What's an Ecocity and Why Should We Care?

Tags: Community PlanningEcocity standardsgreen citiesinternational urban sustainability standards comments Posted August 17, 2011 by Warren Karlenzig with 380 reads 0 Share 1 0 1 1 0

"Ecocity" is a popular designation for dozens of global urban centers. Indeed the 9th Ecocity World Summit next week in Montreal, Canada will be packed with city officials, planners, activists, educators, and corporations from 75 nations, as well as the United Nations--all trying to plan how the city can be designed and conducted more in harmony with ecosystems, culture and the biosphere. The summit will also present a scheme to assess ecocities on defined standards and indicators. Seeing that international standards for overall sustainability at the city level do not yet exist, how can ecocities take things to the next level and collectively push forward urban sustainability performance across borders, languages, cultures and local conditions? Cities are where sustainability meets true systems approaches and economic need: they'll go from harboring more than half of the planet's people to about 70 percent of humanity by 2050. The Earth is undergoing the greatest mass migration in its history as hundreds of millions of rural residents of China move to its booming cities. Some of the largest ecocity projects include Tianjin, China (pictured above); Waitakere, New Zealand (208,000 pop.) was self-designated as an ecocity before it was absorbed by neighboring Auckland in 2010. A host of other cities in China including Changchun, Rizhao and Tangshan ("Caofeidian International Eco-city") are modeled as eco-cities, while India is also planning development of several eco cities along its new Delhi-Mumbai transportation and industrial corridor. Japan, which has been helping India plan its largest ecocity, is also sponsoring development or retrofitting of numerous ecocities or "eco towns." The term "ecocity" was first used by Richard Register in 1987: Register went on to found in 1992 the non-profit Ecocity Builders, which is based in Oakland, California. (Disclosure: my consultancy Common Current just finished a project with Ecocity Builders to help the organization and its international advisors develop standards and indicators for ecocities, called the International Ecocity Framework and Standards, or IEFS.) Ecocity Builders' Register, Executive Director Kirstin Miller, Ecological Footprint co-creator Bill Rees and other participants will be addressing the Montreal Ecocity Conference to present the IEFS to participants and partner cities. Four Early Partner Cities (EPCs) for the IEFS--Vancouver and Montreal, Canada; Curitiba, Brazil and Kirtipur, Nepal--will also participate. These cities or
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communities are already gathering information and data for the IEFS in order to provide initial feedback on the standard and indicator development process. The IEFS consists of 15 system "conditions" or categories. Cities will eventually be analyzed and measured based on the performance of these components, which have an integral relationship to the city's bioregions (bioregional mapping will become a key IEFS activity). The 15 IEFS categories include:

Access by Proximity: Walkable access from housing to basic urban services and transit access to close-by employment options. Clean Air: Air quality conducive to good health within buildings, the city's air shed, and the atmosphere. Healthy Soil: Soils meet their ranges of healthy ecosystem functions as appropriate to their types and environments; fertility is maintained or improved. Clean and Safe Water: Access to clean, safe, affordable water; the city's water sources, waterways and water bodies are healthy and function without negative impact to ecosystems. Water is primarily sourced from within the bioregion. Responsible Resources/ Materials: Renewable and non-renewable resources are sourced, allocated, managed and recycled responsibly and equitably, without adversely affecting human health or the resilience of ecosystems. Clean and Renewable Energy: The city's energy needs are provided for, and extracted, generated and consumed, without significant negative impact to ecosystems or to short- or long-term human health and do not exacerbate climate change. Energy consumed is primarily generated within the local bioregion. Healthy and Accessible Food: Nutritious food is accessible and affordable to all residents and is grown, manufactured and distributed by processes which maintain the healthy function of ecosystems and do not exacerbate climate change. Food consumed is primarily grown within the local bioregion. Healthy Biodiversity: The city sustains the biodiversity of local, bioregional and global ecosystems including species diversity, ecosystem diversity and genetic diversity; it restores natural habitat and biodiversity by its policy and physical actions. Earth's Carrying Capacity: The city keeps its demand on ecosystems within the limits of the Earth's bio-capacity, converting resources restoratively and supporting regional ecological integrity. Ecological Integrity: The city maintains essential linkages within and between ecosystems and provides contiguous habitat areas and ecological corridors throughout the city. Healthy Culture: The city facilitates cultural activities that strengthen eco-literacy, patterns of human knowledge and creative expression, and develop symbolic thought and social learning. Community Capacity Building: The city supports full and equitable community participation in decision making processes and provides legal, physical and organizational support for neighborhoods, community organizations, institutions and agencies. Healthy and Equitable Economy: An economy favoring economic activities that reduce harm and positively benefit the environment and human health and support a high level of local and equitable employment options - the foundation for "green jobs".

Lifelong Education: All residents have access to lifelong education including access to information about the city's history of place, culture, ecology, and tradition provided through formal and informal education, vocational training and other social institutions. Well Being--Quality of Life: Strong citizen satisfaction with quality of life indicators including employment; the built, natural and landscaped environment; physical and mental health; education; safety; recreation and leisure time; and social belonging.

