Building a sustainable, connected city with more/better transit, greater walkability and space for people, driverless shuttle services, heated sidewalks and a super-resilient energy grid

IMAGINE public recycling bins that use radio-frequency identification technology to credit recyclers every time they toss in a bottle; pressure-sensitive floors in the homes of older people that can detect the impact of a fall and immediately contact help; cellphones that store health records and can be used to pay for prescriptions.

These are among the services dreamed up by industrial-design students at California State University, Long Beach, for possible use in New Songdo City, a large “ubiquitous city” being built in South Korea.

A ubiquitous city is where all major information systems (residential, medical, business, governmental and the like) share data, and computers are built into the houses, streets and office buildings. New Songdo, located on a man-made island of nearly 1,500 acres off the Incheon coast about 40 miles from Seoul, is rising from the ground up as a U-city.

Although there are other U-city efforts in South Korea, officials see New Songdo as one apart. “New Songdo will be the first to fully adapt the U-city concept, not only in Korea but in the world,” said Mike An via an e-mail message. Mr. An is the chief project manager of the Incheon Free Economic Zone Authority, the government agency overseeing the project.

In the West, ubiquitous computing is a controversial idea that raises privacy concerns and the specter of a surveillance society. (They’ll know whether I recycled my Coke bottle?!) But in Asia the concept is viewed as an opportunity to show off technological prowess and attract foreign investment.

“Korea has gathered the world’s attention with its CDMA and mobile technologies,” Mr. An wrote, referring to digital cellular standards. “Now we need to prepare ourselves for the next market,” which he said was radio-frequency identification, or RFID, and for U-cities. South Korea’s Ministry of Information and Communication has earmarked $297 million to build an RFID research center in New Songdo.

Fulfilling this ambition, to a large degree, resides with John Kim, a 35-year-old Korean-American who leads New Songdo’s U-city planning. Mr. Kim is vice president for strategy at New Songdo City Development, a joint venture of the Gale Company, an American developer, and POSCO E&C, a subsidiary of South Korea’s giant steel company.

Mr. Kim, formerly a design leader at Yahoo, said the city’s high-tech infrastructure will be a giant test bed for new technologies, and the city itself will exemplify a digital way of life, what he calls “U-life.”

“U-life will become its own brand, its own lifestyle,” Mr. Kim said. It all starts with a resident’s smart-card house key. “The same key can be used to get on the subway, pay a parking meter, see a movie, borrow a free public bicycle and so on. It’ll be anonymous, won’t be linked to your identity, and if lost you can quickly cancel the card and reset your door lock.”

Residents will enjoy “full videoconferencing calls between neighbors, video on demand and wireless access to their digital content and property from anywhere in Songdo,” he said.

Whether it lives up to its billing as an exportable city of the future — its critics fear another planned-city disappointment like Brazil’s capital, Brasília — New Songdo will most likely be a chance to study the large-scale use of RFID, smart cards and sensor-based devices even as Western societies lag in this next wave of computing.

“There are really no comparable comprehensive frameworks for ubiquitous computing,” said Anthony Townsend, a research director at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, Calif., and a former Fulbright scholar in Seoul. “U-city is a uniquely Korean idea.”

New Songdo, a free-enterprise zone where English will be the lingua franca, is often called the largest private real-estate development in the world. When completed in 2014, it is estimated that this $25 billion project will be home to 65,000 people and that 300,000 will work there. Amenities will include an aquarium, golf course, American-managed hospital and preparatory schools, a central park (like New York’s), a system of canals (like Venice’s) and pocket parks (like Savannah’s), a self-described patchwork of elements gleaned from other cities.

People from Seoul and other crowded South Korean cities are already applying for apartments, and planners are counting on luring attractive businesses.

The technology infrastructure will be built and managed by Songdo U-Life, a partnership of New Songdo City Development and the South Korean network integrator LG CNS, which is recruiting foreign information-technology companies as partners.

“This is a profit-generating model, unlike other U-city projects,” Mr. Kim said. “Songdo U-Life will charge building owners for facilities management and act as a gateway to services. Our partners will test market services that require, say, wireless data access everywhere or a common ID system, without having to build anything themselves.”

More philosophically, “New Songdo sounds like it will be one big Petri dish for understanding how people want to use technology,” said B.J. Fogg, the director of the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University.

If so, it is an experiment much easier to do in Asia than in the West.

“Much of this technology was developed in U.S. research labs, but there are fewer social and regulatory obstacles to implementing them in Korea,” said Mr. Townsend, who consulted on Seoul’s own U-city plan, known as Digital Media City. “There is an historical expectation of less privacy. Korea is willing to put off the hard questions to take the early lead and set standards.”

