FUTURE OF CITIES

A DISSERTATION

Submitted by

RAMACHANDRAN A

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree

of

MASTER OF PLANNING

DEPARTMENT OF PLANNING

SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE AND PLANNING

ANNA UNIVERSITY

CHENNAI 600 025

DECEMBER 2013

BONAFIDE CERTIFICATE

Certified that this Dissertation titled “FUTURE OF CITIES” is the bonafide

work of Mr. RAMACHANDRAN A, who carried out the research under my

supervision, Certified further that to the best of my knowledge the work

reported here does not form part of any other thesis or dissertation on the

basis of which a degree or award was conferred on an earlier occasion on

this or any other scholar.

Examiner

Supervisor

Dr. K. Pratheep Moses

Associate Professor

Department of Planning

SAP, Anna University

Head of the Department

Dr Abdul Razak Mohamed

Prof & Head of the Department

Department of Planning

SAP, Anna University

iii

ABSTRACT

Cities over the world face complex and rapidly evolving challenges.

Ranging from climate, to poverty, economic downturns and demographic shifts,

cities now need to confront an unprecedented array of issues. Addressing them

requires ingenuity and versatility, whether in policymaking, investment

decisions or everyday livelihoods. Future of Cities, seek to re-think the city, in

theory and practice to confront these challenges. The dissertation carried out

here is on future of cities, which tries to identify some of the challenges which a

city will face. Challenges faced by city are enormous, only few challenges are

studied in this dissertation. These challenges include demographic, challenges of

urbanization, emission challenges, rising sea level and socio-economic

challenges. As we know future of cities is vast distinct subjects the study tries to

identify solutions to the emerging problems by understanding the characteristics

of cities and also the learning process for cities by taking case studies from

around the world. Apart from the case studies innovative initiatives to address

the growing Challenge and governance role. In the final part of the study under

the topic “Lessons for Indian cities” the work suggests what India cities

focus on apart from the concepts and initiatives discussed in the earlier chapters.

In conclusions the complexity of understanding a city established and so as the

design of the city.

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to Dr. Pratheep

Moses, Associate Professor, Department of Planning, School of Architecture and

Planning, Anna University, chenai-25. He inspired and supported me at every

juncture and was available every time even for minor questions to clarify.

I take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to Dr.

K.P.Subramaniam, Professor Anna University (Retd), Chennai and External

Review member for his valuable comments and Suggestion during all the

reviews.

I gratefully thank Dr S.R.Masilamani, Associate Professor, Department

of Planning, and School of Architecture and Planning, Anna University,

Chennai-25, who has coordinated this dissertation throughout this semester and

for his encouragement at all stages of dissertation.

I express my deep sense of gratitude to Dr. Abdul Razak Mohamed,

Head of the Department, Department of Planning, School of Architecture and

Planning Anna University, Chennai-25 for his Comments and suggestions during

all reviews.

I express my deep sense of gratitude to Dr. S.P. Sekar, Professor Anna

University, Department of Planning, School of Architecture and Planning for his

Comments and suggestions during all reviews.

I express my regards and consecrations to all of those who supported and

contributed for my dissertation in any respect during the completion.

A.RAMACAHNADRAN

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER NO. CONTENTS PAGE NO.

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF FIGURES ix

LIST OF ABBREVATIONS

1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 CITIES

1.2 AIM OF STUDY 3

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF STUDY 3

1.4 IMPORTANCE 3

1.5 SCOPE AND LIMIATIONS 5

2 CHALLENGES OF CITIES 6

2.1 DEMOGRAPHIC CHALLENGES 8

2.2 CHALLENGES OF URBANIZATION 11

2.3 CHALLENEGS OF CLIMATE CHANGE 14

2.3.1 Challenges of Rising Sea Level 17

2.3.2 Challenges of Emission 20

2.4 SOCIO-ECONOMIC CHALLENGE 22

2.5 SYNTHESIS 25

3 CHARACTERISTICS OF CITIES 26

3.1 VARIOUS CHARACTERISTICS

OF CITIES 26

3.2 SYNTHESIS 28

vi

4 CITY-TO-CITY LEARNING 30

4.1 INTRODUCTION 30

4.2 OVERVIEW OF LEARNING 31

4.3 FUTURSISTIC CONCEPTS 34

4.3.1 Masdar Zero Emisssion City 34

4.3.2 Vertical Cities 37

4.3.3 Floating Cities 39

4.3.4 Eco-Cities China 40

4.4 SYNTHESIS 43

5 EMERGENT GOVERNANCE 44

5.1 INTRODUCTION 44

5.2 GOVERNMENT TO GOVERNANCE 45

5.3 PRINCIPLES OF GOOD GOVERNANCE 45

5.3.1 Principles of Sustainability 48

5.3.2 Principles of Subsidarity 49

5.3.3 Principles of Equity 50

5.3.4 Principles of Efficiency 51

5.3.5 Principles of Transparency and

Accountability 51

5.3.6 Principles of Civil Engagement 52

5.3.7 Principles of Security 52

5.4 INTEGRATED APPROACH FOR

GOVERNANCE 54

vii

5.5 NEED FOR FLEXIBLE MUTI-SCALAR

GOVERNANCE 56

5.6 SYNTHESIS 58

6 EVERYDAY URBAN LIFE 59

5.1 INTRODUCTION 59

5.2 THE FACE OF THE FUTURE 60

5.3 THE ENVIRONMENT-AN ESSENTIAL

ASSETS FOR CITIES 61

5.4 ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS 62

5.5 THE ADVANTAGES 63

5.6 SYNTHESIS 66

7 REGENERATIVE CITIES 67

7.1 INTRODUCTION 67

7.2 REDEFINING URBAN ECOLOGY 69

7.2.1 Agropolis 69

7.2.2 The Rise Petropolis 70

7.3.3 Ecopolis 72

7.3 REGENERATIVE URBAN

TRANSFORMATIONS 75

7.3.1 Reinventing Adelaide 75

7.3.2 Energy for Cities 77

7.4 SYNTHEIS 80

8 LESSONS FOR INDIAN CITIES 81

viii

8.1 DENSE CITY 81

8.2 URBAN FORM AND TRANSPORT 82

8.3 WALKING FORM OF TRANSPORTATION 83

8.4 SYNTHESIS 83

9 CONCLUSION 84

REFERENCES 86

ix

LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE NO. NAME PAGE NO.

1 City components 7

2 Demographic challenges 8

3 World population growth 1750-2150 9

4 World fertility rate map 10

5 World urbanization map 11

6 Urban Population (%) by regions 12

7 Growth rates of cities across the globe 13

8 Comparison of urbanization of world cities and India 14

9 Large cities near water bodies 18

10 Asian cities risk due to sea level rise by city sizes 19

11 World’s green house gas emissions 21

12 World’s green house gas by source 21

13 Gini coefficients on inequality 23

14 Champagne Glass Distribution from conley 24

15 Characteristics of cities 28

16 City Learning 31

17 Masdar city, Abu Dhabi 34

18 Masdar Planning and Design 35

19 Masdar Concepts 36

20 Sky cities in Changsha 37

x

21 Bionic Tower, Shanghai 38

22 View of ‘The Lilypad’ 39

23 Tianjin Eco-city, China 41

24 An illustration of the Eco-cell 42

25 Forms of Urban Governance 46

26 Principles of Good Urban Governance 48

27 Agropolis landscape 69

28 Petropolis 71

29 Ecopolis 73

30 Urban Metabolism 74

31 Germany’s 100% Renewable Energy System 79

32 Urban Density and Transport Related

Energy Consumption 81

33 Sprawl Vs. Compact cities 82

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 CITIES

Cities and urban settlements in general are the face of the future. In 2005,

the world’s urban population was 3.17 billion out of a total of 6.45 billion.

