio, literacy rate (%), telephones/1000 population, utilities such as pipe water (% of population) and electricity (% of households).

Selected Indicator of Quality Life

NO.	AREA	1970	1990	2001
1	Life expectancy (in years): . Male . Female	61.6 65.6	68.9 73.5	70.3 75.2
2	Infant mortality rate/1000	39.4	13.0	7.9
3	Population/Doctor ratio	4,302	2,581	1,445
4	Literacy rate (%)	58	85	94
5	Telephones/1000 population	17	131	512
6	Utilities: . Pipe water (% of population) . Electricity (% of households)	48 44	80 80	93

(c)Water Quality
To monitor the quality of water, the government of Malaysia set up a standard based on the Interim River Water Quality. To control the level of pollution in the waterways, 2 effluent standards: (i) Standard A – for upstream of water catchments; (ii) Standard B – for downstream of water catchments. Effluent standards set as Absolute Standards. In design, an Average Standards much lower than the limits as on the below table.

Parameter	Standards A		Standards B
	Absolute	Average	Absolute	Average
BOD5 mg/L	20	10	50	20
SS mg/L	50	20	100	40

d) Air Quality
5 (five) major pollutants measured such as particulate matters (PM10), sulfur dioxide (SO2), Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), Carbon Monoxide (CO) and Ozone (O3). The ambient of air quality show below:

No.	Pollutants	Averaging Time	Ppm	ug/m3
1	Ozone	1 hour 8 hours	0.10 0.06	200 120
2	Carbon Monoxide	1 hour 8 hours	30 9	35 10
3	Nitrogen Dioxide	1 hour 8 hours	0.17 0.04	320
4	Sulfur Dioxide	10 minutes 1 hour 24 hours	0.19 0.13 0.04	500 350 105
5	TSP	241 hour 1 year		200 90
6	PM 10	24 hours 1 year		150 50
7	Lead	3 months		1.5

Some actions have been taken also to solve some of the challenges, such as establishment of regulations aimed at maintaining green areas, expanded and preservation of water resources in Wetland Areas,development of low cost housing, building new towns to balance development such as Putra Jaya township, development of e-government such as in Subang Jaya and strengthened partnership between the government and private sector in Shah Alam City (Selangor Development Corporation)

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1 Yogeesvaran, K., Principal Assistant Director Macroeconomic and Evaluation Section, Economic Planning Unit – Prime Minister’s Department Putrajaya, “Malaysia’s Economic Development”, presented 20 September 2002 at INTAN.

2 Include mobile phones
3 Universal coverage in urban areas
4 Universal coverage in urban areas