Sustainable Urban Design

[Corey]

patrick it sounds as if your speaking of the ancient culture in south america which did this exact proccess especially consider everybody traveled by foot.

Truth behold how do we get from where we are now to the victory city without destroying more environmental real estate inorder to lay such a city out?

It goes for any other such sudden changes as well such as going from current farming to organic over night. they till under fresh virgin forests to get at the uncontaminated soil below inorder to get the organic mono farms over night. Without waiting the 8-10 years it takes for the soil in the current tillable land to return to organic levels.

[Patrick]

Corey it's not just the South Americans that practiced it. The natural form of most cities in the world up until the adoption of the automobile as the sole means of transportation, was to build the public places and places of commerce within walking distance of people's houses.

I should have said that I was just referring to the victory city for fun. It is definately a utopian idea and I think certain aspects of it, in addition to the mentioned problem of taking up new land, would prevent it from ever being built. I definately don't propose the victory city as a solution to our problems, but certain aspects of it such as integrated mass transit and high density, are in common with sustainable city practices.

[Patrick]

I thought this was interesting: This is an article from the Technocracy, Inc. archives on the problems of housing the population, and what can be done to house people more efficiently while providing a better quality of life. The article is more than 50 years old but many of the points it raises remain relevant to this day.

A Place To Live In

[Banksia Rose]

hello all,
How can urban design reshape the community's ideas of affluence? Can it?

[Metyu]

Originally Posted by Banksia Rose

hello all,
How can urban design reshape the community's ideas of affluence? Can it?

Hi Banksia,

You may be interested in the CABE publication, "Does money grow on trees?" available at Does money grow on trees? | Publications | CABE

Regards,
M.

[windy1]

In the past villages and towns grew naturally from necessity and the practicalities of daily life. People didn't move about very much. It is only in recent times that the population has been turned into commuters, who are forced to move sometimes great distances to accomplish their daily work and leisure activities.

I think people would be happier, and more affluent, if they lived and worked in smaller communities. This has the added advantage that there would be less stress on individuals from travelling on congested roads, or packed together in public transport. It is far more sustainable for people to live and work within walking distance of the places they need to visit on a daily basis.

[Karl]

Bridging the divide in urban sustainability: from human
exemptionalism to the new ecological paradigm

Garry W. McDonald & Murray G. Patterson, February 2007

ABSTRACT

This paper reviews the main bodies of contemporary urban sustainability theory.
From this analysis, two underpinning paradigms of urban sustainability are identified: (1) The
‘Human Exemptionalism Paradigm’ (HEP), which emphasizes the ability of humans to
overcome environmental problems—see Urban Sociology, Urban Ecology, Urban Geography,
Urban Psychology and Political Economy; and (2) The ‘New Ecological Paradigm’ (NEP),
which emphasizes the criticality of ecological limits to human progress—see Urban
Metabolism, Energy/Emergy Analysis and Ecological Footprinting. Each of these approaches
is critically reviewed, highlighting their main assumptions, theoretical and practical foci. It is
argued in the paper that if the related issues of urban sustainability and development are to be
progressed, there needs to be: (1) a greater maturation of the NEP approaches, which are
‘relative newcomers’ to the area of urban theory; and (2) greater integration and dialogue
between the HEP and NEP approaches to urban sustainability than has hitherto been the case.

Full text: http://commerce.metapress.com/conten...m/fulltext.pdf

[rc white]

I recall, it was just after WWII when architects began preaching that they could transform the human soul by architecture.
The result was the tower blocks and the brutalist "carbuncle" shopping centers that appeared in the centers of cities all over Europe.
These engendered social problems on a scale practically unimagined before and when this was pointed out, the architects generally replied that they should have known what would happen if they cast there uplifting and inspiring pearls before the hoi poloy swine, and went off into arty farty enclaves with their cognoscenti where there visions were more appreciated.
I don't know but I suspect, that this is the resurrection of a green washed version of the doctrine of the architectures sacred mission to transform the lower orders, and I for one will treat it with the same suspicion.

[GarethKane]

I've written a report for the UK's Local Government Association called "LOTUS: Leapfrogging Obstacles to Urban Sustainability" - about using backcasting to transform our cities.

I've got some spare copies - I'll send a free one to the first six people to PM me with their postal address (UK only).

Cheers,

Gareth

[Patrick]

Hello everyone, it's been quite a while since I posted.

First to reply to the above poster:

This is not about imposing some kind of grand, utopian ideal on people. This is about practical solutions to reduce consumption through better urban design. It is a fact that urban sprawl, the living environment of the majority of Americans, consumes far more energy and resources per capita than is necessary. For example Swedes have a footprint which is on average 1/3rd that of their American counterpart and yet they still have televisions, computers, heat, etc showing that using less energy does not necessarily mean a decrease in the standard of living. The biggest thing that needs to change is how we access places. If more places can be made accessible by walking, cycling, or mass transit than energy use could be reduced drastically. In addition a more compact city requires fewer miles of sewers, power lines, roads etc to serve the same size population, as would be required by a sprawling city. A recent report suggests that compact development uses 1/3rd the energy on average of a typical sprawl environment. This includes energy used in transportation, construction, maintenance, etc for the entire lifespan of development.

Post WWII planners envisioned a new society where everyone would drive a car and live in a suburban house. Urban sprawl was the result. It was known at the time that this would increase per-capita consumption of energy and resources but this was thought to be a good thing - planned waste would employ more people and would increase profits for the producer. It was thought that after every family had two or three cars, that personal helicopters or flying cars would then be built and sold, keeping economic growth going forever. No consideration was given to resource limitations, endless cheap energy was thought to be an American birthright. This assumption has proven to be false. 50 years later, it is clear that this economy based on waste and endless growth can no longer continue. The current generation of planners are now forced to "clean up the mess" which has been left behind by the WWII planners. New Urbanism and Transit Oriented Development are emerging as the dominant trends in planning in order to solve the problems which have been created by urban sprawl. It is true that New Urbanism attempts to encourage social interaction by having houses close together, front porches, etc. However the main reason for New Urbanism and Transit Oriented development is to reduce energy use and provide people with an alternative to urban sprawl. So the new generation of planners is far less idealistic and more practical-minded than the WWII planners. In fact, one of the reasons modernism still seems to attract more attention is the fact that modernist architects seem always to be trying to build the biggest this-or-that. New Urbanism is more about creating communities that work and less about making some kind of artistic statement.

Please visit my updated site for more information on sustainable urban design. I'm trying to get user feedback so that I can make the information as accessible and as easy to understand as possible. If you have a question regarding sustainable urban design, feel free to leave a comment on my site or to e-mail me. Or, if you have an interest in sustainable urban design and would like to contribute or have any suggestions, don't hesitate to contact me. Right now I am looking for someone with a little bit of graphic-arts knowledge to make images for the site.