Two things Mr. Kim insists on are that U-life will not be used to test “junk” and that the digital services will be designed around people’s needs rather than around the technology. “We’ll be doing marketing and ethnographic research, digging deeper,” he said. As part of that research, Mr. Kim asked the Cal State students to submit ideas for U-life.

While New Songdo’s publicity material states that it seeks to avoid the “stressful flaws that compromise” existing cities, Mr. Townsend says he doubts that it will be able to emulate the creative energy of, say, Seoul. “Will it really be a place where people want to experiment?” he asked.

South Korea perceives an economic imperative in the answer. “Korea has a very strong I.T. industry, but our other economic sectors are not so good,” said Geunho Lee, a senior research fellow at the Korea U-City Forum, a public-private group involved in supporting U-city projects across the country. “We need to test the business validity of these services in order to generate new value and economic growth.”

The ability to do such vast market testing is enviable, said Dr. Fogg, of Stanford. “This is a competitive advantage for the Koreans,” he said. “They will know before anyone else what flies.”

“But I foresee that many services will fail,” he added. “That’s the nature of experimentation. They should be prepared for the frailties of human nature to emerge.”

ecological cities are achieved through various means, such as:

• Different agricultural systems, such as agricultural plots within the city (suburbs or centre). This reduces the distance food has to travel from field to fork. Practical work out of this may be done by either small scale/private farming plots or through larger scale agriculture (e.g. farmscrapers, Urban Agriculture)
• Cities account for 70% of human-made CO₂ emissions.^[8] Renewable energy sources, such as wind turbines, solar panels, or bio-gas created from sewage. Cities provide economies of scale that make such energy sources viable.
• Various methods to reduce the need for air conditioning (a massive energy demand), such as planting trees and lightening surface colors, natural ventilation systems, an increase in water features, and green spaces equaling at least 20% of the city’s surface. These measures counter the “heat island effect” caused by an abundance of tarmac and asphalt, which can make urban areas several degrees warmer than surrounding rural areas—as much as six degrees Celsius during the evening.
• Improved public transport and an increase in pedestrianization to reduce car emissions. This requires a radically different approach to city planning, with integrated business, industrial, and residential zones. Roads may be designed to make driving difficult.
• Optimal building density to make public transport viable but avoid the creation of urban heat islands.
• Solutions to decrease urban sprawl, by seeking new ways of allowing people to live closer to the workspace.^{[citation needed]} Since the workplace tends to be in the city, downtown, or urban center, they are seeking a way to increase density by changing the antiquated attitudes many suburbanites have towards inner-city areas.^{[citation needed]} One of the new ways to achieve this is by solutions worked out by the Smart Growth Movement.^{[citation needed]}

• 

  Green Roof

  Green roofs alter the surface energy balance and can help mitigate the urban heat island effect. Incorporating eco roofs or green roofs in your design will help with air quality, climate and water runoff. ^[9]

• Sustainable transport, incorporates five elements: fuel economy, occupancy, electrification, pedal power, and urbanization.^[10]
• Zero-energy building
• Sustainable urban drainage systems or SUDS
• energy conservation systems/devices
• Xeriscaping – garden and landscape design for water conservation
• Key Performance Indicators – development and operational management tool providing guidance and M&V for city administrators^[11]
• Sustainable Sites Initiative or SSI,Voluntary national guidelines and performance benchmarks for sustainable land design, construction and maintenance practices. Key areas of focus are soil, vegetation, hydrology, materials, and human health and well being.

Architecture[edit]

Buildings provide the infrastructure for a functioning city and allow for many opportunities to demonstrate a commitment to sustainability. A commitment to sustainable architecture encompasses all phases of building including the planning, building, and restructuring. Sustainable Site Initiatives is used by landscape architects, designers, engineers, architects, developers, policy-makers and others to align land development and management with innovative sustainable design.^[12]

Eco-industrial park[edit]

