Sustainable Cities

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Modular, floating communities, towering skyscrapers covered in trees and zero carbon, smart cities. These are some examples of what I call climatopias, which are utopian urban designs that attempt to address climate change, and they're the focus of my PHD research throughout 2022. They can take many different forms, but climateopias are the futuristic visions of architects and designers around the world who are seeking to create sustainable urban settlements in the face of mounting environmental threats. Climate change is something many of us are dealing with every day, and that can be both scary and motivating. But as we designed for climate change, it's important to think not just about infrastructure, but also about what really makes a city, a city, the people. So we have to know, like ourselves, what helps a city evolve and thrive, both today and in the future. Or, put another way, what makes it a city? Sustainable urban spaces meet strong communities to help guide and direct the various challenges that come from living in high density with other humans, especially with the added pressures of the climate change, and how that vulnerability gets distributed unevenly. But those ideals are often difficult to materialize in real life. Oftentimes, the people who can make planning decisions don't include everyone who might be impacted by the decision making process. Or sometimes there isn't funding to modify or retrofit landscapes designed for one purpose, like the flow of cars, with all the accessible options, like bike lanes. Planning for the future is no small task, but as geographers, we have the spatial skills to take on the challenge. I'm alice a career, and this is crash course geography. We are like many of the specialties we've talked about in this series. Environmental planning is an interdisciplinary field involving urban planning, geography, economics and even agriculture, which focuses on how we can build sustainable communities that are better places to live, work and play. Environmental planning is part of sustainable development, which can mean everything from using natural resources in a way that protects the environment, to helping cities grow in ways that can be sustained for generations to come. As environmental planners, this means we focus on creating designs that use natural resources responsibly. We work on how to promote economic opportunities and environmental justice, which is when everyone is involved in environmental laws and policies. We also work on social equity, which is where everyone has just and fair access to things like housing and jobs that pay enough to cover basic needs. Borrowing a phrase from business, this goal is the quadruple bottom line positive results for people, planet, profits and community. But sustainable development can be a contradiction. What's good for the environment and what's good for the economy don't always match up. So whenever we're trying to sustain or conserve something, a key question to ask is, what are we really trying to conserve? For instance, we might focus on conserving the environment and limiting our use of natural resources. So urban planners will use a host of models and planning tools to help create relationships within the city that preserve and use open space, like zoning or designating where different land uses can take place. Residential zone areas of cities can be rezoneed or redesignated to create walkable neighborhoods with mixed housing and shops, rather than just one or the other. This creates compact zones where people want to live, work and play, which reduces the need for people to drive across the region. Zoning and other tools are often part of smart growth planning, which tries to control and direct the movement of sprawl, or places on the outskirts of cities, like suburbs and edge cities, expanding into open, undeveloped land. In our planning, we can also use ecological design, which is an effort to build buildings and even whole cities, to mimic nature, and buildings that are designed like living machines, or the emphasized pass of solar design, elements that use the sun for heating and cooling, are just the beginning. Ecological design is a key place for physical and human geography mix. But as we've learned in previous episodes, cities encode a lot about our ways of life and cultures within the design and architecture of their buildings, and we can conserve that too. But no matter what we're trying to conserve, we're going to create tension. For one urban planning is about relationships, so it's rarely a neutral act. One approach to sustainable neighborhoods includes new urbanism, which is like smart growth, but usually just at the neighborhood scale. It often creates areas people are drawn to, which can then cause gentrification. Gentrification is when the value of land and rent increase in lower income areas from a new influx of investment. This growth becomes problematic when people aren't treated equitably, as we learned when talking about red lining and urban renewal, if cities don't plan ways to increase economic opportunities for lower income residents or protect low income housing, people can be priced out of their neighborhood or city because they can no longer afford the rent. There's no one solution or easy answer to this problem, but we can at least start by staying focused on the people involved in the history of the area. Keeping equity in mind. In cities, we've also got large concentrations of people, and that allows for efficient access to services like health care, public transportation and education. And things like electricity or Internet access are cheaper. Urban areas are also centers of diffusion and cultural exchange, that can drive innovation and new economic frontiers and technological advances. But large concentrations of people also create pressure, partly because of the same economies of scale that make it efficient to offer services like education and renewable energy. There's also a lot of waste pollution and strain on water resources. And