There are 3 prerequisites for greeing urban infrastructures; according to WWF’s report Reinventing the City, which Ailsa Chambers from Warwick Business School kindly pointed me to.
What are the 3 prerequisites? They are:
- Cities must adopt aggressive energy reduction strategies
- Innovative financing strategies are needed
- The latest technological advances must be utilized
WWF’s 3 prerequisites are helpful, but I’m unconvinced they’re key. Why? I’ll come to that, but first here’s a little more detail on the report.
Reinventing the City
Cities produce 80% of the World’s CO2 emissions, states the report. Business as usual will result in $350 trillion being spent on urban infrastructure and usage in the next 30 years, which will further increase greenhouse gas emissions.
But there is a different way, according to WWF, where investments help reduce emissions rather than increase them. Investments in renewable energy, district heating and energy efficiency are required.
I agree. I also like their example of Malmo, Sweden as a city that the World can learn from.
The 3 Prerequisites
The question for me is: Are Energy Reduction Strategies, Finance and Technology the 3 most important prerequisites for reinventing the city?
It’s clear that Malmo used these in their development of the Western Harbour. But there’s one further principle Malmo lived by that, in my opinion, is the most important prerequisite. It’s a principle that has been successful in many cities around the World, such as Curitiba, Bogota and Vancouver.
The Most Important Prequisit for Reinventing the City?
You’ve probably guessed what I think. I think we need to make our cities for people. It’s people that make a city and people that will reinvent the city. Energy strategies, finance and technology won’t make a difference if cities aren’t made for people. You can read more about my ideas on what to build in the city and how to change.
What do you think are the most important prerequisites for reinventing the city?
My home town (Sitges) did a sustainability study and one of the key recommendations was to educate the younger generation about the importance of sustainability initiatives.
I agree that the key to reinventing a city is the people. The citizens will be the creative and driving forces behind any future reinventions after all.
For that reason I’d say the reinvention of a city starts with the reinvention of attitudes.
Comment by Sitges — August 13, 2011 @ 3:19 am
I have read some of Peter Newman and Isabella Jenning’s Cities as sustainable ecosystems:principles and practices. In respect to Australia, the 10 Melbourne Principles for Sustainable Cities are a good guide to developing cities for citizens… 1.Vision, longterm vision must relate to sustainability 2. Economy and Society – need to consider social security and economic security
3. Biodiversity-recognise ways to protect biodiversity where possible and rehabilitate areas to the best of one’s ability, to enable systems to function in a sustainable way in order to encourage wildlife and hence maintain biodiversity arks 4. Ecological fooprints- encourage individuals to look at their own footprints and how to reduce them practically 5. Model cities on ecosystems – ie recycling nutrients, population control relating to carrying capacity, resilience , panarchy maintenance, flexibility through networks – also when applied to cities- ethics, psychological fulfillment and cooperative- coexistence-
6. sense of place (use distinctive characteristics of cities to build on) 7> empowerment ie empower and foster participation 8> Partnerships-networks also covered in 5- with networks; 9> Sustainable production and consumption promotion tools-through education and demand management, environmentally sound technology backing. 10> Governance and hope- accountability, transparency and good governance.
Comment by Samantha — November 16, 2011 @ 3:04 am