The purpose of an eco-industrial park is to connect a number of firms and organizations to work together to decrease their environmental impact while simultaneously improving their economic performance.^[13] The community of businesses accomplishes this goal through collaboration in managing environmental and resource issues, such as energy, water, and materials.^[13] The components for building an eco-industrial park include natural systems, more efficient use of energy, and more efficient material and water flows^[13] Industrial parks should be built to fit into their natural settings in order to reduce environmental impacts, which can be accomplished through plant design, landscaping, and choice of materials. For instance, there is an industrial park in Michigan built by Phoenix Designs that is made almost entirely from recycled materials.^[14] The landscaping of the building will include native trees, grasses, and flowers, and the landscaping design will also act as climate shelter for the facility.^[14] In choosing the materials for building an eco-industrial park, designers must consider the life-cycle analysis of each medium that goes into the building to assess their true impact on the environment and to ensure that they are using it from one plant to another, steam connections from firms to provide heating for homes in the area, and using renewable energy such as wind and solar power.^[13] In terms of material flows, the companies in an eco-industrial park may have common waste treatment facilities, a means for transporting by-products from one plant to another, or anchoring the park around resource recovery companies that are recruited to the location or started from scratch.^[13] To create more efficient water flows in industrial parks, the processed water from one plant can be reused by another plant and the parks infrastructure can include a way to collect and reuse storm water runoff.^[13]

Urban farming[edit]

Urban farming is the process of growing and distributing food, as well as raising animals, in and around a city or in urban area. According to the RUAF Foundation, urban farming is different from rural agriculture because “it is integrated into the urban economic and ecological system: urban agriculture is embedded in -and interacting with- the urban ecosystem. Such linkages include the use of urban residents as labourers, use of typical urban resources (like organic waste as compost and urban wastewater for irrigation), direct links with urban consumers, direct impacts on urban ecology (positive and negative), being part of the urban food system, competing for land with other urban functions, being influenced by urban policies and plans, etc.”^[15] There are many motivations behind urban agriculture, but in the context of creating a sustainable city, this method of food cultivation saves energy in food transportation and saves costs. In order for urban farming to be a successful method of sustainable food growth, cities must allot a common area for community gardens or farms, as well as a common area for a farmers market in which the foodstuffs grown within the city can be sold to the residents of the urban system.^[15]

Urban infill[edit]

Many cities are currently in a shift from the suburban sprawl model of development to a return to urban dense living. This shift in geographic distribution of population leads to a denser core of city residents. These residents provide a growing demand in many sectors that is reflected in the architectural fabric of the city. This new demand can be supplied by new construction or historic rehabilitation. Sustainable cities will opt for historical rehabilitation wherever possible. Having people live in higher densities not only gives economies of scale but also allows for infrastructure to be more efficient.

Walkable urbanism[edit]

Walkable urbanism is a development strategy in opposition to suburban sprawl. It advocates housing for a diverse population, a full mix of uses, walkable streets, positive public space, integrated civic and commercial centers, transit orientation and accessible open space. It also advocates for density and accessibility of commercial and government activity.

New Urbanism[edit]

The most clearly defined form of walkable urbanism is known as the Charter of New Urbanism. It is an approach for successfully reducing environmental impacts by altering the built environment to create and preserve smart cities which support sustainable transport. Residents in compact urban neighborhoods drive fewer miles, and have significantly lower environmental impacts across a range of measures, compared with those living in sprawlingsuburbs.^[16] The concept of circular flow land use management has also been introduced in Europe to promote sustainable land use patterns that strive for compact cities and a reduction of greenfield land taken by urban sprawl.

In sustainable architecture the recent movement of New Classical Architecture promotes a sustainable approach towards construction, that appreciates and develops smart growth, walkability, architectural tradition and classical design.^[17][18] This in contrast to modernistand globally uniform architecture, as well as opposing solitary housing estates and suburban sprawl.^[19] Both trends started in the 1980s.

Individual buildings (LEED)[edit]

LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is an internationally recognized green building certification system. LEED recognizes whole building sustainable design by identifying key areas of excellence including: Sustainable Sites, Water Efficiency, Energy and Atmosphere, Materials and Resources, Indoor Environmental Quality, Locations & Linkages, Awareness and Education, Innovation in Design, Regional Priority.^[20] In order for a building to become LEED certified sustainability needs to be prioritized in design, construction, and use. One example of sustainable design would be including a certified wood like bamboo. Bamboo is fast growing and has an incredible replacement rate after being harvested. By far the most credits are rewarded for optimizing energy performance. This promotes innovative thinking about alternative forms of energy and encourages increased efficiency.

Sustainable Sites Initiative (SSI)[edit]

Sustainable Sites Initiative, a combined effort of the American Society of Landscape Architects, The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin, and the United States Botanic Garden, is a voluntary national guideline and performance benchmark for sustainable land design, construction and maintenance practices.^[21] The building principles of SSI are to design with nature and culture, use a decision-making hierarchy of preservation, conservation, and regeneration, use a system thinking approach, provide regenerative systems, support a living process, use a collaborative and ethical approach, maintain integrity in leadership and research, and finally foster environmental stewardship. All of these help promote solutions to common environmental issues such as greenhouse gases, urban climate issues, water pollution and waste, energy consumption, and health and wellbeing of site users. The main focus is hydrology, soils, vegetation, materials, and human health and well being.