While some of these categories are being matched to existing tools and indicators (i.e., Walk Score and similar GIS mapping for Access by Proximity), other categories will need a period of innovation around analytical processes or tools such as the Gini co-efficient (Healthy and Equitable Economy) and the Ecological Footprint (Earth's Carrying Capacity). These have been extensively used on the national level, for instance, but have yet to be consistently applied on the local level. The lack of international urban sustainability standards has perplexed and bedeviled cities, planners, developers and companies wanting a consistent scorecard across global urban management and development. True, international sustainability standards exist for buildings, such as the US Green Building Council's LEED, and the BREEAM standards from Europe, even neighborhoods (LEED for Neighborhood Development). China is also developing its own Three Star standard for buildings. Emerging from the Harvard School of Design is the Zofnass Program for Sustainable Infrastructure. But the time has come for consistent urban sustainability frameworks and indicators across everything from infrastructure and mobility, to urban agriculture, energy, water, materials and biodiversity. The International Ecocity Framework and Standards (IEFS) is one of the main entrants in the global race to define and measure what makes a city sustainable. With the cooperation of its Early Partner Cities, Ecocity Builders and the IEFS will hopefully begin to answer these key questions along while getting down to the real business: helping solve how the cities of the world are remaking themselves as more sustainable cities to prepare for a future of more extreme risk--which equals opportunity.

About Warren Karlenzig Warren Karlenzig is president of Common Current, a global consultancy for urban sustainability planning, policy and development. He is co-author of the forthcoming United Nations publication, The Shanghai Manual for Sustainable Cities. He has worked on urban sustainability strategy with clients including the nation of South Korea; US Department of State; the White House; US EPA; State of California; Asian Institute of Energy, Environment & Sustainability; Guangzhou, China Planning Agency; and the Packard Foundation. He is also author of How Green is Your City? The SustainLane US City Rankings.

Rediscovering the Road to the Sustainable City

Tags: citiesCommunity Planningecological urbanismEconomic Sustainabilityhistoryinterconnected streetsLand UsePlacemakingPolicySustainabilitytown square

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Posted August 15, 2011 by Chuck Wolfe with 312 reads

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Urban integration with geography

Those of us who write about cities should be students of history and experience, and with some humility listen to scholars and the legacy of urban development from from around the world. In that sense, a recent summary of sustainable city characteristics by Harvard Professor Joan Busquets provides considerable food for thought and exploration. According to Busquets, the most sustainable cities integrate natural geography and systems (such as water) into the urban fabric, provide a comfortable city center and have long-lasting, flexible designs. His formula for a merger of geography, comfort and flexibility embraces many issues in todays urban dialogue, such as increasing opportunities to walk and use transit, to live closer to work and to consequently increase density the efficient use of urban space.

The comfortable city center I take from Busquets that a sustainable city also tactfully manages the transition from rural to urban, from country to city. Todays tools seek to enhance this symbiotic town and country relationship, from the latest regional planning efforts (as recently acknowledged by Kaid Benfield) to innovative organizations such as the Cascade Land Conservancy, which has pioneered incentives for rural conservation in return for more concentrated urban development in Washington State. Busquets describes the sustainable city as the historical city, which to me, cries for evidencea physical realm of the sort championed in the late Edmund Bacons 1967 classic, Design of Cities, looking to traditional patterned interplay between people and place than modern regulatory tools.

The flexible city on the road to the square

How did this physical transition from country to city happen in history? How was the change in surroundings designed or notas one approached the city center? How did streets and alleys play magical roles in guiding travelers to anticipate arrival at focal points of commerce, government and public squares? What of angles and curves, color and light, all modified by architectural features, elevations and building materials? In times of infrastructure shortfalland absent the ability to redevelop major swaths of landthis element of implementing Busquets formulation of geography, comfort and flexibility risks jeopardy, but we should not lose sight of the inquiry and potential lessons learned. Last week, when discussing "sustainable storefronts, I suggested that highly evolved cities successfully implement a universal urban characteristics from elsewhere in a local context. Other related building blocks covered earlier include third places, corners and fusion businesses. Next week, while abroad, Ill be looking hard at how such building blocks can fit together again in places that largely play well with their surrounding settingsin support of the successful integration of natural geography, comfort and flexibility along the way. All images composed by the author in Puglia, Italy, where he will return next week.

About Chuck Wolfe Charles R. Wolfe, M.R.P., J.D. is an attorney in Seattle, where he focuses on land use and environmental law and permitting, including the use of innovative land use regulatory tools and sustainable development techniques on behalf of both the private and public sectors and the successful redevelopment of infill properties under federal, state and local regulatory regimes. He is an accomplished speaker and author on growth management and innovative zoning, transit-oriented development, and brownfield/sustainable development topics, regularly participates in regional and national seminars and serves as a reporter for the national publication, Planning & Environmental Law. He is also an Affiliate Associate Professor in the College of Built Environments at the University of Washington, where he teaches land use law and a range of planning and development courses to planners and future design professionals and is a contributor to major research efforts addressing urban center, transit oriented and brownfield redevelopment. Additionally, Chuck serves as Vice Chair, Fund Development for the Urban Land Institute (ULI), Seattle District Council, is a Member of the Boards of Futurewise and Great City, and is a King County Trustee of the Cascade Land Conservancy. He contributes regularly on urban development topics for several publications including The Huffington Post, seattlepi.com, and Crosscut.com. He blogs regularly at myurbanist.com.