Please check my writing assignment and give me some comments

Topic: Overpopulation of urban areas has led to numerous problems.

Identify one or two serious ones and suggest ways that governments and individuals can tackle these problems.
(550 words is maximum)

Overpopulation is a serious dilemma that is happening in most urban areas all over the world. According to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2018) “55% of the world’s population lives in urban areas, a proportion that is expected to increase to 68% by 2050”. As the population soars, it causes multiple problems for metropolitan regions; especially air-pollution and unemployment. Thus, both the government and the individual have a duty to find solutions to overcome these issues.

First and foremost, the exploding number of municipal residents causes serious air pollution. There is an increase in air pollutants in metropolitan regions resulting from human activities. The more people are, the more greenhouse gases are; especially due to burning of the fossil fuels from vehicles. The use of fossil fuels for transportation releases a large number of toxic substances such as CO2, SO2 into the atmosphere and pose numerous threat to the inhabitants. In Hanoi, the PM2.5 particulate level recorded was seven times higher than the permissible level set by the World Health Organization (Kim, 2016). To tackle this issue, cities in the world can withdraw lessons from China. Two effective methods have been adopted in China are pushing to abandon fossil fuels as well as the ditching conventional vehicle and switching to electric vehicles. China is in the first rank worldwide in electric vehicle usage. In 2017, China sold 777 000 new electric vehicles, which increases 53% in comparison with 2016 (Beall, 2018). In Beijing, fines for pollution topped $28 million in 2015. The efficiency of this could be proved with a decrease of 27% of PM2.5, particles with a diameter of fewer than 2.5 micrometers between 2013 and 2016 in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region (Beall, 2018).

Another consequence of overpopulation is unemployment, which generates many concerns from the government and citizens. In China, the rising urban population can be translated into a substantial surge in the employable urban labor force: about 81 million in number or some 75% of the total increase in labor supply nationwide (Wei, 2011). This growth of the labor supply in inner-cities has outstripped that of labor demand by a large margin. For this reason, the competition for job hunting is getting fiercer along with urban joblessness. According to the official numbers, the economy-wide registered unemployment rate in urban areas was 4.1% in 2004, which involved some 8.3 million unemployed (State Statistical Bureau of China cited in Wei, 2011). This problem could be addressed by combining job creation in the state sector with the private sector; thereby increasing job opportunities in urban areas. For ínstance, in China, in recent years, about 80-90% of laid-off workers joined private and small businesses or engaged in self-employment; as a result, the private sector accounted for two-thirds of total urban employment and one-third of formal employment in 2004. (Betcherman & Blunch, 2006; Giles, Park & Cai, 2006 cited in Vodopivec & Tong,2008).

In conclusion, the population explosion is an alarming issue in civic cities, which results in not only the seriously polluted air level but also the increasing rate of unemployment. Hence, authorities and individuals should apply reasonable policies to restrict fossil fuel and promote electric vehicle use as well as turning into the non-state sector to handle these daunting tasks.

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Moreover, could you please give me some comments about coherence and logic? And about the last reference with the article "China’s Urban Unemployment Challenge", I wonder whether my reference is cited consistently in APA style or not? This source confused me a lot. Please help me deal with this. Thanks in advance.

References

Beall, A. (2018). How China can help London fix its air pollution crisis. No, seriously. Retrieved from https://www.wired.co.uk/article/london-air-pollution

Kim, T. (2016). Air pollution in Hanoi reaches alarming levels. ampe.vnexpress.net [Hanoi].

United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA). (2018). 2018 Revision of World Urbanization Prospects | Multimedia Library - United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Retrieved from https://www.un.org/development/desa/publications/2018-revision-of-world-urbanization-prospects.html

Vodopivec, M., & Tong, M. H. (2008). China: Improving Unemployment Insurance. Retrieved from http://siteresources.worldbank.org/SOCIALPROTECTION/Resources/SP-Discussion-papers/Labor-Market-DP/0820.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0nd8-itKseMXvc7W96pNxKiXtwKiORM7D3esKm08S6vRW1e3eHIlyu8Rs

Wei, G. (2011). China’s Urban Unemployment Challenge. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 2. Retrieved from http://ijbssnet.com/journals/Vol._2_No._4;_March_2011/3.pdf