In SSI, the main goal for hydrology in sites is to protect and restore existing hydrologic functions. To design storm water features to be accessible to site users, and manage and clean water on site. For site design of soil and vegetation many steps can be done during the construction process to help minimize the urban heat island effects, to and minimize the building heating requirements by using plants.

Transportation[edit]

As major focus of the sustainable cities, sustainable transportation attempts to reduce a city’s reliance and use of greenhouse emitting gases by utilizing eco friendly urban planning, low environmental impact vehicles, and residential proximity to create an urban center that has greater environmental responsibility and social equity.

Due to the significant impact that transportation services have on a city’s energy consumption, the last decade has seen an increasing emphasis on sustainable transportation by developmental experts. Currently, transportation systems account for nearly a quarter of the world’s energy consumption and carbon dioxide emission. In order to reduce the environmental impact caused by transportation in metropolitan areas, sustainable transportation has three widely agreed upon pillars that it utilizes to create more healthy and productive urban centers.^[22]

The Carbon Trust states that there are three main ways cities can innovate to make transport more sustainable without increasing journey times – better land use planning, modal shift to encourage people to choose more efficient forms of transport, and making existing transport modes more efficient.^[23]

Car free city[edit]

The concept of car free cities or a city with large pedestrian areas is often part of the design of a sustainable city. A large part of the carbon footprint of a city is generated by cars so the car free concept is often considered an integral part of the design of a sustainable city.

Emphasis on proximity[edit]

Created by eco friendly urban planning, the concept of urban proximity is an essential element of current and future sustainable transportation systems. This requires that cities be built and added onto with appropriate population and landmark density so that destinations are reached with reduced time in transit. This reduced time in transit allows for reduced fuel expenditure and also opens the door to alternative means of transportation such as bike riding and walking.^[24]

Furthermore, close proximity of residents and major landmarks allows for the creation of efficient public transportation by eliminating long sprawled out routes and reducing commute time. This in turn decreases the social cost to residents who choose to live in these cities by allowing them more time with families and friends instead by eliminating part of their commute time.

Diversity in modes of transportation[edit]

Sustainable transportation emphasizes the use of a diversity of fuel-efficient transportation vehicles in order to reduce greenhouse emissions and diversity fuel demand. Due to the increasingly expensive and volatile cost of energy, this strategy has become very important because it allows a way for city residents to be less susceptible to varying highs and lows in various energy prices.

Among the different modes of transportation, the use alternative energy cars and widespread installation of refueling stations has gained increasing importance, while the creation of centralized bike and walking paths remains a staple of the sustainable transportation movement.

Access to transportation[edit]

In order to maintain the aspect of social responsibility inherent within the concept of sustainable cities, implementing sustainable transportation must include access to transportation by all levels of society. Due to the fact that car and fuel cost are often too expensive for lower income urban residents, completing this aspect often revolves around efficient and accessible public transportation.

In order to make public transportation more accessible, the cost of rides must be affordable and stations must be located no more than walking distance in each part of the city. As studies have shown, this accessibility creates a great increase in social and productive opportunity for city residents. By allowing lower income residents cheap and available transportation, it allows for individuals to seek employment opportunities all over the urban center rather than simply the area in which they live. This in turn reduces unemployment and a number of associated social problems such as crime, drug use, and violence.^[25]

Urban strategic planning[edit]

Although there is not an international policy regarding sustainable cities and there are not established international standards, there is an organization, the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) that is working to establish universal urban strategic guidelines. The UCLG a democratic and decentralized structure that operates in Africa, Asia, Eurasia, Europe, Latin America, North America, Middle East, West Asian and a Metropolitan section work to promote a more sustainable society.^[26] The 60 members of the UCLG committee evaluate urban development strategies and debate theses experiences to make the best recommendations. Additionally, the UCLG accounts for differences in regional and national context. All the organizations are making a great effort to promote this concept by media and internet, and in conferences and workshops. An International conference was held in Italy at Università del Salento and Università degli Studi della Basilicata, called ‘Green Urbanism’, from 12–14 October 2016.