Today, more than 50 percent of the world’s population marks a watershed in

human history, when for the first time; half of the world’s population will be

living in cities. How will this fact affect the cities of the future? (UN HABITAT,

2011)

As we know cities are centers of excellence, bringing together innovators,

entrepreneurs, financiers and academics. They attract a rising tide of humanity,

of people hoping for a better life for themselves and their children. Cities

provide opportunities, economies of scale, a future with more choices. And yet

cities have also been blamed for causing environmental catastrophes, for

marginalizing communities, for diminishing the quality of life of the poor. They

have been castigated as centers of disease, social unrest and insecurity. Cities are

also at risk from industrial hazards, natural disasters, and the specter of global

warming. (Achim Steiner, 2010)

Cities increasing urban population and the growing problems are the face

of future in the cities. It clearly indicates that cities are at risk, many of us feel

we can prepare for our future by thinking, acting and learning using present

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methods and values, nothing is farther from the truth-especially in today’s

rapidly changing world. A newborn child enters a world not of his or her own

making. Each succeeding generation inherits the values, accomplishments,

hopes, successes and failing of previous generations. And they inherit the results

of the decisions made by those generations. Change from one generation to the

next was slow and hardly noticeable. In those days there was little understanding

of science and how things worked and explanations were not scientific. This is

no longer the case in today’s high-tech world where a change that affects

millions may happen in matter of seconds.

For generation past it was impossible to direct the future much beyond the

present moment and forecasts of the future were based on nonscientific methods.

Prophets and sages presented visions of the future based on dreams,

hallucinations, religious fervor crystal ball, etc. Some may even have been

accurate, but this was more because of luck than because of any direct channel to

the supernatural. Now satellites circle the globe beaming down information in

fractions of s second about everything that impacts our lives. This information is

very valuable for projecting weather patterns, high and low points, geological

hot and cold spots, where people live and the warming of the planet. This has

given us, for the first time, the ability to monitor the health of the planet, which

many scientists see as in serious, if not critical, condition.

Future of cities studies will help cities to find out solutions for emerging

problems. In this dissertation the overall emerging concepts, innovations and

role of governance are identified for cities problem.

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1.2 AIM OF STUDY

The aim of study is to understand the Future of cities, the challenges it

has to face, understanding the emerging concepts and innovations from around

the world case studies. The study is carried out with the question, “are we

prepared to design the future?”

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF STUDY

The objectives of the study is

To understand challenges faced by cities, like demography, Urbanization,

emission and socio-economic challenges.

To understand city as a dynamic space that better responds to evolving

circumstances and contemporary global challenges.

To understand the characteristics of new cities.

To understand the emerging concepts by looking into the case studies

from around the world.

To look for new initiatives that will address these challenges.

To draw conclusions for the future of Indian cities, as in “What Indian

planners should focus on?”

1.4 IMPORTANCE

The interaction of the different types and rates of change (slow

demographic to fast technological) with their complex multi-dimensional

impacts on communities along with the general loss of hope and agency about

creating the future due to greater personal and social uncertainty culminates in

the phenomenon of Future Shock. Building the foresight capacity of

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communities and cities will empower them to co-create preferred futures rather

than just help them adapt to the expected tsunamis of change. (Phillip Daffara,

2011)

Global institutions clearly document that the megatrends of global change

facing the planet and its cities include

Our ecological footprint is growing;

Hope is in decline;

An increased pandemic risk;

Climate change;

Becoming an urban world;

Clash of civilizations/cultures;

Aging world population; and

Telecommunications expanding our global brain/village.

All these megatrends manifest locally specific impacts within the diverse

cities of the world, requiring local solutions and community action as opposed to

formulaic responses. UNESCO forecasts that in

‘‘. . .the space of Forty years we shall have to build the equivalent of a

1000 cities of three million inhabitants each to cater for the world’s population

growth—approximately as many cities as there are today. This urban revolution

will mostly affect the developing countries. . . as two-thirds of the world’s

population in mega-cities is concentrated in the poorest regions’’. (Phillip

Daffara, 2011)

City foresight is critical for the survival of civilizations as cities have

become the largest producers of entropy on the planet—threatening ecological,

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social and economic systems (e.g. climate change). The field of Futures Studies

provides range of tools and methods for organizations and communities to

respond to the tsunamis of change—the megatrends. Fundamentally, these

Futures Studies tools assume that our perceptions are our reality and to design

our future we need first to change the way we think. The transformation

process for participants and stakeholders first occurs internally, focused on

individual and social constructs and paradigms, before new pathways of change

are auctioned in the external world. As a result, the process of city foresight is

related to rethinking tomorrow’s cities.

1.5 SCOPE AND LIMIATIONS

The future does not just happen. Except for natural events like

earthquakes, it comes about through the efforts of people and is determined

largely by how well informed people are (Fresco, 2007). Global report on

Human settlement 2009 assess the effectiveness of urban planning as a tool for

dealing with unprecedented challenges facing 21st-century cities and for

enhancing sustainable urbanization. There is a now realization that, in many

parts of the world urban planning systems has changed very little and are often

contributors to urban problem rather than functioning as tool for human and

environmental improvement.

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CHAPTER 2

CHALLENGES OF CITIES

2.1 INTRODUCTION

Cities are perhaps one of humanity’s most complex creations, never

finished never definitive. They are like a journey that never ends. Their

evolution is determined by their ascent into greatness or their descent into

decline. They are past, the present and the future.

Cities contain both order and chaos. In them reside beauty and ugliness,

virtue and vice. They can bring out the best or the worst in humankind. They are

the physical manifestation of history and culture and incubators of innovation,

industry, technology, entrepreneurship and creativity. Cities are the

materialization of humanity’s noblest ideas, ambitions and aspirations, but when

not planned or governed properly, can be the repository of society’s ills. Cities

drive national economies by creating wealth, enhancing social development and

providing employment but they can also be the breeding grounds for poverty,

exclusion and environmental degradation.

Half of humanity now lives in cities, and within the next two decades, 60

per cent of the world’s people will reside in urban areas. How can city planners

and policy makers harmonize the various interest’s diversity and inherent

contradictions within cities? What ingredients are needed to create harmony

between the physical, social, and environmental and culture aspects of a city and

the human beings that inhabit it?

Urban morphology is rare discipline focusing on the composition of urban

fabric.

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Figure 1: City Component

A city can be divided into the following components. Layer one:

Comprises human beings and activities. The interactions between people are the

first factor of organization of city. Layer two: The street network. Layer three:

The study of parcels of land. Layer four: The topography and relief of the site.

Layer five: Land use and repartition of activities. Layer six: The three

dimensions of the city i.e. Built & open space (Serge SALAT).