while there are more services in urban areas, they're not distributed evenly, which can create uneven health outcomes. One strikingly visible example of this is the gray green divide. On the usually wealthier side, houses are comfortably nestled among shady, tree lined streets, and on the other side of a single road, everything suddenly changes to shades of concrete and asphalt, gray roads, gray roofs, gray sidewalks. This has an effect on our mood, our health, and even the biodiversity of life around us. And all this vegetation also helps to minimize the effects of the urban heat island, where all that asphalt, concrete, stone and steel absorbs heat and prevents air pollution from dissipating. In fact, whether air pollution is common because of the physical geography of the city, or because there are more heavy polluters, like cars or factories, there are a lot more asthma cases, ear nose throat illnesses and people with weaker immune systems in cities. This is particularly true in poorer areas of cities with substandard housing, where people have the fewest resources and little ability to access healthcare. There are other problems too, like air pollution from factories, and cars can mix with water in the atmosphere, creating acid rain, the effects of which can be felt hundreds of miles away from the cities where it formed. And there are water quality issues like sewer overflows and dumping chemicals in urban waterways. Most cities were built long before environmental justice was part of the urban planning discussion, which, according to the U-S Environmental Protection Agency, grew out of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, and is the idea that every person is entitled to protection from environmental hazards, regardless of race, gender, age, class or politics. And so creating sustainable cities is about planning for the future and reconciling the past. And as we work to make the built environment evolve with our own understandings of justice and environmental impact, there's attention between retrofits that reuse old materials and spaces and fresh development. For instance, we have to decide what to do about beautiful, old buildings built in areas with lots of earthquakes. Urban planners may work with structural engineers to determine what kind of retrofitting is necessary to make a building earthquake proof, or if the safest thing for everyone is to have the building come down and reusing what's there, like the work of French architects and Lacaton and Jon Philip Vassal, who have won awards for their work, retrofitting buildings can have enormous global impact. The materials and construction industries are responsible for 10% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions in the early 2020s, which will be reduced dramatically if existing buildings and infrastructure can be reused. The push to reuse rather than build fresh also saves biodiversity outside cities and minimizes how many habitats get fragmented when urban sprawl is allowed to run a muck. Much of this can be at risk when a green field development is chosen over a brown field development, whether for housing shops or factories. In a green field development, the project is a blank slate for the architects and builders, while brown field development is done on top of land that has already been used, whether that land used to be a factory, car dealership or even a parking lot, retrofitting is just one tool we have as we think about effective ways to address climate change and atmospheric warming, as people try to change their lifestyles, many are constrained by structural problems, like living in a place with no public transportation, or that are designed poorly for accessibility, walking and biking. Planning with an eye towards sustainability and working with what already has been built offers a way to start addressing those larger retrofits we need as a society. And if we're going to shift to new technologies like electric cars or retrofits like efficient windows and insulation, we have to also make space and be willing to help those who can't afford the changes. Who pays for retrofits or who pays the environmental costs for unsustainable designs are political. As a society, we often just accept that there will be some people who have to live with the economic or environmental consequences of the types of development decisions we make, and that can be heavily placed on vulnerable groups. So creating sustainable cities can't just be a part of our future. It also has to be part of our present. And that means citizens like you or I can get involved, e.g. a cooperative, or coop is a group of people who come together to collectively manage a resource, whether that's housing or agricultural production. And in Barcelona, the Laborda Coop is building off a collaborative housing model used in Denmark, germany and Uruguay, that provides non speculative housing. This means that people don't own the individual units they live in, but they also don't pay rent to another person or company. Instead, they join a cooperative business as members. It's a little complicated, but what's important here is that it's a way of opting out of trying to always make a profit on land or housing. Individuals can't sell or even rent their space in the coop, and this keeps prices low for everyone. The complex was also built to be flexible in order to meet the needs of each of the residents. In fact, their building wasn't completely finished before people moved in. This allows the coop members to finish the building to suit the needs of the group, rather than needing to remodele later, so they save on the impact of construction. And we see this type of coop effort all over the world, from grocery stores in Detroit to housing in Greece to sustainable agriculture in Carolla, india, groups of people are banding together to leverage their numbers and purchasing power to envision new ways to exchange goods and services that will allow for secure, healthy lives, but with a smaller planning. Our cities and neighborhoods, including our communities and rural spaces, is a community effort.?