Development[edit]

Recently, local and national governments and regional bodies such as the European Union have recognized the need for a holistic understanding of urban planning. This is instrumental to establishing an international policy that focuses on cities challenges and the role of the local authorities responses. Generally, in terms of urban planning, the responsibility of local governments are limited to land use and infrastructure provision excluding inclusive urban development strategies. The advantages of urban strategic planning include an increase in governance and cooperation that aids local governments in establishing performance based-management, clearly identifying the challenges facing local community and more effectively responding on a local level rather than national level, and improves institutional responses and local decision making.^[26] Additionally, it increases dialogue between stakeholders and develops consensus-based solutions, establishing continuity between sustainability plans and change in local government; it places environmental issues as the priority for the sustainable development of cities and serves as a platform to develop concepts and new models of housing, energy and mobility.^[26]

Obstacles[edit]

The City Development Strategies (CDS) addresses new challenges and provides space for innovative policies that involves all stakeholders. The inequality in spatial development and socio-economic classes paired with concerns of poverty reduction and climate changeare factors in achieving global sustainable cities. According to the UCLG there are differences between regional and national conditions, framework and practice that are overcome in the international commitment to communication and negotiation with other governments, communities and the private sector to continual to develop through innovative and participatory approaches in strategic decisions, building consensus and monitoring performance management and raising investment.

Social factors of sustainable cities[edit]

According to UN Habitat, around half of the world’s population is concentrated in cities, which is set to rise to 60% within a couple decades.^[26] The UCLG has specifically identified 13 global challenges to establishing sustainable cities: demographic change and migration, globalisation of the job market, poverty and unmet Millennium Development Goals, segregation, spatial patterns and urban growth, metropolisation and the rise of urban regions, more political power for local authories, new actors for developing a city and providing services, decline in public funding for development, the environment and climate change, new and accessible building technologies, preparing for uncertainty and limits of growth and global communications and partnerships.

Examples[edit]

Australia[edit]

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Adelaide[edit]

Urban forests

In Adelaide, South Australia (a city of 1.3 million people) Premier Mike Rann (2002 to 2011) launched an urban forest initiative in 2003 to plant 3 million native trees and shrubs by 2014 on 300 project sites across the metro area. The projects range from large habitat restoration projects to local biodiversity projects. Thousands of Adelaide citizens have participated in community planting days. Sites include parks, reserves, transport corridors, schools, water courses and coastline. Only trees native to the local area are planted to ensure genetic integrity. Premier Rann said the project aimed to beautify and cool the city and make it more liveable; improve air and water quality and reduce Adelaide’s greenhouse gas emissions by 600,000 tonnes of C02 a year. He said it was also about creating and conserving habitat for wildlife and preventing species loss.^[27]

Solar power

The Rann government also launched an initiative for Adelaide to lead Australia in the take-up of solar power. In addition to Australia’s first ‘feed-in’ tariff to stimulate the purchase of solar panels for domestic roofs, the government committed millions of dollars to place arrays of solar panels on the roofs of public buildings such as the museum, art gallery, Parliament, Adelaide Airport, 200 schools and Australia’s biggest rooftop array on the roof of Adelaide Showgrounds’ convention hall which was registered as a power station.

Wind power

South Australia went from zero wind power in 2002 to wind power, making up 26% of its electricity generation by October 2011. In the five years preceding 2011 there was a 15% drop in emissions, despite strong economic growth.^[28]

Waste recycling

For Adelaide the South Australian government also embraced a Zero Waste recycling strategy, achieving a recycling rate of nearly 80% by 2011 with 4.3 million tonnes of materials diverted from landfill to recycling. On a per capita basis this was the best result in Australia, the equivalent of preventing more than a million tonnes of C02 entering the atmosphere. In the 1970s container deposit legislation was introduced. Consumers are paid a 10 cent rebate on each bottle, can, or container they return to recycling. In 2009 non-reusable plastic bags used in supermarket checkouts were banned by the Rann Government, preventing 400 million plastic bags per year entering the litter stream. In 2010 Zero Waste SA was commended by a UN Habitat Report entitled ‘Solid Waste Management in the World Cities’.^[29]

Melbourne[edit]

• The City of Moreland in Melbourne‘s north has programs for becoming carbon neutral, one of which is Zero Carbon Moreland,^[30] amongst other existing sustainable implementations and proposals.
• City of Melbourne. Over the past 10 years, various methods of improving public transport have been implemented, as well as car free zones and entire streets.

City of Greater Taree, New South Wales[edit]

The City of Greater Taree north of Sydney has developed a masterplan for Australia’s first low-to-no carbon urban development.