Global Report’s central argument is that, in most parts of the worlds,

current approaches to planning must change and that a new role for urban

planning in sustainable development has to be found. The Global Report argues

that future urban planning must take place within an understanding of the factors

shaping 21st century cities, including: (UN HABITAT, 2011). The

environmental challenges of climate change, the demographic challenges of

rapid urbanization, the economic challenges uncertain future growth and

increasing socio-spatial challenges, especially social and spatial inequalities are

the broad challenges a city is facing and the future of cities has to address.

The city can be seen as superposition of

six layers. Each one can be studied separately

to have a better understanding of the city as

whole (Serge SALAT). Understanding all

components of city starting from public space

to three dimensional forms is a long process.

In this dissertation holistic view of the entire

cities components are studied for better

understanding.

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The challenges studied are confined to the above listed challenges across

the globe. The challenges have to be evaluated critically in order to understand

the future of cities and will help us to mitigate the problems relating with design,

planning and policy considerations that needed to be considered. Following are

the challenges taken for further understanding that a city will face. The

Challenges

Demographic challenges

Challenges of urbanization

Emission challenges

Rising sea level

Socio-economic challenges

2.1 DEMOGRAPHIC CHALLENGE

Figure 2: Demographic Challenge

are affected by this growth in the same way or on the same scale. In developed

nation, the total increase in urban population per month is 500,000, compared to

5 million in the developing world. In terms of absolute numbers, the growth of

The world is now half urban.

Sometime in 2011, humankind achieved a

momentous milestone: for the first time in

history, half of the world’s population, or

3.6 billion people, lived in urban area.

Every day, 193,107 new city dwellers are

added to the world’s urban population,

which translates to slightly more than two

people every second. But not all regions

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cities in the developing world is ten times that city in the global North. Annually,

cities in the developing world grow at a rate of 2.6 % in the 1990s, compared to

an annual growth rate of 0.3 % in the developed world. (UN-HABITAT, STATE

OF THE WORLD’S CITIES, 2011). The annual growth rate of India is 1.344%.

Figure: 3 World Population Growths 1750-2150

The demographic transition, as “David Foot” points out in this report to

the panel, has altered the demands for almost all kinds. Since the fertility level is

now well below the replacement rate, the only means by which a community or

urban area can grow is through immigration, either from other parts of the

province or country, or from abroad.

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Source: CIA World Factbook's 2013 data

Figure: 4 World’s fertility rate map

The overall quality of life, that attracts migrants will likely face

population in the future. Within cities, a process of demographic thinning,

following from smaller household size and an aging population, will reduce the

population of many older neighborhoods. A declining population does not

necessarily mean deterioration in the quality of life or public services, or

increased poverty, but it does poses difficulties. Population decline, whether of

small cities or older neighborhoods, has to be carefully managed to avoid serious

consequences for those remain.

2.2 CHALLENGES OF URBANIZATION

The world urban population is expected to increase by 72 per cent by

2050, from 3.6 billion in 2011 to 6.3 billion in 2050. By mid-century the world

urban population will likely be the same size as the world’s total population was

in 2002. Today, half the world’s population lives in urban areas and by the

middle of this century all regions will be predominantly urban. According to

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current projections, virtually all of the expected growth in the world population

will be concentrated in the urban areas of the less developed regions, whose

population is projected to increase from 2.7 billion in 2011 to 5.1 billion in 2050.

Over the same period, the rural population of the less developed regions is

expected to decline from 3.1 billion to 2.9 billion. In the more developed

regions, the urban population is projected to increase modestly, from 1 billion in

2011 to 1.1 billion in 2050. (UN-HABITAT, STATE OF THE WORLD’S

CITIES, 2011).

Figure: 5 World urbanization map

The rate of growth of the world urban population is slowing down.

Between 1950 and 2011; the world urban population grew at an average rate of

2.6 per cent per year and increased nearly fivefold over the period, passing from

0.75 billion to 3.6 billion.

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Source: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs/Population Division

World Urbanization Prospects: The 2011 Revision

Figure: 6 Urban Population (%) by regions, 1950, 2011 and 2011

During 2011-2030, the world urban population is projected to grow at an

average annual rate of 1.7 per cent, which, if maintained, would lead to a

doubling of the urban population in 41 years. During 2030-2050, the urban

growth rate is expected to decline further to 1.1 per cent per year, implying a

doubling time of 63 years.

By 2050, the urban population of the developing world will be 5.6 billion:

Asia alone will host 64.4% of the world’s urban population, or 3.3 billion

people, while Africa with an urban population of 1.2 billion, will host nearly

quarter of the world’s urban population. Cities in the developing world grow at a

rate of 2.6% in the 1990s, compared to annual growth rate of 0.3% in the

developed world. In developed nations, the total increase in urban population per

month is 500,000, compared to 5,000,000 in the developing world. All together,

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95% of the world’s urban population growth over the next four decades will be

absorbed by cities in developing countries. Asia is urbanizing rapidly, with an

approximately 40% of its inhabitants now living in urban areas. The region is

expected to experience significantly high rates of urbanization over the next 20

years; projections indicate that one out of every two Asians will live in cities

sometime before the year 2025. Of every 10 big or large cities from the global

south, more than 7 are located in Asia. Moreover, of the 100 fastest growing

cities with populations of more than 1 million inhabitants in the world, 66 are in

Asia. India’s large cities are a surprising minority, representing only 10% of all

Asian cities of their size. Big Indian cities (those with population of between 1

and 5 million) are growing fast (at the rate 2.6% annually), however since the

1980s, their pace of growth has slowed. (UN-HABITAT, STATE OF THE

WORLD’S CITIES, 2011)

Figure: 7 Growth rates of cities across the globe

In fact, the six largest metropolitan areas in the country have shown a

decline in their growth rates, while secondary metropolitan areas such as Indore,

Kanpur, Jaipur, Patna, Pune and Surat have maintained their fast pace of urban

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Figure: 8 Comparison of urbanization of world cities and India

growth. The slowing down of growth in large cities in India could be explained

by the “Doughnut effect”, whereby the inner city grows at a slower pace than the

surrounding metropolitan areas. For example, the growth rate of the city

Mumbai was 1.5% annually from 1991 to 2001, but the brand new satellite city

of Navi Mumbai grew at the rate of 6.9% annually. India is still predominantly

rural and has been a reluctant urbanize so far. The proportion of India’s urban

population increased by a mere 12% points from 17% of the total population in

1950 to 28.7% of the total population in 2005. It expected to increase marginally

to 30.1% by 2015. (Sanjeev Sanyal, 2010)

2.3 CHALLENGES OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Everyone knows that the way humans live their daily lives affects the

environment, and that changes in the environment can sometimes spell big

trouble for humans. Now, scientists and planners are warning that the way

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people have lived since the Industrial Revolution is catching up with us in the

form of “global warming” or “global climate change.”

“Global warming” refers to increases in global temperatures as a result of

an accumulation of what are often referred to as “greenhouse gases” in the

atmosphere. Greenhouse gases are substances such as carbon dioxide and

methane that act as a trap, holding heat closer to the Earth and not permitting it

to radiate away as it would otherwise do. In effect, it is somewhat like having a

thick blanket on your bed at night, trapping your body heat close to your body.

