Hello Everyone:
Sustainability is a one of the big words in the contemporary lexicon. It is used to characterize sources of building material, food, clothing, and so forth. What about urban sustainability? Can urban planners and architects create urban lifestyles that does not deplete or permanently natural resources? Are there cities around the world that are leading the way? Yes, as matter of fact there are ten cities identified by http://www.fastcoexist.com/1682483/110-cities-show-that-facing-up-to-climate-change-has-more-benefits-than-dangers that are leading the way in creating cities that are becoming models for sustainability and, eventually, increasing humanity's chances for survival in face of declining resources. In mid-September, Siemens and the Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) (http://www.c40cities.org/) announce the ten winners of the first City Climate Leadership Award. This award is presented cities around the world that have demonstrated "excellence in urban sustainability and leadership in the fight against climate change." Ariel Schwartz, a Senior Editor for Co.Exist reveals the winners of the winners, of the what is hoped to be, an annual award in "The 10 Cities That Are Leading The Way In Urban Sustainability." The winners are:
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| Bogota Rapid Transit Bogota, Colombia ecoefficiency.bligoo.com |
In the category of Urban Transportation, the capital city of Colombia took the top prize for its ultra-efficient bus and taxi fleet. Are you paying attention Metropolitan Transit Authority in Los Angeles? The city's Bus Rapid Transit system, launched in 2000 ferries over 70% of the city's 7.1 million residents. Goals for the future include replacing the diesel fleet with a hybrid and electric buses, electrifying the taxi fleet, and adding a new metro line.
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| Melbourne, Australia travel.yahoo.com |
The city of Melbourne, Australia won top honors in the Energy Efficient Built Environment category for a sustainable buildings program which awards building managers and owners financing for energy and water retrofits. (http://cityclimateleadershipawards.com/melbourne-sustainable-buildings-programs)
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| Copenhagen, Denmark fanpop.com |
Copenhagen, Denmark was the winner of the Carbon Measurement and Planning award for its ambitious goal to make the city completely carbon neutral by deploying its 2025 Climate Plan. If emissions are successfully cut to 400,000, the Danish capital would be the first carbon neutral city in the world.
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| Mexico City, Mexico en.wikipedia.org |
Mexico City, or for that matter Beijing, is usually not the first place you think of when you talk about good air quality. However, unlike the Chinese capital, Mexico City took steps to improve the air quality making it the winner in the category of Air Quality. The Mexican capital uses ProAire, a program that has dramatically cut CO2 emissions and air pollution over the twenty years from automobile emissions reductions to containment of urban sprawl. The proof is in the plan that can significantly improver air quality. Beijing, did you see this?
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| Munich, Germany greenwichmeantime.com |
Munich, Germany was the recipient of the Green Energy award for its plan to power the capital city of Bavaria using totally renewable sources by 2025. At present, the city about 40% of the way there. In 2015, wind power projects will come online, causing this number to jump to 80%.
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| Rio De Janeiro, Brasil idri.com |
The city of samba, soccer players, and supermodels put in place The Morar Carioca Program (an urban revitalization program) which propelled this glamourous locale to the top of the Sustainable Communities Category. The goal of the program is to "formalize" and re-urbanize all of Rio's favelas by 2020, using a combination of better landscaping, infrastructure, educational tools, much more designed to help with the health and wellness for the 20% of Rio's population that live in there. (http://wwwcidadeolimpica.com/br/en/projetos/morar-carioca-2/)
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| New York City, New York commons.wikipedia.org |
If anything good came out of Hurricane Sandy is that New York City emerged from the devastation stronger and more resilient as result of its post-Sandy action plan-A Stronger More Resilient New York. The plan consists of 250 ambitious infrastructure strengthening initiatives in numerous categories such as: transportation, telecommunications, parks, insurance, and buildings. Hey, New Yorkers are tougher than some hurricane. (http://www.myc.gove/html/sirr/html/report/report.shtml)
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| San Francisco, California storify.com |
The City by the Bay took top honors in the Waste Management category for its extremely effective eleven-year old zero waste program, which diverts 80% of trash from landfills. I wonder where it goes? By 2020, San Francisco hopes to make this 100%-a number, according to Ariel Schwartz, is totally doable.
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| Singapore en.wikipedia.org |
The island nation is the recipient of the Intelligent City Infrastructure award, given for its intelligent Transportation System. I want to really crack wise here but I won't, in case Christopher Hawthorne of the Los Angeles Times or Nicolas Ouroussoff of the New York Times is following this blog and think I'm not a serious writer. Anyway, the Intelligent Transportation System, consists of a variety of smart transportation initiative, like real-time traffic information (quite handy in Los Angeles) from GPS-equipped taxis and electronic road toll collections. The result is Singapore has lower traffic congestion than most cities because fewer people are getting lost. O.K. I couldn't hold back. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Road_Pricing)
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| The Ginza at nightTōkyō, Japan worldofstock.com |
The capital of Japan won the Finance and Economic Development award for launching the world's first cap and trade program in 2010. At present, the program includes 1,100 participating facilities which have cut emissions by 13% in the city and prevented more than 7 million tons of CO2 from being released.
All together, the best qualities of these featured cities: effective road management, cap and trade, sustainable energy, great public transportation, zero waste management and so forty, make up an urbanist's dream city. While the dream is not yet a reality, the first step is learning from these cities and adapting the solutions to the specific locale. Now if only anyone would pay attention.
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