Archive for June, 2009
Seeking: Climate Campaign Coordinator
Posted in Movements by Kate Archdeacon on June 30th, 2009
Source: Greenleap
The Nature Conservation Council of NSW are seeking a Climate Campaign Coordinator.
“Are you looking for a challenging role on the frontline of community engagement and organising on climate change?”
Applications close 9am, Monday 13 July, 2009.
Re-using Infrastructure for Public Space: High Line, NY.
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on June 29th, 2009
Source: Mason Curry, Metropolis Magazine, Newsletter 06, 2009
Image: High Line by Mason Curry via Metropolis Magazine
New Yorkers have been reading about the High Line for at least three and a half years. The project—which officially opened to the public on June 8—lives up to expectations. It is not only a beautiful and novel urban park, but a remarkably serene and even understated space.
“The High Line was built in the 1930s, as part of a massive public-private infrastructure project called the West Side Improvement. It lifted freight traffic 30 feet in the air, removing dangerous trains from the streets of Manhattan’s largest industrial district. No trains have run on the High Line since 1980. Friends of the High Line, a community-based non-profit group, formed in 1999 when the historic structure was under threat of demolition. Friends of the High Line works in partnership with the City of New York to preserve and maintain the structure as an elevated public park.” The High Line
Source: Mason Curry, Metropolis Magazine, Newsletter 06, 2009
New Systems and Services: from selling furniture to selling space
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on June 25th, 2009
Source: Eva Hagberg, Metropolis Magazine, Newsletter 06/2009
Image via Workspring
Part of the shift towards sustainable practices includes sharing resources rather than owning them outright. Systems and Services design philosophy has long proposed shared office spaces as part of the new models of consumption. Workspring is a successful US business model which is about to expand to its second site.
Thank you and good bye!
Posted in Events by fedwards on June 23rd, 2009
Thank you all for your interest and support in the Sustainable Cities project over the last couple of years. I have now resigned from my position as Sustainable Cities Research Officer at VEIL. It’s been a very productive innings – SustainableMelbourne.com has had over 200,000 unique visitors in the last year and along with SustainableCitiesNet.com we have posted more than 1,500 total posts of positive urban sustainability initiatives. The Sustainable Cities Round Tables, our face-to-face events, have showcased 110 local presenters, networking people across sustainability sectors and illustrating the extent of rich resources and knowledge that we have here in Melbourne. 
I have also enjoyed teaching the ‘Meals in Metropolis‘ course at RMIT University (check out the student work here), and writing the ‘Briefing Paper on Social Innovations in the Victorian Food System’ – soon to be released (to request a copy email Kirsten Larsen at klarsen@ unimelb.edu.au). The highlight of the project was having this work recognised internationally when I moderated the ‘Sustainable cities and human life’ session at the 2008 World Knowledge Forum in Seoul, Korea.
SustainableMelbourne.com, SustainableCitiesNet.com and this Newsletter will continue on to be moderated by Kate Archdeacon, Design Research Assistant, VEIL. For future information about these projects please contact her directly at kfa@ unimelb.edu.au. Of course, we encourage you to continue to post your initiatives directly online – just go to “How to use this site” and follow the instructions. To keep up with VEIL’s work visit the website here.
I have now published the footage from the most recent (and possibly the last) ‘Sustainable Cities Round Table – The Energy to Change‘. In all these projects – SustainableMelbourne.com, SustainableCitiesNet.com and the Sustainable Cities Round Tables – I have striven to showcase positive initiatives to inspire fresh, innovative and positive change towards sustainability. On that note, a question asked at the recent Sustainable Cities Round Table is very relevant: “What motivates you to change?” I hope the websites and events have also inspired such changes to become real.
Best,
Ferne Edwards
Sustainable Cities Research Officer, VEIL
Building the Smart Grid
Posted in Models by Devin Maeztri on June 23rd, 2009
This article discusses about investment in technology and innovation in energy sector to promote renewable energy.
Original article published in The Economist.
“Even though the demands being placed on national electricity grids are changing rapidly, the grids themselves have changed very little since they were first developed more than a century ago. The first grids were built as one-way streets, consisting of power stations at one end supplying power when needed to customers at the other end. That approach worked well for many years, and helped drive the growth of industrial nations by making electricity ubiquitous, but it is now showing its age.”
To read more of the article visit The Economist.
Autophobia: Love and Hate in the Automobile Age
Posted in Research by Devin Maeztri on June 22nd, 2009
Book: Autophobia: Love and Hate in the Automobile Age
Author: Brian Ladd
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
City: Chicago
Year: 2008
A review by Milton Takei
Brian Ladd’s book, Autophobia,is a history of the love and hatred people have felt for the automobile. Autophobes such as myself can take comfort in how, from the beginning of the age of the automobile, some people were against cars, for example because motorists disturbed the tranquility of both the city and the countryside. The dismaying part is that the attraction of the automobile soon overwhelmed the opposition.
The book is particularly strong in pointing out the injuries and deaths that automobiles cause. The World Health Organization estimates that automobile incidents kill over a million people yearly.
See: http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/81/3/WHONews0303.pdf
Integrating biodiversity into water sensitive urban design
Posted in Research by Virginia on June 19th, 2009
Water sensitive urban design is still at an infant stage and there’s been much research into integrating biodiversity values into water sensitive urban design. A model used to increase the water sensitive design of an urban area is through the use of wetlands. Wetlands can act as storm water treatment points whereby wetland plants soak up nutrients and metals from incoming storm water and discharge cleaner storm water back into the waterway. An aspect that is often missing when building these remedial wetlands is the idea of integrating biodiversity regimes into the construction of the wetland.