While these gases are present naturally, we have dramatically ‘thickened the

blanket’ through our activities, as described below.

For the past 150 years, the average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere

and oceans has been rising, and the pace of this change in our climate appears to

be accelerating. For example, the 10 hottest years on record have all occurred

since 1990. After decades of research and hundreds of studies, an overwhelming

majority of scientists have come to believe that human activities, especially the

burning of fossil fuels (such as coal, oil and gas) are a major cause of this trend

toward higher temperatures.

Carbon dioxide levels are now approximately 40 percent higher than they

were at the start of the Industrial Revolution, and they have reached levels not

seen in the atmosphere in 20 million years. Scientists say that unless we curb

greenhouse gas emissions, average U.S. temperatures could be 3 to 8 degrees

Fahrenheit (2 to 4.5 degrees Celsius) warmer by the end of the century. A 3 to 8

degree Fahrenheit (2 to 4.5 degrees Celsius) rise in temperature may not sound

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like a big change to non-scientists. It turns out, though, that this is very big news

and could lead to devastating consequences for the environment. (UN-Public

Agenda of climate change Action, 2011)

The kinds of consequences that scientists, planners and the leaders have

been increasingly worried about include:

Coastal Flooding Global warming is already creating higher sea levels as

glaciers melt and the warming oceans expand. A growing concern is that the

large ice sheets of Greenland and West Antarctica will likely melt more quickly

in the future, accelerating the rise in sea levels and threatening many coastal

communities. The Dutch, much of whose land is already below sea level, are so

concerned they have begun to experiment with floating houses.

Extreme Weather Many scientists believe that the increase in heat waves,

episodes of extreme rainfall, and the intensity of hurricanes may be related to

climate changes caused by global warming, and that we can expect harsher

weather if the warming trend is allowed to continue.

Droughts Rising temperatures may increase the number of droughts,

which will in turn affect food crops and water availability across the globe.

Many scientists are warning that we may already be seeing agricultural problems

as a result of global climate change.

Economic Downturn In addition, recent economic studies warn of the

economic consequences of climate change. One warns that they could be as bad,

or worse, than the Great Depression of the 1930s. (UN-Public Agenda of

climate change Action, 201.)

The challenges of climate change were cities are going to face in the

future are of big worries for planners, scientist and the leaders. The two main

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challenges of the climate change of cities, has been elaborated detail rising sea

level and the emission were it has sever threat in urban area for saving the

human life and the environment.

2.3.1 Challenges of Rising Sea Level

As the world enters the second decade in the few millenniums, humanity

faces a very dangerous threat. Fuelled by two powerful human induced forces

that have been unleashed by development and manipulation of the environment

in the industrial age, the effects of urbanization and climate change are

converging in dangerous ways which threaten to have unprecedented negative

impacts upon quality of life, and the economic and social stability. (UN-Habitat,

2011)

Globally, nearly 60% of the world’s population living in low elevation

coastal zones-the continuous area along a coastline that are less than 10 meters

above sea level and which is most vulnerable to sea level rise-is urban. Some

regions, such as Asia and Africa, are particularly vulnerable, as many coastal

cities in these regions do not have the infrastructure to withstand extreme

weather conditions. (UN- Habitat, State of the World’s Cities, 2008).

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Figure: 9 Large cities near water bodies (sea, river or delta)

In the 20th

century, sea level rise by an estimated 17 cm, and the

conservative global men projection for sea level rise between 1990 and 2080

range from 22 cm to 34 cm, the projected rise in sea level could result in

catastrophic flooding of coastal cities. Thirteen of the world’s 20 mega cities are

situated along the coastlines. The low elevation coastal zone- the continuous area

along coastlines that is less than 10 meters above sea level –represents 2% of the

world’s land area but contains 10% of its total population and 13% of its urban

population. There are 3,351 cities in the low elevation coastal zones around the

world. Of these cities, 64% are in developing regions; Asia alone accounts for

more than half of the most vulnerable cities, followed by Latin America and the

Caribbean (27%) Africa (15%). (UN-Habitat, 2011)

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Climate change is one of the most important, if not the most important,

global policy issue facing us today. Unfortunately the experts gathered together

for the IPCC’s work did not include statistical experts. This has returned in some

potentially serious flaws in the statistical work of the IPCC. (Dennis Trewin,

2010)

Figure: 10 Asian cities risk due to sea level rise by city sizes

No ongoing rise in the sea level at all, since 1970 it fell by 20cm and

remained stable since then. (Morner, 2007). Mean sea-level –rise trends along

the Indian costs are about 1.30 mm/year. Estimating for Chennai showed

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decrease in sea level (-0.65 mm/year). (Unnikrishnan, 2008). Difference of

opinion on the sea level rise, immediate steps not required for the near future.

Authors have difference of opinion on this subject by and large IPCC

report’s credibility is under question from scholar around the world. In Indian

context various measures are taken in response to climate change and especially

rising sea level for instance coastal regulations zones which now has been

modified as coastal zone management plan (CZMP).

2.3.2 Challenges of Emission

The earth’s surface temperature has increased by between 0.74 and 1.8

degrees centigrade since 1906. At least part of the globe rise in temperature, we

know, is a result of human activity. The global atmospheric concentration of

carbon-di-oxide –one of the greenhouse gases most directly responsible for the

greenhouse effect and the global warming – has risen by 35% since the year

1750; more than 70% of this raised can be attributed to the burning and

consumption of fossil fuel-oil, gas and coal. In the last few decades, global

warming has been exceptionally rapid in comparison to the changes in climate

over the past two millennia. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

(IPCC) notes that the rate of global temperature increases in the last 50 years has

been twice that of the last 100 years. IPCC estimates that earth’s temperature

will rise by between 1.8 and 4 degree centigrade’s over the course of the 21st

century if any, of greenhouse gas emission are not curbed. (UN- Habitat, State

of the World’s Cities, 2008). While cities are not the only generators of green

house gas emission, there is no doubt that built-up areas consumes more energy,

and therefore produce more emission than undeveloped areas

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Source: World Resources Institute (WRI)-Climate Analysis Indicators Tool (CAIT)

Figure: 11 World’s green house gas emissions

Source: World Resources Institute (WRI)

Figure: 12 World’s green house gas by source

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Energy for heating and lighting residential and commercial buildings

generates nearly a quarter of greenhouse gas emission globally, while transport

14.3%, of which is 8.6% is attributed to road transport. At the global level, 25

countries with the most greenhouse gas emission account for approximately 83%

of global emission; in the year 200, they collectively represented 70% of the

global population and 87% of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The

United States, China the European Union, Russia, and India together contribute

approximately 61% of global emission. In the developing world Easter Asia was

the biggest emitter of co2 emission (5.6 million tonnes) in 2004 nearly three

times the emission produced by Southern Asia (2 billion tonnes) and four times

the emission produced by Latin America and the Caribbean (1.4 billion tonnes).

(UN- Habitat, State of the World’s Cities, 2008)

Today, Humanity’s ecological footprint is 2.2 ha per person-over 21%

greater than the earth’s bio capacity (1.8 ha), or its capability to regenerate the

resource used. In other words, it now takes more than one year and the two

months for the planet earth to regenerate what we, its inhabitants, use in single.

