City of Manchester

The City of Manchester is among the best cities of the century with a relatively cool and pure atmosphere compared to many other cities of its status like Beijing or Tokyo. Most of the environmental issues in Manchester happened in the 19th and 20th century during Industrial Revolution.

During this period, rapid transformation took place in the city with major industries being built, population swelling to provide workforce, and acute shortage in city housing among others. Three of the environmental issues that concerned the city during its growth period were river pollution, air pollution and health and housing shortage. Some of the issues have spilled into the current century and threatened the sustainability of the city (Kear, 1991). River pollution in Manchester city is one of the environmental issues that have to be solved. The problem started in the 19th century during the Great Industrial Revolution and has been recurred consistently to the 21st century.

Currently, the rivers in the city, more so, local streams are of poor quality. Some of the City Rivers that have been under great attack of pollution include Irwell together with all its tributaries, the Croal, Irk as well as the Medlock (Kear, 1991). The city of Manchester, just like most cities during industrial growth, experienced serious air pollution problems. During 1880s, the city was sarcastically glorified as the city of dirt and smoke. During this period, awareness about the implications of dirt and smoke on general health had not been internalized extensively.

The people actually considered dirt and smoke as components of industrial growth. Despite dire warnings from organizations such as Manchester and Salford Noxious Vapours Abatement Association (NVAA), industrialists and the general public at large did not take their stance as appropriate. That is, people had not conceived the possibility of total liberation form dirt (Kear, 1991). Although the city of Manchester has been able to come out of the rubbles to solve its settlement woes lately, things were worse during industrial revolution of the 19th and 20th century. During Industrial Revolution, the city was one of the greatest cities in the world with huge growth potential.

This was not to be as it grappled with the same housing problems as other less fortunate countries (Kear, 1991).