譯文：

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模塊化的浮動社區(qū)，樹木覆蓋的摩天大樓和零碳智能城市。這些是我所謂的“氣候偏見”的一些例子，這是一種烏托邦式的城市設(shè)計，試圖解決氣候變化問題，它們是我2022年博士研究的重點。它們可以有許多不同的形式，但氣候偏執(zhí)狂是世界各地的建筑師和設(shè)計師正在尋求的未來愿景面對日益嚴重的環(huán)境威脅，創(chuàng)造可持續(xù)的城市住區(qū)。氣候變化是我們許多人每天都在處理的事情，它既可怕又鼓舞人心。但當我們?yōu)闅夂蜃兓O(shè)計時，重要的是不僅要考慮基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施，還要考慮真正構(gòu)成城市、城市和人民的東西。所以我們必須像我們自己一樣，知道是什么幫助一個城市在今天和未來發(fā)展和繁榮?；蛘?，換句話說，是什么讓它成為一座城市？可持續(xù)的城市空間與強大的社區(qū)相結(jié)合，幫助指導(dǎo)和指導(dǎo)與他人高密度生活所帶來的各種挑戰(zhàn)，特別是在氣候變化的額外壓力下，以及脆弱性如何不均勻地分布。但這些理想往往難以在現(xiàn)實生活中實現(xiàn)。通常，能夠做出計劃決策的人并不包括所有可能受到?jīng)Q策過程影響的人?；蛘哂袝r沒有資金來修改或改造為一個目的而設(shè)計的景觀，比如車流，有所有可達的選擇，比如自行車道。規(guī)劃未來是一項艱巨的任務(wù)，但作為地理學(xué)家，我們擁有迎接挑戰(zhàn)的空間技能。我是愛麗絲，這里是地理速成班。我們就像我們在這個系列中討論過的許多專業(yè)一樣。環(huán)境規(guī)劃是一個涉及城市規(guī)劃、地理學(xué)、經(jīng)濟學(xué)甚至農(nóng)業(yè)的跨學(xué)科領(lǐng)域，它關(guān)注的是我們?nèi)绾谓⒖沙掷m(xù)發(fā)展的社區(qū)，使其成為更好的生活、工作和娛樂場所。環(huán)境規(guī)劃是可持續(xù)發(fā)展的一部分，這意味著從以保護環(huán)境的方式利用自然資源，到幫助城市以可持續(xù)的方式發(fā)展，為子孫后代服務(wù)。作為環(huán)境規(guī)劃師，這意味著我們專注于創(chuàng)造負責(zé)任地使用自然資源的設(shè)計。我們致力于如何促進經(jīng)濟機會和環(huán)境正義，這需要每個人都參與環(huán)境法律和政策。我們還致力于社會公平，這是指每個人都有公正和公平的機會獲得住房和足夠支付基本需求的工作。借用商業(yè)術(shù)語，這個目標是對人類、地球、利潤和社區(qū)產(chǎn)生積極影響的四倍底線。但可持續(xù)發(fā)展可能是一個矛盾。對環(huán)境有益的事情和對經(jīng)濟有益的事情并不總是一致的。因此，每當我們試圖維持或保護某些東西時，一個關(guān)鍵的問題是，我們真正想要保護的是什么？例如，我們可以把重點放在保護環(huán)境和限制自然資源的使用上。因此，城市規(guī)劃者將使用大量的模型和規(guī)劃工具來幫助在城市內(nèi)部建立保護和使用開放空間的關(guān)系，比如分區(qū)或指定不同的土地用途。城市的住宅區(qū)可以重新劃分或重新指定，以創(chuàng)建混合住房和商店的步行社區(qū)，而不是只有一個或另一個。這創(chuàng)造了人們想要生活、工作和娛樂的緊湊區(qū)域，從而減少了人們開車穿越該地區(qū)的需求。