If you were to use a twenty-four hour clock to represent the time since life began

on earth, it would shoes that humans have only been existence since the last

minute of the twenty-fourth hour. (Fresco, 2007)

2.4 SOCIO-ECONOMIC CHALLENGES

Over the past few decades, the world was has witnessed an increase in

income inequalities. Rising inequalities in the latter half of the 20th

century have

been recorded in all the regions of the both developed and developing countries.

Between 1990 and 2004, the share of national consumptions by the poorest fifth

of the population in developing regions dropped from 4.6 to 3.6%. In the high-

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growth economies of East Asia, notably china and Viet Nam, inequalities have

risen steadily since the late 1980s. Inequalities have also increased in low-

income countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, and in middle-

income countries such as Argentina. Regionally Africa and Latin America have

the world’s highest level inequality, with many countries and cities experiencing

widening disparities between the rich and the poor. In both regions, the poorest

fifth of the population accounts for only 3%of national consumptions. (UN-

Habitat, State of the World’s Cities, 2008).

The Gini coefficient is a useful metric understanding the state of the cities

with regard to distribution of income or consumption. It is the most widely used

determine the extent to which the distribution of income or consumption among

individuals or households deviates from a perfectly equal distribution.

Source: CIA World Factbook's 2009 data

Figure: 13 Gini coefficients on inequality

One of the major effect of globalization and the rise of city regions have widen

the gap between the wealthy and the poor in economic, social and spatial terms.

(Fainstein, 2001). The wealthiest 20% of Manhattanizes made nearly 40 times

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more than the poorest 20%-$351,331 on average compared with $8,855, a bigger

gap than in any other country. (Conley, 2008).

Source: http://thesocietypages.org/graphicsociology/2009

Figure: 14 Champagne Glass Distributions from Conley (2008)

Levels of income distribution and consumption vary considerably among

less- developed regions. Many countries in the developing world are enjoying

rapid, positive economic growth, but a large majority of their populations are not

benefitting from the new wealth. On the other hand, in countries that are

experiencing negative economic growth or recessions, low-income populations

are becoming more marginalized. For instance, the share of national income of

the wealthiest 10% of the population in India in 2004 and 2005- when the

country’s economy was growing at more than 7%-was nearly ten times that of

the poorest 10%. (UN- Habitat, State of the World’s Cities, 2008)

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2.5 SYNTHESIS

The uncertainty about what the exact consequences of challenges,

majority of scientists, planners and leaders are warning that increase in

population, increase in urbanization, higher global temperatures, sea levels rises

and socio-economic challenges are a virtual certainty, we cannot afford to wait

to see exactly what happens. Uncertainty should not be treated as a reason to sit

on our hands and hope that the problem resolves itself. Instead, we must roll up

ourselves and take steps to address this problem now.

Now cities are the only hope for the global survival of an expanding

population that will have to share limited resources of the globe. There is a need

to combine new methods and techniques that responds to urban growth and

expansion in some cities, while responding to contraction in other. Decisions

made today by Planners, leaders and scientist are critical in shaping the future.

These decisions must enforce policies and also spatial changes that ensure

decent livelihoods for all with more equity and social justice as well as policies

that deal with already unavoidable climatic change and potential resource

scarcity.

Future of city should be of new model of urbanization, powered by

renewable energy and defined by a restorative and mutually beneficial

relationship between cities and their hinterland, is urgently needed. Cities must

go beyond sustainability to truly regenerative development: not only becoming

resource-efficient and low carbon emitting, but positively enhancing rather than

undermining the ecosystems on which they depend.

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CHAPTER 3

CHARACTERISTICS OF CITIES

In these chapter characteristics of cities such as sustainable cities, eco-

cities, digital cities, intelligent cities are discussed in order to understand what

the characteristics of cities are.

3.1 VARIOUS CHARACTERISTICS OF CITIES

A sustainable city or eco-city is city designed with consideration of

environmental impact, inhabited by people dedicated to minimization of required

inputs of energy, water and food, waste output of heat, air pollution- CO2

methane, and water pollution. A sustainable city can feed itself with minimal

resilience on the surrounding countryside, and power itself with renewable

source of energy. The Crux of this is to create the smallest possible ecological

footprint, and to produce the lowest quantity of pollution possible, to efficiently

use land: compost used materials, recycle it or convert waste-to-energy, and thus

the city’s overall contribution to climate change will be minimal, if such

practices are adhered. (Register, 1987).

An Eco-city is city or a part of that balances social, economic and

environmental factors to achieve sustainable development. It is city designed

with consideration of environmental impact, inhabited by people dedicated to

minimization of required inputs of energy, water and food, and waste output of

heat, air pollution-CO2 methane and water pollution. (Novtny, Ahern & Brown,

2010)

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Intelligent cities are defined as virtual reconstruction of cities, as virtual

cities. The term has been used broadly as an equivalent of ‘digital city’,

‘information city’, ‘wired city’. ‘telecity’ (Malaysian Institute of Microelectronic

system). Intelligent cities (or intelligent spaces more generally) refer to physical

environments in which information and communication technologies and sensors

system disappears as they become embedded into physical objects and

surroundings in which w live, travel and work (Alan Steventon, 2006)

The term digital community or digital city (smart community, information

city and e-city are also used) refers to connected community that combines broad

band communications infrastructure: flexible, services-oriented computing

infrastructure based on open industry standards; and innovative services to meet

the needs of governments and their employee’s citizens and business.

Ideally, a sustainable city powers itself with renewable sources of energy,

creates the smallest possible ecological footprint, and the produces the lowest

quantity of pollution possible. It also efficiently uses land and recycles or

converts waste to energy. (Novtny, Ahern & Brown, 2010)

Fresco describes in his book about city characteristic, Future for the cities

and cities of tomorrow will be of

Completeness, Segregation activities should be reduced. Community

development should be more balanced by including jobs, housing, shopping and

other land uses. Conservation, Urban growth should be restricted in and around

sensitive environmental areas and habitats to preserve their ecological functions.

Compactness, Compact city which is less auto dependent, less expensive to

serve infrastructure and less pressure on environmental sensitive areas.

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Coordination, Coordination of planning and management activities will ensure

efficient land use and infrastructure development. Collaboration, People should

be involved in decisions that affect their life. Comfort, Public spaces that are

comfortable to pedestrians should be created for the people to share.

Environmentally sustainable urbanization requires that, Greenhouse gas

emissions are reduced and serious climate change mitigation and adaptation

actions are implemented; urban sprawl is minimized and more compact town

and cities served by public transport are developed;

Non-renewable resources are sensibly used and conserved; renewable

resources are not depleted; the waste produced is recycled or disposed of in ways

that do not damage the wider environment; and the ecological footprint of towns

and cities is reduced. (UN-HABITAT, Planning Sustainable cities, Policy

directions, 2009)

3.2 SYNTHESIS

The future of cities would provide a total environmental which clean air

and water, health care, good nutrition, entertainment access to information, and

education for all.

Renewable sources of energy, has smallest possible ecological footprint,

lowest quantity of pollution possible (Novtny, Ahern & Brown 2010).

