Posts Tagged ‘urban sustainability’
Regenerating Existing Development: Living City Block
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on May 18th, 2010
© Living City Block
“By the summer of 2012, Living City Block Lo Do Denver will have reduced its aggregate energy use by 50%. By the summer of 2014, LCB will become a Net Zero energy bloc, and by 2016 it will be creating more resources than it consumes. But concurrently, LCB will be working to develop a thriving urban community, one in which people of all ages and types choose to live, work and play.”
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By the year 2050, eighty percent of the world’s population will live in cities. In addition, the Urban Land Institute predicts that eighty percent of current building stock will still be in use in the year 2050. As America and the world work to build a new, sustainable foundation for the 21st century, we need new models of what our urban spaces and places can become. Living City Block will be just such a model.
Starting with a block and a half of Denver’s historic Lower Downtown (LoDo) district, Living City Block will create a demonstration of a regenerative urban center. LCB will draw on selected partners from around Denver, the U.S. and the world to develop and implement a working model of how one block within an existing city can be transformed into a paradigm for the new urban landscape.
This pilot project is taking the area of 15th to 16th, Wynkoop to Wazee and east across Wazee and transforming it into a sustainable community. First, Living City Block will work to significantly reduce the energy consumption and environmental impact on these blocks. By the summer of 2012, Living City Block Lo Do Denver will have reduced its aggregate energy use by 50%. By the summer of 2014, LCB will become a Net Zero energy bloc, and by 2016 it will be creating more resources than it consumes. But concurrently, LCB will be working to develop a thriving urban community, one in which people of all ages and types choose to live, work and play. Right retail will evolve, better and more sustainable jobs will be created and kept, and the block will take its place as a part of the economic engine that drives the city and the region.
The LoDo project is a model that will be replicated across the Western Hemisphere though our Sister Cites and Sister Neighborhood programs. The LCB Team is pursuing relationships with other neighborhoods within Denver, other cities within the US and the Western Hemisphere to establish their own Living City Blocks. The LCB Team will begin by creating “virtual” city blocks with these partners that will over time become their own actual Living City Blocks. The lessons learned and the methodologies created through our initial LoDo Denver LCB will become the model for developing many other LCB’s, and for doing so at scale and in the near future.
Read more on Living City Block.
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‘Rental Goat’ Weeding Service: low-carbon solutions
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on January 22nd, 2010
Source: Japan for Sustainability via Food Climate Research Network
From “Company to Begin ‘Rental Goat’ Weeding Service“
Mikuni Construction Co. in Kitakyusyu City, southern Japan, announced in August 2009, that it would be launching a new service to rent goats for weeding grass starting in April 2010. This unique weeding method does not require any machinery, and is drawing attention as an environmentally friendly technique.
Having first heard about weeding with goats from his business associate, Katsuhiko Sera, the president of the company, has been investigating the approach for three years in an effort to devise a viable business model. He bought five goats in May 2009, and by tethering the goats with a cable, about 500 square meters of grass can be grazed over the course of a week. A trial “rent-a-goat” began in August 2009, but will be fully launched in March 2010.
Goats eat various types of weed. They eat all aboveground stems and leaves, and prefer to graze on slops, which people often find it difficult to weed. Furthermore, weeded material does not require disposal when using this method and the goat dung produced simply decomposes and is returned to the soil.
In addition to renting goats, the company plans to provide its own weeding service by increasing the number of goats, and to manufacture cheese and other products from goat milk. Mr. Sera hopes that his rental goat service will serve not only as a new tool to maintain urban green spaces, but will also assist the comfort of local residents.
