Athens has won the bid to host the 2004 Olympic Games. This situation offers
an opportunity to examine planning in Athens. It is being purported that
the hosting of the Olympic Games is a cornerstone for future development.
Yet the planning for the Games is mostly just an assemblage of public works
projects (i.e. a New Town, a ring road, and new sports facilities); it does
not provide a new comprehensive plan for all of Athens.
With the Games come the eyes of world, fixed on Athens for two weeks.
In anticipation, thorough planning and building is being done although there
are some questions about Athens being ready in time. Four centers are planned,
with a ring road connecting them. The Olympic Village, the largest project
at 330 million dollars, is going to be turned into a New Town development
after the Games. The site is surrounded by forest and farm lands on three
sides and low density, high income housing on the other side. The hope is
that it will aid in the creation of a technology park and be a node of decentralized
development within greater Athens, while also positively affecting investment
and real estate patterns as a whole.
GreenPeace, the international environmental group, has determined Athens
to be the most polluted city in the European Union. Nice and Milan were
the runners up in this comparison. All three cities have produced statistics
showing that the lifespan and pulmonary capacity for an average person is
decreasing as a result of the. In 1987, 1000 deaths of people with respiratory
problems occurred during a heat wave partially due to smog. The cloud of
smog that hangs over the city is akin to the one that hangs over Los Angeles.
The Greeks call is nefros, 'the cloud'. The congestion problem in Athens
is not quite as bad as in Los Angeles; Athens has not abandoned the concept
of a rush hours.
This pollution is affecting Athens in economic, historical, and health
related ways, and Athens is stepping up their level of commitment to the
problem. [anchor] The city's hosting of the 2004 Olympic Games is being
used as an inspiration and as a deadline. Some athletes have protested the
site decision because they fear they will not be able to breathe well and
thus their performances could be negatively impacted. At times, historic
sites such as the Acropolis have been closed and/or covered due to damage
caused by air pollution. If tourism in Athens is affected, the whole economy
is affected. The threat of lost dollars seems to be encouraging the government
to act. The government driven policies of alternate driving days, cleaner
fuel, and staggered peak traffic hours have helped pollution decrease 30%
from 1990 levels.
The main plans for pollution decrease are decentralization of population,
pedestrian only areas, alternate day driving, use of cleaner fuel, expansion
of metro and trolley systems, and limitation of industrial development in
the area. The above structural changes are also being accompanied by cultural
changes. The city is urging people to avoid siestas. They are harmful in
the sense that they create four rush hours rather than two. Shop owners,
schools, and hospitals are staggering their start times to further cut down
on congestion. Each of these ideas is fantastic and combined pollution levels
can be lowered. However, while these efforts are noble and necessary, one
piece of the puzzle is still missing: physical geography.
Most people agree about the basic cause of Athens' environmental ills-the urban explosion over the last three decades. The modern capital sprawling around the ancient Acropolis was planned as a city for about 150,000 people; today it has spread out all over the Attica basin connecting the port of Piraeus and the northern suburbs and has over 4,130,000 inhabitants, or over 40% of Greece's total population, and most of the country's industry and traffic (Howe, 2).
This reasoning completely ignores the physical location
and geography of Athens. While it is true that Athens exploded from
600,000 to four million in thirty years it is the combination of people
and specific environment that has created such a sever and local problem.
Many other cities are worse polluters but have less pollution due to more
favorable physical geography. London is one such example for while it has
an abundance of fog, it does not have a terrible smog problem. The Gulf
Stream helps disperse London's pollution and move it to other places. Athens
however, is in a mountain valley region. Pollution gets trapped in the valley
and winds are obstructed from blowing the smog away. The mediteranean climate
and the exhaust create an inversion later producing the urban heat island
effect. The temperature of Athens is artificially higher than that of surrounding
areas, especially at night. The higher temperatures, lack of wind, and mountain
valley location all make for a situation of especially concentrated pollution.
In the 12 articles I read only one mentioned that "weather conditions trap the smog inside the surrounding mountains." This crucial piece of the Athenian pollution problem seems to be peripheral to the understanding of the problem, when it should be central. Understanding the physical geography's role in the matter is essential, for without it the issue cannot be fully understood, nor can the best recommendations and policies be made.