Completeness, Conservation, Compactness, Coordination, Collaboration,

Comfort, Clean air and Water Health care (Fresco, 2007). Emission are reduced,

climate change mitigation and adaptation, sprawl is minimized, Non-renewable

resources are sensibly used, the waste produced is recycled, ecological footprint

of cities and town is reduced. Partly adopted from UN- Habitat and DFID

(2002).

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What will change over the next few decades is the availability of

resources and what we do with the waster outputs (Goode, 2011). Cities of the

future have to be organic, flexible and versatile. A city has to adopt to change.

Futures for the cities have to be more sustainable: ideally they will produce more

energy than they need, become net carbon absorbers, collect and process waste

within city limits and collect and clean recycled water (Jenks, 2005).

Figure: 15 Characteristics of cities

We can bring all these characteristics under one name that is sustainable

cities. A sustainable city or eco-city is city designed with consideration of

environmental impact, inhabited by people dedicated to minimization of required

inputs of energy, water and food, waste output of heat, air pollution- CO2

methane, and water pollution.

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CHAPTER 4

CITY-TO-CITY-LEARNING

4.1 INTRODUCRION

Cities are now confronted with overwhelming amounts of information

about urban life and the challenges of cities. A wide range of technical and

management solutions are already available. Policy makers need to know about

the numerous successful policy instruments and good examples that already exist

around the world. By facilitating dialogue cities and regions can learn from each

other’s invaluable experiences.

Since, the Ideas and innovations are continually assembled, mobilized

and translated within and across cities by means of different networks and

gatekeepers. Yet, these processes of learning and knowledge transfer are the

solutions for the cities to face the challenges.

Already learning process confronted by the dissociation of mundane and

scholarly, policy and technical, lay and scientific. We need all to prompt

methodological advancements that overcome these dichotomies, trace different

urban discourses and to promote fruitful learning in and among cities and to

create knowledge networks better respond to the challenges we see emerging in

cities today.

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4.2 OVERVIEW OF LEARNING

Moreover, several fundamental questions arise about what kind of learning is

needed. (UN Habitat and United Towns Organization 2001; Bontenbal and

van Lindert 2009; EuroCities 2009; Tjandradewi and Marcotullio 2009).

For starters, how can cities achieve a transition from topical learning

about new policies and practices to systemic, continuous learning on their own

as a matter of good governance? Two factors emerge from recent analysis of

learning cities (Campbell 2012). Institutionalized learning should go beyond

topical practice and produce a constant stream of social capital that helps the city

build its capacity to innovate. Second, continuous learning requires the creation

of an innovative milieu, an environment in city government and civic

A growing body of quantitative and

anecdotal evidence shows that a large volume of

city learning is already taking place around the

world, and that cities are expressing strong

demand for more. But we still have no thorough

assessment of the needs for learning in cities.

We do know that early reformers choose

different topics and that knowledge needs vary

by city size. For some topics, city differences

won’t matter, for instance in finance,

decentralization, metropolitan governance and

climate change adaptation strategies. But for

designing regional and regional and national.

programs, a first order needs assessment is

Figure: 16 City Learning

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communities alike, working together, which fosters trust, openness, and

experimentation.

Further, the many domains of urban development cut across a wide range

of fields, all of them dynamic areas of learning. Also, urban development is by

definition a field in constant evolution. Demographic dynamism, technological

change, and economic and social processes all contribute to a constantly moving

menu of topics. Learning is fundamental in keeping abreast of and making

contributions to urban dynamism and attention needs to be given to improving

the climate of learning and standards of learning practice.

In short, a growing demand for learning, coupled with the dynamic nature

of urbanism plus lessons from leading learning cities suggest the need for a

normative institution to guide and facilitate global efforts in learning. The term

“guide” is meant to include such things as distinguishing between topical and

systemic learning, emphasizing demand-driven orientation, encouraging an

institutional commitment on the part of learning cities, and the importance of

scaling lessons to wider application. (Campbell 2012)

4.2 UNMET DEMAND

Even though cities are widely engaged in harvesting policies and

practices from their peers, there is almost certainly unmet demand for

learning. Several factors suggest this is so. In the first place, it is unlikely that

cities are under-spending in the world-wide exchange in city-to-city visits.

Universally, mayors are under pressure not to be seen as taking junkets around

the world. The high volume of travel for city-to-city exchange would likely be

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even greater if the payoffs were seen to be somehow legitimized, or the out-of-

pocket costs somehow lower, or the learning process itself were to be more

efficient. In addition, smaller cities with more modest budgets may not be as

widely engaged in learning as larger cities.

Yet another indicator of latent demand is that cities are increasingly

joining networks to tap into cheaper forms of data and knowledge gathering. The

Global Cities Indicators Facility has doubled its membership to over 200 cities in

just two years, suggesting that cities see value in the training for and

comparative value of management data that comes with GCIF membership.

ICLEI, C-40, and other thematic networks have drawn strong interest from cities

through a combination of focused, practical tools and the promise of outside

expertise. These organizations are moving into more tightly-coupled

relationships at the local level to meet interest among cities.

Finally, individual cities are putting themselves forward as champions

of advice, learning, and consultation. Bilbao asserted itself as a learning city in

the early part of this decade. Singapore is now pre-eminent in business-minded

urban development. Amsterdam has launched a smart cities initiative to foster

global competition. And Seoul has made a singular gesture to challenge

Singapore by inviting City Net and numerous other U.N. agencies and

international organizations to take up residence (in a new building) to amplify

Seoul’s presence and to stake out new terrain organized around city development

and learning. (Campbell 2012)

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4.3 FUTURISTIC CONCEPTS LEARNING

The shares of learning have been taken place in many ways in cities. One

of the learning processes is of learning the futuristic concepts for cities to make

sustainable development and to face the some of the challenges. Some of the

world cities of futuristic concepts have been discussed below.

4.3.1 Masdar Zero Emission City

Construction on the world’s first zero-carbon, zero-waste, car-free city

began in April 2008 in Abu Dhabi. Named “Masdar”, which means “source” in

Arabic, the Masdar the initiative will create a sustainable city designed as model

for eco-design worldwide. The project has four goals: to diversify the economy

of Abu Dhabi, to expand Abu Dhabi’s position in global energy markets, to

position the UAE as developer of sustainable technologies, and to make a

meaningful contribution towards solving some of the world’s most pressing

problems (Initiative, 2008).

Figure: 17 Masdar city, Abu Dhabi

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Final completion is scheduled to occur between 2020 and 2025. The

estimated cost of the city has also declined by 10 to 15 percent, putting the

development between US$18.7 and 19.8 billion. The city is planned to cover 6

square kilometers (2.3 sq mi) and will be home to 45,000 to 50,000 people and

1,500 businesses, primarily commercial and manufacturing facilities specializing

in environmentally friendly products, and more than 60,000 workers are

expected to commute to the city daily.

Zero Emission city-Masdar will be the world’s first Zero- carbon, Zero-

waste, Zero car city.