Brazil[edit]

Belo Horizonte, Brazil was created in 1897 and is the third largest metropolis in Brazil, with 2.4 million inhabitants.^[26] The Strategic Plan for Belo Horizonte (2010–2030) is being prepared by external consultants based on similar cities’ infrastructure, incorporating the role of local government, state government, city leaders and encouraging citizen participation. The need for environmental sustainable development is led by the initiative of new government following planning processes from the state government. Overall, the development of the metropolis is dependent on the land regularization and infrastructure improvement that will better support the cultural technology and economic landscape.

Cameroon[edit]

• Bafut, is a town and traditional kingdom which is working towards becoming an eco-city by 2020, through the Bafut Council Eco-city Project.^[31]

Canada[edit]

The GreenScore City Index studies the ecological footprints of Canadian cities and splits them into three population categories: large, medium, and small. The index^[32] studies 50 cities in Canada.

• Vancouver had 2016’s highest green score for large cities.
• Burlington had 2016’s highest green score for medium cities.
• Victoria had 2016’s highest green score for small cities.

Most cities in Canada have sustainability action plans which are easily searched and downloaded from city websites.

China[edit]

• Tianjin: The Chinese are working with investment and technology supplied by the Singapore government to build an ecocity in Binhai, named the “Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city“.^[33][34]
• Dongtan Eco-city, Shanghai: The project, located in the east of Chongming Island developed by Arup and Parthers, was scheduled to accommodate 50,000 residents by 2010, but its developer has currently put construction on hold.^[35] An additional project was made in 2007 in this area: an Eco-Village based on the concept made by an Italian professor from the School of Architecture of Tianjin University.
• Huangbaiyu, Benxi, Liaoning is a small village of 42 homes that has come under great criticism: most of the homes are unoccupied by villagers.
• Nanjing: As of April 2008, an ecocity collaboration project is being proposed here.
• Rizhao, Shandong mandates solar water heaters for households, and has been designated the Environmental Model City by China’s SEPA.^[36]:108
• Chengdu Tianfu District Great City is a planned city located just outside Chengdu that is planned to be sustainable and has the goal of being a self-sustaining city that discourages the use of cars.^[37]

Denmark[edit]

Two comprehensive studies were carried out for the whole of Denmark in 2010 (The IDA Climate Plan 2050^[38]) and 2011 (The Danish Commission on Climate Change Policy^[39]). The studies analysed the benefits and obstacles of running Denmark on 100% renewable energy from the year 2050. There is also a larger, ambitious plan in action: the Copenhagen 2025 Climate Plan.

On a more local level, the industrial park in Kalundborg is often cited as a model for industrial ecology. However, projects have been carried out in several Danish cities promoting 100% renewable energy. Examples include Aalborg,^[40] Ballerup^[41] and Frederikshavn.^[42]Aalborg University has launched a master education program on sustainable cities (Sustainable Cities @ Aalborg University Copenhagen^[43]). See also the Danish Wikipedia.

Finland[edit]

The Finnish city of Turku has adopted a “Carbon Neutral Turku by 2040” strategy to achieve carbon neutrality via combining the goal with circular economy.^[44]

Germany[edit]

No other country has built more eco-city projects than Germany.^{[citation needed]} Freiburg im Breisgau is often referred to as a green city. It is one of the few cities with a Green mayor and is known for its strong solar energy industry. Vauban, Freiburg is a sustainable model district. All houses are built to a low energy consumption standard and the whole district is designed to be carfree. Another green district in Freiburg is Rieselfeld, where houses generate more energy than they consume. There are several other green sustainable city projects such as Kronsberg in Hannover and current developments around Munich, Hamburg and Frankfurt.

Hong Kong[edit]

The government portrays the proposed Hung Shui Kiu new town as an eco-city. The same happened with the urban development plan on the site of the former Kai Tak Airport.

India[edit]

Auroville^[45] was founded in 1968 with the intention of realizing human unity, and is now home to approximately 2,000 individuals from over 45 nations around the world. Its focus is its vibrant community culture and its expertise in renewable energy systems, habitat restoration, ecology skills, mindfulness practices, and holistic education.

Andhra Pradesh state New capital also coming up with a future sustainable city.