分區(qū)和其他工具通常是智能增長規(guī)劃的一部分，它試圖控制和指導(dǎo)城市蔓延的運動，或城市郊區(qū)和邊緣城市等郊區(qū)的地方向開放的未開發(fā)土地擴張。在我們的規(guī)劃中，我們也可以使用生態(tài)設(shè)計，這是一種建造建筑物甚至整個城市的努力，來模仿自然，把建筑物設(shè)計得像有生命的機器，或者強調(diào)太陽能設(shè)計，利用太陽來加熱和冷卻的元素，只是一個開始。生態(tài)設(shè)計是自然地理學(xué)與人文地理學(xué)相結(jié)合的關(guān)鍵所在。但正如我們在之前的節(jié)目中所學(xué)到的，城市在其建筑的設(shè)計和建筑中編碼了很多關(guān)于我們的生活方式和文化的信息，我們也可以保護這些信息。但是不管我們想要保護什么，我們都會制造緊張。首先，城市規(guī)劃是關(guān)于關(guān)系的，所以它很少是一個中立的行為?？沙掷m(xù)社區(qū)的一種方法包括新城市主義，這就像智能增長，但通常只是在社區(qū)規(guī)模上。它通常會創(chuàng)造出吸引人們的區(qū)域，從而導(dǎo)致中產(chǎn)階級化。中產(chǎn)階級化是指由于新的投資涌入，低收入地區(qū)的土地價值和租金上漲。當人們沒有得到公平對待時，這種增長就會出現(xiàn)問題，正如我們在談?wù)摷t線和城市更新時所了解到的那樣，如果城市不計劃為低收入居民增加經(jīng)濟機會或保護低收入住房，人們就會因為負擔(dān)不起租金而被趕出他們的社區(qū)或城市。這個問題沒有單一的解決方案或簡單的答案，但我們至少可以從關(guān)注參與該地區(qū)歷史的人開始。牢記公平。在城市，我們也有大量的人口集中，這使得人們能夠有效地獲得醫(yī)療、公共交通和教育等服務(wù)。電力和互聯(lián)網(wǎng)接入等東西也更便宜了。城市地區(qū)也是傳播和文化交流的中心，可以推動創(chuàng)新和新的經(jīng)濟前沿和技術(shù)進步。但人口的大量集中也會帶來壓力，部分原因是同樣的規(guī)模經(jīng)濟使得提供教育和可再生能源等服務(wù)變得高效。還有大量的廢物污染和水資源緊張。雖然城市地區(qū)有更多的服務(wù)，但它們的分布并不均勻，這可能導(dǎo)致健康狀況不平衡結(jié)果。一個非常明顯的例子就是灰綠之分。在通常較富裕的一方，房子舒適地坐落著在綠樹成蔭的街道上，在一條路的另一邊，一切都突然變成了混凝土和瀝青的陰影，灰色的道路，灰色的屋頂，灰色的人行道。這對我們的情緒、健康，甚至我們周圍的生物多樣性都有影響。所有這些植被也有助于減少城市熱島的影響，在那里，所有的瀝青、混凝土、石頭和鋼鐵都能吸收熱量，防止空氣污染消散。事實上，無論是由于城市的自然地理，還是因為有更多的重污染者，如汽車或工廠，空氣污染是普遍的，城市里有更多的哮喘病例，耳鼻喉疾病和免疫系統(tǒng)較弱的人。在住房不達標的城市貧困地區(qū)尤其如此，那里的人們資源最少，獲得醫(yī)療保健的能力也很少。還有其他問題，比如工廠產(chǎn)生的空氣污染，汽車會與大氣中的水混合，產(chǎn)生酸雨，其影響在形成酸雨的城市數(shù)百英里之外都能感受到。還有一些水質(zhì)問題，比如下水道溢流和在城市水道中傾倒化學(xué)物質(zhì)。大多數(shù)城市早在環(huán)境正義成為城市規(guī)劃討論的一部分之前就已經(jīng)建成了。根據(jù)美國環(huán)境保護署的說法，環(huán)境正義起源于20世紀60年代的民權(quán)運動，其理念是每個人都有權(quán)受到保護，免受環(huán)境危害，不分種族、性別、年齡、階級或政治。因此，創(chuàng)建可持續(xù)發(fā)展的城市是關(guān)于規(guī)劃未來和調(diào)和過去。