Figure: 18 Masdar Planning and Design

The city will be completed by 2015. The three important of sustainability:

Economy, Environment & Equity. Constructing the world’s largest hydrogen

planet and is intending to integrate hydrogen technologies into its renewable fuel

mix in the future. The initial design considered that automobiles would be

banned within the city as travel will be accomplished via public mass transit

and personal rapid transit (PRT) systems, with existing road and railways

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connecting to other locations outside the city. The absence of motor vehicles

coupled with Masdar's perimeter wall, designed to keep out the hot desert winds,

allows for narrow and shaded streets that help funnel cooler breezes across the

city. In October 2010 it was announced the PRT would not expand beyond the

pilot scheme due the cost of creating the undercroft to segregate the system from

pedestrian traffic. Subsequently, a test fleet of 10 Mitsubishi i-MiEV electric

cars was deployed in 2011 as part of a one-year pilot to test a point-to-point

transportation solution for the city as a complement to the PRT and the freight

rapid transit (FRT), both of which consist of automated electric-powered

vehicles.

Under the revised concept, public transport within the city will rely on

methods other than the PRTs. Masdar will instead use a mix of electric vehicles

and other clean-energy vehicles for mass transit inside the city. The majority of

private vehicles will be restricted to parking lots along the city's perimeter. Abu

Dhabi's existing light rail and metro line will connect Masdar City's centre with

the greater metropolitan area. (Brain Stillwell, 2008).

Figure: 19 Masdar Concepts

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One criticism of the Masdar city project is that it is inherently

unsustainable because it involves constructing a brand new city. Described as

“one of the harshest environments imaginable” Indeed, not every nation in

the world has $22 billion to invest in retrofitting its cities with renewable

technologies. Even if they city as a whole is not useful for the existing cities to

model, they can model parts of the Masdar Initiative, like PRT system or the

widespread deployment of solar and zero waste technologies (Brain Stillwell,

2008).

4.3.2 Vertical Cities

Figure: 20 Sky cities in

Changsha

By calculating the rate of growth of

population of the world, the future will not have

sufficient amount of land to cater to the

growing needs of the people. The only solution

then is to build a settlement deep inside the

oceans or vertical above the land. A vertical

city is city within a city, with complete

residential, commercial units as well as gardens

and small trams, all within the structure itself.

On an average a person spends 2-4 hours

travelling to and fro per day, that’s about

wasting more than 6years per person in only

commuting. Instead this can be used more

creatively. Hence, constructing vertical-cities

might be solution (Mcgrath, 2008).

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Two of the case studies are discussed here on vertical cities which are

i. Sky city, Changsha (China)

Sky City, if built, will be 220 stories tall and stand more than 838 meters,

higher than the 828-meter-tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the world's tallest building.

The tower will house 4,000 families in apartments between the 16th and

180th floor, and has offices, a hotel, a school, a hospital, shops and stores, a gym

and restaurants. (Wang Qian, 2013).

The tower will able to accommodate people 30,000 to live and work with

an area of 1.2 million sq.m

ii. Bionic Tower, Shanghai

Figure: 21 Bionic Tower, Shanghai

Merits and demerits of vertical city

A conventional horizontal city of 100,000 inhabitants occupies an area of

about four kilometers in diameter. In turn, a vertical city with the same people

using an area of one kilometer in diameter. The undeveloped area could

therefore be returned to nature. One of the demerits of vertical city is the design

itself and the social aspects of human life. People are confined to four walls.

Bionic Tower is of 300 stories tall and

height is of 1,228 meters. Area it covers around

2 million sq.m and the whole tower dimension

is 133X100m. The tower is composed of 12

vertical neighborhoods, each with an average

height of 80 meters and variable horizontal

elliptical size of 266m by 166m. (Wang Qian,

2013).

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4.4.3 Floating Cities

The Lilypad, by Vincent Callebaut, is a concept for completely self-

sufficient floating city intended to provide shelter for the future climate change

refugees. The Lilypad, which was designed to look like a waterlily, is intended

to be a zero-emission city float in the ocean. Through a number of technologies

(solar, wind, tidal, biomass), it is envisioned that the project would be able to not

only produce its own energy, but be able to process CO2 in the atmosphere and

absorb it into its titanium dioxide skin. Each of these floating cities is designed

to hold approximately around 50,000 people. A mixed terrain man-made

landscape, provided by an artificial lagoons and three ridges, create a divers

environment for the inhabitants. Three marinas and three mountains would

surround a centrally located artificial lagoon that is totally immersed below the

water line to act as ballast for the city. The three mountains and marinas would

be dedicated to work, shopping and environment, respectively, while suspended

gardens and aquaculture farms located below the water line would be used to

grow food and biomass (Fresco, 2007).

Figure: 22 View of ‘The Lilypad’

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The building of floating cities seems positively practical when compared

to such science fiction ideas as cities in space, underwater cities, colonizing the

moon, and draining the Mediterranean Sea. In fact, floating cities could be quite

simple in design, using the simple principle of buoyancy to stay afloat. These

cities would also have the additional advantages of being potentially mobile,

having increased earthquake resistance (although they would still be vulnerable

to tsunamis), ease of quarantine in case of a dangerous epidemic (or zombie

attack), better access to underwater resources (such as oil and gas) and – when

placed in tidal areas and river estuaries – the ability

to harness hydroelectric power. Of course, the disadvantages of building floating

cities are also numerous, including issues with logistics and supply, and with

inter-city transportation, but building our cities at sea would certainly help us

free up more land for our vital ecological and agricultural needs (Fresco, 2007).

4.4.4 Eco-cities China

China is experiencing rapid and large scale urbanization. Sustainable

urbanization in line with the objectives of the 11th

five year plan, which calls for

“building a resource-conserving and environmentally friendly society”. Cities

have responded by developing “eco-cities”, more than one hundred eco-city

initiatives have been launched in recent years. One such initiative is the Sino-

Singapore Tianjin Eco-city (UN- Habitat, State of the World’s Cities, 2008).

Global climate change and social equity issues are also incorporated into

the master plan by explicitly including GHG reduction and affordable housing

targets. From salt lakes, wastewater ponds and barren land, to an Eco-city that is

economically vibrant, socially harmonious, environmentally- friendly and

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resource efficient. This is the goal for the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city.

(Chye Hui Sze)

Figure: 23 Tianjin Eco-city, China

Spatial and urban design: The overall urban form and density gradient

fully support transit-oriented development, with 100% of the population living

within 400m of some form of public transport (i.e., metro, light rail or bus).

Located 40km from the Tianjin city center and 150 km from Beijing, the Tianjin

Eco-city will be developed in 10 to 15 years with a planned population of

350,000 residents. Tianjin Eco-city joint working committee. A joint effort from

both the Singapore and Chinese planners. Two of the key features of the Master

Plan are the “Eco-Cell” and “Eco-valley”. An “Eco-Cell” is a basic building

block from which the Eco-city will grow. It starts with a basic cell, a piece of

land 400m by 400m. Within there are different amenities such as schools,

commercial and recreational areas amongst homes, similar to town in Singapore.

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With amenities located close by within walking distance, the need to commute is

thus reduced. (UN- Habitat, State of the World’s Cities, 2008)

Figure: 24 An illustration of the Eco-cell

Basically, four Eco-cells will come together to make up a neighborhood.

Then, four to five Eco-neighborhoods will be combined to form a district.