Ireland[edit]

South Dublin County Council announced plans in late 2007 to develop Clonburris, a new suburb of Dublin to include up to 15,000 new homes, to be designed to achieve the highest of international standards.^[46] The plans for Clonburris include countless green innovations such as high levels of energy efficiency, mandatory renewable energy for heating and electricity, the use of recycled and sustainable building materials, a district heating system for distributing heat, the provision of allotments for growing food, and even the banning of tumble driers, with natural drying areas being provided instead.^[47]

In 2012 a energy plan was carried out by the Danish Aalborg University for the municipalities of Limerick and Clare. The project was a short-term 2020 renewable energy strategy giving a 20% reduction in CO₂ emissions, while ensuring that short-term actions are beneficial to the long-term goal of 100% renewable energy.^[48]

Kenya[edit]

Korea[edit]

Songdo IBD is a planned city in Incheon which has incorporated a number of eco-friendly features. These include a central park irrigated with seawater, a subway line, bicycle lanes, rainwater catchment systems, and pneumatic waste collection system. 75% of the waste generated by the construction of the city will be recycled.

Gwanggyo City Centre is another planned sustainable city.^[49]

Malaysia[edit]

As of 2014 a Low Carbon Cities programme is being piloted in Malaysia by KeTTHA, the Malaysian Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water, Malaysian Green Technology Corporation (GreenTech Malaysia) and the Carbon Trust.^[50]

Malacca has a stated ambition to become a carbon-free city, taking steps towards creating a smart electricity grid. This is being done as part of an initiative to create a Green Special Economic Zone, where it is intended that as many as 20 research and development centers will be built focusing on renewable energy and clean technology, creating up to 300,000 new green jobs. ^[50]

The Federal Department of Town and Country Planning (FDTCP) in peninsular Malaysia is a focal point for the implementation of the Malaysian Urban Rural National Indicators Network for Sustainable Development (MURNInets)^[51] MURNInets includes 36 sets of compulsory indicators grouped under 21 themes under six dimensions. Most of the targets and standards for the selected indicators were adjusted according to hierarchy of local authorities. In MURNInets at least three main new features are introduced. These include the Happiness Index, an indicator under the quality of life theme to meet the current development trend that emphasizes on the well-being of the community. Another feature introduced is the customer or people satisfaction level towards local authorities’ services. Through the introduction of these indicators the bottom-up approach in measuring sustainability is adopted.

New Zealand[edit]

The city of Waitakere, the western part of the greater Auckland urban region, was New Zealand’s first eco-city,^[52] working from the Greenprint, a guiding document that the City Council developed in the early 1990s.

Philippines[edit]

Clark Freeport Zone is a former United States Air Force base in the Philippines. It is located on the northwest side of Angeles City and on the west side of Mabalacat City in the province of Pampanga, about 40 miles (60 km) northwest of Metro Manila. A multi-billion project will convert the 36,000 hectare former Clark Air Force Base into a mix of industrial, commercial and institutional areas of green environment. The heart of the project is a 9,450-hectare metropolis dubbed as the “Clark Green City“. Builders will use the green building system for environmentally-friendly structures. Its facilities will tap renewable energy such as solar and hydro power.^[53][54]

Portugal[edit]

The organization Living PlanIT is currently constructing a city from scratch near Porto, Portugal. Buildings will be electronically connected to vehicles giving the user a sense of personal eco-friendliness.

Spain[edit]

• Bilbao: The city faced economic turmoil following the decline of the steel and port industries but through communication between stakeholders and authorities to create inner-city transformation, the local government benefited from the increase in land value in old port areas. The Strategic Plan for the Revitalisation of Metropolitan Bibao was launched in 1922 and have flourished regenerating old steel and port industries. The conversion from depleted steel and port industries to one of Europe’s most flourishing markets is a prime example of a sustainable project in action.

Sweden[edit]

• Norra Älvstranden (Swedish), in Gothenburg by the river Göta älv, is an example of a sustainable city in Sweden.^{[citation needed]} It has low environmental impact, and contains passive houses, recycling system for waste, etc.
• Hammarby Sjöstad^{[citation needed]}
• Västra Hamnen or Bo01, Malmö^{[citation needed]}
• Stockholm Royal Seaport^[55]

United Arab Emirates[edit]

• Masdar City, Abu Dhabi is a planned city under development that will rely entirely on solar energy and other renewable energy sources, with a sustainable, zero-carbon, zero-waste ecology.
• Dubai The Sustainable City, Dubai

United Kingdom[edit]

• London Borough of Sutton is the first One Planet Region in the United Kingdom, with significant targets for reducing the ecological footprint of residents and creating the UK’s greenest borough.^[56]
• Middlesbrough is another One Planet Region in the United Kingdom.^[57]
• St Davids, the smallest city in the United Kingdom, aims to be the first carbon neutral city in the world.^[58]
• Leicester is the United Kingdom’s first environment city.^[59]

United States[edit]

• Arcosanti, Arizona
• Babcock Ranch Florida is a proposed solar-powered city.
• Coyote Springs, Nevada is the largest planned city in the United States.
• Douglas Ranch, Buckeye, Arizona
• Mesa del Sol in Albuquerque, New Mexico
• Sonoma Mountain Village^[60] in Rohnert Park, California
• Treasure Island, San Francisco is another project that aims to create a small eco city.