Wetland projects tend to concentrate on the use of native vegetation and the attraction of wetland birds as an achievement in biodiversity conservation. Whilst that goal can hardly be undermined, nor disagreed with, it is a question to ponder whether such a goal truly reflects the notion of biodiversity conservation.
In itself, biodiversity conservation is much like the term sustainability- vague, ambiguous and lacking a precise quantifiable form of measurement. For what does it truly mean to conserve something? In terms of urban biodiversity, the precise definition of conservation becomes highly problematic in that, to what extent do we conserve the environment? Do we try and restore the environment to a pre-urban settlement environment or to an even earlier era, for example, pre-European settlement? Therefore, in order biodiversity conservation to have some meaning, a reference point must be established.
The problem with many urban sustainability projects advocating biodiversity conservation aims is that many don’t specify what sort of biodiversity conservation they are aiming for, that is, to what extent, if any, are the projects aiming to restore the environment. Using wetland remediation projects as an example, many such developments have cited biodiversity conservation as a result of implementing wetlands, however it is not clear as to what they were trying to conserve. In truth, perhaps the particularities of what was conserved is not important and it’s perhaps the overall picture of a greater presence of species within an area which should be celebrated.
However, the issue of not having a clear idea as to what type of biodiversity conservation the project is wanting to achieve is the result of having species that may not be wanted suddenly appear in the neighbourhood. An example of this is the much maligned kingdom of insects represented by the mosquitoes and associated larvae. There’s been community concern over the spread of mosquitoes in wetland areas and the risks associated with that. As a consequence of community concern, there has been initiatives by local governments to prevent them from establishing. However, mosquitoes play an integral role in both the maintenance and as a provision of food in the wetlands ecosystem. Therefore, whilst the increase in wetland birds have generally been celebrated, the overall increase in lifeforms such as insects must too be embraced if a more holistic view of biodiversity conservation is to occur.
Can you conserve biodiversity in the urban area?
Posted in RDAG by Virginia on June 18th, 2009
There are currently more people living in urban areas than there are living in rural areas. Due to increasing urban pressures, an increasing amount of natural land is turned into agriculture pasture or residential developments. Some argue, because of urban sprawl, that biodiversity conservation must be considered within cities as well as in the natural environment.
Since an increasing amount of natural land is continuously being turned into developments, a growing number of conservation biologists, social scientists and other trans-disciplinary scholars have advocated the need to spread conservation efforts into urban areas. They argue that neglecting the urban environment is neglecting a large potential of land that can facilitate in conserving biodiversity. Other arguments that are used in support of the integration of biodiversity into urban areas is that in doing so, can close the gap between society and nature that has formed in our society. Thus conserving biodiversity in the urban environment can both enhance the amount of conservation and also act as an education program to introduce and remind urban dwellers the presence of nature.
Despite the promising tenets of conserving biodiversity on urban land, there are several implementation problems. Firstly, any sort of conservation project situated in the urban area must take into consideration community concerns. An example of the importance of the community was seen with the relocation of the grey headed flying fruit bats from the Royal Botanic Gardens to Yarra Bend Park in Kew. There were concerns from the locals of the spread of disease, disruption due to bat noise and loss of agricultural produce from nearby small scale farms. After community consultation had occured, the project was able to be approved and has since been hailed as a success in urban biodiversity conservation.
Situating a conservation project amidst the urban environment also presents numerous management problems. These problems are presented as an increase in environmental weeds escaping from private backyards, increased number of cats and other domestic animals which prey on the conservation land and increased visitors which bring their own set of management challenges such as rubbish and degradation to the natural environment. These factors then contribute to a loss of quality to the overall conservation area.  All these elements combined transform into an increased costs of managing an urban conservation project compared to a rural or natural conservation project. Thus, it is more economically efficient to devote resources into conserving a prsitine, natural environment than implementing an urban conservation project.
Urban conservation projects may have numerous social benefits, however, in terms of economic efficiency and the limited budgets of most conservation projects, urban conservation projects may not be the most viable option.
Second Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference
Posted in Events by Devin Maeztri on June 17th, 2009
Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference is organized by the National Vacant Properties Campaign.
Press Release of the conference can be downloaded from Smart Growth Around America.
“The National Vacant Properties Campaign was created in 2003 to help communities prevent, manage, and successfully redevelop vacant and abandoned properties – all to create more vibrant, thriving neighborhoods. We believe that such efforts yield more affordable housing opportunities, major fiscal and economic development benefits, and reduced threats to our public health, safety, and the environment. The Campaign is led by Smart Growth America, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, and the Genesee Institute.”
To find out more about the campaign visit National Vacant Properties Campaign.
The Buckminster Fuller Challenge
Posted in Models by Devin Maeztri on June 16th, 2009
The Buckminster Fuller Challenge is an annual award of $100,000 prize to support the development and implementation of a strategy that has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems.
What they look from the entries are:
- Comprehensive – addressing the interaction of key issues responsible for present conditions; aims to solve multiple problems without creating new ones
- Anticipatory – factoring in critical future trends and needs as well as potential long term impacts of implementation
- Ecologically responsible – reflecting nature’s underlying principles while enhancing the Earth’s life-support systems
- Feasible – relying on current technology and existing resources
- Verifiable – able to withstand rigorous empirical testing
- Replicable – able to scale and adapt to a broad range of condition
See the 2009 Buckminster Fuller Challenge Award winner.