From “Company to Begin ‘Rental Goat’ Weeding Service“
From Industrial Hub To Sustainable Neighbourhood
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on December 18th, 2009
Source: Daily Commercial News
From “Vancouver industrial hub transformed into sustainable neighbourhood” by Jean Sorensen
Southeast False Creek (SEFC), a City of Vancouver reclamation project, is being designed to set a new urban sustainability standard in community development. The 80-acre site housing 16,000 people will become a neighbourhood of parks, market and subsidised housing, marine areas, community garden, shops, schools, and a community centre, growing out of what was once the industrial hub of the city. Sawmills, manufacturers, metal shops and marine-related shops once rimmed False Creek. Subsurface investigation was made into soil and groundwater quality at SEFC to complete human health and risk assessment as part of a remedial action plan. In areas where contamination was severe, soils were removed and in areas of lesser contamination, the material was covered over and the land designated recreational use.
“I am told that this is the largest residential development in North America,” said Robin Petri, Vancouver’s Manager of Engineering for the SEFC & Olympic Village. One of the unique features of the development, Petri points out, is that the roads are sloped so that rainwater drains into natural bioswales on each side of the village, negating the need to treat runoff water, while providing habitat for birds, animals, and marine life. Buildings also capture and use water, with approximately 50 per cent having green roofs and 50 per cent directing the water into irrigation and functions such as toilet flushing. A neighborhood energy utility is the first in North America to gather heat directly from a raw sewage line, consolidate the heat and use it in a thermal system that loops pipe to various buildings and back to the utility building.
One of the challenges of the cleanup was that False Creek had been filled in along the shoreline over the years. Much of the earlier materials used for fill were poor quality and these had to be removed and replaced. To compensate for shoreline that was removed, an island was created in an inter-tidal zone allowing children to wade to it at low tide to examine marine life that has been returning to a once-derelict area. In February a project manager noticed white frothy bubbles around the island. It turned out to be herring roe – the first time it has been seen there in 50 years.
Read the full article by Jean Sorensen.
The Nature of Cities: Film
Posted in Visions by Kate Archdeacon on December 9th, 2009
Source: How It Grows
Image: Congress Avenue Bridge, by jessicareeder via flickr CC
University of Virgina professor Timothy Beatly premiered his new film, The Nature of Cities, at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden’s Gillette Forum on October 29th. The film is an interesting overview of various ways in which nature and sustainable architecture are being incorporated into European and American cities. Geared towards people outside the design and science community, it’s a great introduction to the concept of urban nature. The film has several interesting vignettes, like a car-free development that is so eerily quiet you can follow the sound of waves to find a nearby beach. Or a week-long bio-blitz of a canyon in San Diego that allows kids who were previously warned about the ‘danger’ of the local canyon to explore it and identify the native plants and insects.
The most striking story in the film features the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas, famous for its bat colony. The city has gone from trying to torch the bats under the bridge to setting up a protected area where crowds of people assemble to watch 1.5 million bats emerge in the evenings. Now, new bridges in Texas are being specifically designed to house bat colonies. Imagine if more of our buidings and infrastructure were built this way! It’s fascinating to see the shift in construction from environmentally harmful, to environmentally neutral, to environmentaly positive.
Source: How It Grows
City slickers have a lower footprint
Posted in Research by fedwards on April 3rd, 2009
According to a new study released by the International Institute for Environment and Development, urban dwellers have a lower carbon footprint than the national average. “Many cities have surprisingly low per capita emissions but what is clear is that most emissions come from the world’s wealthier nations,” says David Dodman, author of the study that will be published in the April edition of Environment and Urbanization. “The real climate-change culprits are not the cities themselves but the high consumption lifestyles of people living across these wealthy countries. To read more about this report visit the IIED website here.
A Tale of Two Cities
Posted in Movements by guido_7 on February 11th, 2009
Assume a robust global deal on climate and the world’s cities will have to transform their infrastructure, economies and societies in little more than a generation.
Assume uncontrolled emissions growth and they face growing impact from a less hospitable and more volatile climate.
Either way – big changes are on the way. Few cities’ leaders grasp the scale of the challenge, especially in developing countries, where towns and cities will have an additional 1.5bn residents to cope with by 2030.