See also[edit]

• 2000-watt society
• BedZED
• Bicycle City
• Carfree city
• Circles of Sustainability
• Covenant of Mayors
• Eco-cities
• Ecodistrict
• Environmental economics
• Floating ecopolis
• Global Ecovillage Network
• Sustainable urbanism
• Transition town
• Urban design
• Zero-carbon city

Further reading[edit]

• Dhakal K.P. and Chevalier L.R. (2017). Managing urban stormwater for urban sustainability: Barriers and policy solutions for green infrastructure application, Journal of Environmental Management, 203: 171-181.
• Joss, S. (2015). Sustainable Cities: Governing for Urban Innovation. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-137-00635-6
• Stanislav E. Shmelev and Irina A. Shmeleva (2009) “Sustainable cities: problems of integrated interdisciplinary research“, International Journal of Sustainable Development, Volume 12, Number 1, 2009, pp. 4 – 23
• Warren Karlenzig (2007) “How Green is Your City? The SustainLane US City Rankings“, New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, BC, Canada ISBN 0-86571-595-5 ISBN 978-0865715950
• Phil McManus (2005) Vortex Cities to Sustainable Cities: Australia’s urban challenge, UNSW Press, Sydney. ISBN 0-86840-701-1
• Richard Register (2006) Ecocities: building cities in balance with nature, New Society Publishers. ISBN 0-86571-552-1.
• Paul Glover (1982) Los Angeles: A History of the Future
• Shannon May (2008) “Ecological citizenship and a plan for sustainable development“, City,12:2,237 — 244
• Investment Potential of Smart Cities – An Indian Perspective January (2015) “[1]“, Annual Publication, 250 Pages, iData Insights “[2]“
• Timothy Beatley (2000) (1997) [http://worldcat.org/oclc/36695680&referer=one_hit Eco-city dimensions : healthy communities, healthy planet, New Society Publishers. ISBN 0-86571-353-7.
• Richard Register (1987) Ecocity Berkeley: building cities for a healthy future, North Atlantic Books. ISBN 1-55643-009-4.
• Rita Yi Man Li (2011) Building Our Sustainable Cities, Common Ground Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86335-834-7.
• Sim Van der Ryn and Peter Calthorpe (1986) Sustainable communities : a new design synthesis for cities, suburbs, and towns, Sierra Club Books. ISBN 0-87156-629-X.
• Paolo Soleri (1973) Arcology : the city in the image of man, MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-19060-5.
• Ian L. McHarg (1969) Design with nature, Published for the American Museum of Natural History [by] the Natural History Press.
• Saskia Sassen (2009) Cities are at the centre of our environmental future. S.A.P.I.EN.S. 2 (3)
• Steffen Lehmann (2010) The Principles of Green Urbanism. Transforming the City for Sustainability, Earthscan Publisher London. ISBN 978-1-84407-817-2.
• Louise Crabtree (2006) Messy humans, dirty economies and leaky houses: citizenship, sustainable livelihoods and housing in Australia, doctoral dissertation, Macquarie University, 2006.

External links[edit]

• Carboun – an advocacy initiative promoting sustainable cities in the Middle East
• Circles of Sustainability – practical tools for creating sustainable cities
• Greenscore City Index, Greenscore’s ecological index for cities, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
• Ecocity Summit 2008, April 22–26, San Francisco, California
• Eco Cities in China – anthropologist Shannon May on the transformation of Huangbaiyu, a Chinese eco village
• ECOPOLIS
• Green Cities, Urbanization and Municipal Development in Asia – Asian Development Bank
• Julie Cidell Lecture: Urban Sustainability in the EU – European Union Center at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
• Los Angeles: A History of the Future
• Sustainable Cities – Terrain.org
• Sustainable Cities: Building cities worth building a future in – new study by Siemens AG, Washington, DC
• Sustainable City Plan– proposal for an eco-city for 150,000 residents
• Resource Guide on Sprawl and the New Urbanism – edited by Deborah Sommer, Environmental Design Library, University of California, Berkeley
• Cities embracing the green revolution – Visual.ly
• Which way China? – Herbert Girardet, 2 October 2006, chinadialogue. Discusses the emergence of ecocities in China.
• Harvard University – Working Group for Sustainable Cities

References[edit]