Sustainable Cities Publication
UEA project proposal by Matt Fisher, February 2005
Topic: What is a Sustainable City, and how do we get there from here?
Purpose
I see the purpose of a publication as we discussed it is to set out in clear concise terms a UEA view on two main questions:
What does a sustainable city look like / how does a sustainable city work / what are the fundamental design features of a sustainable city?
How can move towards sustainable cities from where we are now?
Or, to put it another way, I see the purpose as one of saying strongly and openly that genuine sustainability, although it may indeed be quite ‘radical’ in various ways, can be and is also quite a practical affair. It is not pie in the sky, it is not utopian, it is not unachievable. It is not about sacrificing things, but ultimately about greatly improving our real quality of life.
Publication
I see it as a publication with quite a few images to supplement and inform the text, ideally in colour of course, but black-and-white if cost constraints require it.
I think the main target audience is generally, thinking people with a lively interest in environmental and sustainability issues.
As to how long or short it might be, I really have an open mind on that kind of question. It will depend on how we see it coming together I suppose. However, I think there’s a strong argument for trying to produce something that isn’t just another academic tome, but set out key ideas in a shorter, punchier way.
Content
To me the fundamental insights about sustainable cities revolve around an understanding of local communities as being the basic ‘building block’ of the social fabric, environmental activity and material infrastructure. However, this is not to say of course that everything can or should happen at that scale.
There is an allied idea, which sits alongside this one, which is one about understanding the importance of scale, and that usually there is an appropriate scale at which various activities can be organised or carried out.
In more detail, some ideas about content are as follows:
Introduction
To say something about ‘why a focus on cities’; noting the arguments about cities the way they are designed and built, the ways we live in them as a locus of so many environmental problems. We could note here that over 50% of the world’s population now live in cities.
Sustainable Cities: How Do They Work?
A major element obviously.
Design Features
The spread of basic design features that one wants. For example: the ideas below I developed as part of another paper I wrote for work.
Examples of Design features:
Social
Improve the qualities of social relationships and mutual support.
Embody processes of localised, democratic participation in community life.
Provide integrated delivery of social services within local settings.
Are diverse in income levels, ability and disability, family/household types.
Offer local and regional access to opportunities for employment and education.
Develop housing through partnerships between public, civil and private bodies.
Offer a range of tenure types, styles and sizes of housing.
Raise children in supportive, secure local community settings.
Provide local purpose built community facilities such as community centres, libraries, childcare, schools, and aged care.
Ecological
Are low energy and water consumption environments.
Use medium to high density housing plans.
Provide walkable access to some facilities and excellent public transport links for longer trips.
Favour public, pedestrian spaces with strong design features.
Keep car traffic to peripheral roads and parking, and encourage less car dependence.
Include considerable landscaping, including on top of buildings and on balconies.
Operate local systems for minimal waste production and maximum recycling.
Consume products that are produced with ecologically benign methods.
Economic
Employ mixed land use, with commercial offices and shops on main transport spines, surrounded by residential.
Encourage small business.
Retain and circulate money within local economies.
Have strong volunteer involvement.
Support innovative industries.
Offer quality life-long educational opportunities for all.
How to Design within an Established Setting
Outline of how one could design in those kinds of features within a real setting; maybe this is based on Adelaide. I would like to see something that roughly shows how things could be arranged at, maybe, four levels.
An individual dwelling
A local neighbourhood
A local/regional community (suburb, or multi-suburb size)
A whole city
Maybe one would add a whole bioregion, within which a city fits.
Obviously, it’s a kind of nested arrangement; the individual property fits into the local neighbourhood, which fits into etc.
There’'s some interest here for us to debate or research ideas about the appropriate scale for various things to happen. What numbers of people/households are best serviced by a local primary school, for example? Or at what scale should one organise something like waste-water collection / treatment / re-use?
Social Dimensions of Sustainability
I am very interested personally in the social dimensions of sustainability, so I think we could have a specific section that focuses on that.
I think there are some ideas that could be brought out here that could be quite refreshing and somewhat new to sustainability debates, and give our publication a bit of an angle that others might not have.
I think I could construct something fairly short and to the point. I won’t try to go into any detail here, but I would be willing to do this in the not too distant future.
There’s also a range of good material around. I’'m particularly intrigued by some of the research on the health effects of various social trends. Eg poverty, stress, lack of housing, etc.
There’s a very interesting challenge here to try and come up with a perspective on reconciling goals of ecological sustainability and social justice. And to do it without just making motherhood statements about how both are important.
Sustainable Economies
It might be appropriate to have specific section on a ‘sustainable economy
’.
The Process of Change
A discussion about ‘how to get there from here’. There’s a lot of things one might say about this of course, bit I think the key message from a UEA point of view is that we need large-scale, working examples of genuinely sustainable urban infrastructure in the here and now.
One of the key points I’'d also suggest we consider is that many of the current efforts from government, private sector, or public agencies, are limited to the extent that they avoid some key issues of cultural or behavioural change. The changes they do pursue often focus most attention on material infrastructure eg recycle this water instead of pumping it out to sea and pay lip service to the importance of the ’human dimension’.
This is partly driven by entrenched perceptions of ‘what people want’, or ‘what people will accept’. One might say there’s a lack of belief or clarity about people’s capacity to change.
It’s also driven by a tacit acceptance of some features of our current social and economic conditions; an unwillingness to challenge these constructs; a lack of conceptual tools required to believe other ways of living might be possible indeed preferable!
2009.2.25