This new think piece has been prepared as part of the British Council’s Climate and Cities programme working with Global Dashboard . Download the pdf (which has full references).
Invitation to the Sustainable Cities Round Table – Sustainable Sharing
Posted in Events by fedwards on February 9th, 2009
When: 6-8pm Thursday 26 February 2009
Where: Shed 4 Dock 4 North Wharf Road, Docklands VIC 3006 AUSTRALIA. Map: 2E 7D
RSVP essential to: rsvp@ sustainablemelbourne.com by 20 Febuary 2009
What: It may seem strange that we’ve highlighted sharing as a sustainability issue. Yet as the West has become more industrialised we’ve also grown more individualised producing more products per person. At this Sustainable Cities Round Table we explore how we can learn to share again. Topics include shared spaces, such as composts and co-houses; shared products and materials, such as the renewed retro world of no longer daggy hand-me-downs, and shared services, such as permablitzes and group purchasing power.
Speakers include:
Kate Pears, My Sisters Wardrobe
Adam Grubb, Permablitz
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The Climate Group Plans To Develop Low Carbon Cities In China
Posted in Sustainable Cities by fedwards on January 28th, 2009
Please find an abstract from a news story posted on the World Business Council for Sustainable Development website. More and more sustainable cities can only be a good thing!
The Climate Group Plans To Develop Low Carbon Cities In China
ChinaCSR, 19 January 2009 – The Climate Group has announced plans to develop 15 to 20 low carbon cities in China in the next three to five years to encourage the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and address the problem of climate change. The Climate Group said in a report released in Beijing that China would miss the best opportunity to retain its technology advantage and core competitiveness in the world market if it lets slip the opportunities brought by the global financial crisis.
Wu Changhua, director for Greater China of The Climate Group, said that as a path for development, the core aim of a low-carbon economy is to increase energy efficiency and change the energy structure. She said that this would mean cleaner, more efficient and lower green house gas emission for China. Wu added that besides big cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin, the Climate Group would mainly target second-tier and third-tier cities in China for the low-carbon initiative as these smaller cities provide more opportunity for development.
To read the full story visit the World Business Council for Sustainable Development website.
New Report Tracks Progress on Sustainability in Britain’s Biggest Cities
Posted in Research by fedwards on January 21st, 2009
The Sustainable Cities Index tracks progress on sustainability in Britain’s largest cities, ranking them on environmental performance, quality of life and future-proofing. It enables city leaders to track their progress against a set of indicators relating to factors which councils are able to influence. Bristol has ousted Brighton and Hove to become Britain’s most sustainable city, with Plymouth third. The report reveals a clear north-south divide particularly on quality of life, but Newcastle has managed to buck this trend coming in fourth. The project has been endorsed by Margaret Eaton, chairman of the Local Government Association: “Forum for the Future’s Sustainable Cities Index has driven real change by inspiring cities to adopt more ambitious sustainability strategies and by providing a framework against which they can benchmark their efforts.â€
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A more usable SustainableCitiesNet.com!
Posted in Movements by fedwards on November 12th, 2008
SustainableCitiesNet.com has a new appearance with much thanks to our fantastic web support! The site is now easier to use – be it searching for local sustainability events, models, movements, research or policy – or for uploading your own sustainability initiatives online!
New features include:
- a better appearance – our banner has no distortion, we have more pictures of beautiful sustainable cities and the posts are easier to read and comment on;
- more succinct categories and pages – less tags with more clarity of topic, each category now comes with an explanation of what they mean; and
- added “register” and “log in” links at the top of the screen to allow you to register or sign in more quickly to post your environmental initiatives online!
SustainableCitiesNet strongly encourages people and organisations in cities around the world to post their urban sustainable initiatives directly online. In spirit with our goal “to deliver information, to connect people and projects, to accelerate the city’s sustainable transformation” please post your sustainable initiatives today!