當我們努力使建筑環(huán)境隨著我們自己對正義和環(huán)境影響的理解而發(fā)展時，我們關(guān)注的是重新利用舊材料和空間的改造與新發(fā)展之間的關(guān)系。例如，我們必須決定如何處理那些建在地震多發(fā)地區(qū)的漂亮的老建筑。城市規(guī)劃者可能會與結(jié)構(gòu)工程師一起決定需要什么樣的改造才能使建筑物抗震，或者對每個人來說最安全的事情是讓建筑物倒塌并重新利用那里的東西，就像法國建筑師拉卡頓和喬恩·菲利普·瓦薩爾的工作一樣，他們的工作獲得了獎項，改造建筑物可以產(chǎn)生巨大的全球影響。到本世紀20年代初，材料和建筑行業(yè)的溫室氣體排放量占世界溫室氣體排放量的10%，如果現(xiàn)有建筑和基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施可以重復(fù)利用，溫室氣體排放量將大幅減少。推動再利用而不是新建，還可以保護城市以外的生物多樣性，并最大限度地減少城市擴張導(dǎo)致的棲息地碎片化。當選擇綠色土地開發(fā)而不是棕色土地開發(fā)時，無論是住宅商店還是工廠，這些都可能面臨風(fēng)險。在綠地開發(fā)中，項目對建筑師和建設(shè)者來說是一張白紙，而棕地開發(fā)是在已經(jīng)使用過的土地上進行的，無論這塊土地曾經(jīng)是工廠，汽車經(jīng)銷商，甚至是停車場，改造只是我們考慮有效解決氣候變化和大氣變暖的一種工具，當人們試圖改變他們的生活方式時，許多人受到結(jié)構(gòu)性問題的限制，比如住在一個沒有公共交通工具的地方，或者設(shè)計得很差，不適合步行和騎自行車。以可持續(xù)發(fā)展為目標進行規(guī)劃，并與已經(jīng)建成的建筑合作，為開始解決我們作為一個社會所需要的更大規(guī)模的改造提供了一種方法。如果我們要轉(zhuǎn)向像電動汽車這樣的新技術(shù)，或者像高效窗戶和隔熱材料這樣的改造，我們也必須騰出空間，愿意幫助那些負擔(dān)不起這些改變的人。誰為改造買單，誰為不可持續(xù)的設(shè)計買單，都是政治問題。作為一個社會，我們常常只能接受這樣一個事實，即有些人不得不忍受我們所做的各種發(fā)展決定所帶來的經(jīng)濟或環(huán)境后果，而這些后果可能嚴重地落在弱勢群體身上。因此，創(chuàng)造可持續(xù)發(fā)展的城市不能僅僅是我們未來的一部分。它也必須是我們現(xiàn)在的一部分。這意味著像你我這樣的公民可以參與進來。合作社是一群人聚集在一起共同管理一種資源，無論是住房還是農(nóng)業(yè)生產(chǎn)。在巴塞羅那，LabordaCoop正在借鑒丹麥、德國和烏拉圭使用的合作住房模式，提供非投機性住房。這意味著人們不擁有他們居住的單個單元，但他們也不向另一個人或公司支付租金。相反，他們以會員的身份加入合作企業(yè)。這有點復(fù)雜，但重要的是，這是一種選擇，不總是試圖從土地或住房中獲利的方式。個人不能出售甚至出租他們在雞舍里的空間，這使得每個人的價格都很低。為了滿足每個居民的需求，該綜合體的建造也很靈活。事實上，在人們搬進來之前，他們的建筑還沒有完全完工。這允許合作社成員完成建筑，以滿足群體的需要，而不是需要改造，所以他們節(jié)省了建設(shè)的影響。我們在世界各地都看到這種合作的努力，從底特律的雜貨店到希臘的住房到印度卡羅拉的可持續(xù)農(nóng)業(yè)，人們聚集在一起，利用他們的人數(shù)和購買力，設(shè)想新的方式來交換商品和服務(wù)，這將使人們有安全，健康的生活，但計劃更小。我們的城市和社區(qū)，包括我們的社區(qū)和農(nóng)村空間，是一個社區(qū)的努力。