Communities in the Eco-city are organized will be within walking distance. It

also ensures efficiency and this maximize accessibility so that amenities will be

within Walking distance. It also ensures efficiency and allows for scalability.

Another key feature is the “Eco-valley”, a 12 km continuous linear park

which will run through the Eco-city. As the name denotes, the “Eco-Valley” is

envisaged to be the main ecological green spine that will bring nature close to

people, increasing awareness on the need to conserve and protect the rich

biodiversity. This green belt also serves as the main route for pedestrians and

cyclists, connecting them to the major transit nodes, residential areas,

community facilities and commercial centers amidst lush greenery. (UN-

Habitat, State of the World’s Cities, 2008)

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Setting key performance Indicators (KPIS): To guide the

implementation the project, a set of binding ‘Key Performance Indicators’

were developed, including 22 quantitative indicators and four qualitative

indicators. Quantitative indicators are categorized into three broad areas:

ecological and healthy environment; social harmony and progress; and dynamic

and efficient economy. Qualitative indicators focus mainly on regional

coordination and economic integration. “Green transport” KPI of 90% (defined

as the share of walking, cycling, and riding public transport) may appear

attainable by today’s standards given china’s traditionally high share of non-

motorized transport, motorized transport, motorization is likely to be

significantly higher by 2020. (UN- Habitat, State of the World’s Cities, 2008)

4.5 SYNTHESIS

The lion’s share of learning in cities is carried out in a myriad of ways.

These range from informal, self-motivated individuals picking up new ideas and

insights on their own, to locally-sponsored, city-to-city exchanges, to more

elaborate, externally-sponsored exchanges fostered by associations and

networks. This is all for making cities as to solve the problems and the

challenges that happens in sustainable urban development.

The futuristic concepts indicates that brand new city is not sustainable and

cannot be used as city model but the initiatives taken up to achieve zero emission

cities can be stolen. Model Cities do not have good track record of affecting

large-scale change in terms of sustainability or planning practices. (Initiative,

2008). Even if the city as whole is not useful for existing cities as a model,

initiatives of these cities can be stolen.

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CHAPTER-5

EMERGENT GOVERNANCE

5.1 INTRODUCTION

National and international institutions seem to be increasingly challenged

by transnational issues such as climate change, food security, or security

emergencies beyond the purview of their governmental means. Models of city

entrepreneurialism, urban redevelopment projects, public-private partnerships, or

the nested organization of government levels (local, regional, national) are being

challenged by shortage of funding and growing urban inequalities.

Even growth giants like China and India, urbanization spectacles such as

those in the Arabian Gulf or long-lived global cities such as London are today

confronted by the limits imposed by the global financial crisis and the frictions

sparked by societal fractures.

At the same time, in countries such as Italy and Portugal, even the

delivery of basic services such as transport seems to have become inextricably

entangled to transnational connections with the Global South, while ordinary

citizens are forced to devise their own ‘micro’ solutions to these growing

‘macro’ problems. In many places, everyday strategies seemingly provide better

responses to provisional and mobile urban livelihoods than those of the policies

of governments or international organizations.

These challenges raise questions about what it means to govern the

urban, how do we govern across multiple scales, and the daily strategies

available to urban dwellers. This research line addresses these challenges by

scrutinizing contemporary forms of urban governance and their experiments,

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especially the interactions between governments, markets, civil society groups

and individual citizens.

5.2 GOVERNMENT TO GOVERNANCE

The great challenges that cities face have no straightforward or simple

solutions. Their often contradictory inter-linkages demand holistic and integrated

approaches that are able to balance different interests and objectives. What is

more, the challenges do not respect administrative borders, and the strategies for

dealing with them may have far-reaching territorial consequences beyond the

intervention area.

It is clear that different levels of fixed government structures alone are not

well suited to addressing the future challenges in a sustainable way. Adapting

government structures to better respond to challenges is a futile task: not only

would the dynamic nature of challenges demand a constant re-adaptation, but

their multi-dimensional nature requires responses at different scales. Instead,

different government levels will have to play different roles in a multi-scalar

governance system. (Van den Broeck, 2010).

5.3 PRINCIPLES OF GOOD URBAN GOVERNANCE

UN-HABITAT defines good urban governance as the exercise of

political, economic, social and administrative authority in the management of an

urban entity. It is the sum of the many ways individuals and institutions, public

and private, plan and manage the common affairs of the city. It is a continuing

process through which conflicting or diverse interests may be accommodated

and cooperative action can be taken. It includes formal institutions as well as

informal arrangements and the social capital of citizens. It is thus a broader

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concept than “government”. It is characterized by transparent decision making,

sound financial management, public accountability, decentralized and equitable

resource allocation, and probity. Governance comprises of the complex

mechanisms, processes and institutions, through which individuals and other

interest groups articulate their interests either through formal or informal

channels, mediate their differences and exercise their legal rights and

obligations. (UN-HABITAT, 2004)

Today more than ever before, urbanization has become a critical part of

the affairs of any country in the world. With massive movements of peoples to

urban centers, coupled with unprecedented growth and mushrooming of existing

and new urban realities, new challenges on how urban centers are managed are

going to rise exponentially. The traditional paradigm that left urban management

exclusively in the hands of the state has been rendered obsolete and cannot

address the emerging needs and realities of a more complex and sophisticated

urban reality. This calls for an urgent examination of new models that are

representative of the true cosmopolitan nature of our cities.

Figure: 25 Forms of Urban Governance

The spirit of good urban governance therefore requires a constructive and

purposeful interaction and engagement of these three sectors. Such engagements

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must be based on effective participation of all stakeholders, the rule of law,

transparency, responsiveness, consensus orientation, equity, efficiency and

effectiveness, accountability and a common strategic vision. But, by putting

good urban governance into practice, are we able to realize the full potential of

each sector? The private sector in particular posses the critical resources and

competencies that can be leveraged to create working models of engagement and

participation towards the realization of good urban governance. This can be done

through market-based approaches, social responsibility, public-private

partnerships, advocacy and promotion of stakeholder dialogue that is private

sector-driven, amongst other models. (Hanson, R., et al. 2006)

Each principle incorporates and presumes the others, in this way the

adoption of one of the principles, necessarily requires the implementation of the

others. For the private sector they present basic guidelines that it can use to

engage other stakeholder on urban governance and a yardstick of the efficacy of

new models and methods of doing business that contribute towards urban

governance.

The private sector can engage in good urban governance from two

perspectives. One is the internal business environment and the other is the

external business environment. In the internal business environment, the private

sector firms look into how they practice business and how their activities affect

the society (Banachowicz, B., & Danielewicz, J, 2004).

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Figure: 26 Principles of Good Urban Governance

5.3.1 Principles of Sustainability

Sustainability must be guaranteed in all dimensions of urban

development. It demands that urban stakeholders balance the social, economic

and environmental needs of the present and future generations. This

intergenerational equity should take into account resources utilization, urban

poverty reduction and environmental concerns through long-term, strategic

vision of sustainable human development and the ability to reconcile divergent

interests for the common good (Duaskardt, R.P.A., 2007).

Practical ways the private sector may realize this principle include:

• Actively participating in city development strategies by presenting

proposals to other stakeholders and incorporating adopted city strategy

plans into the overall strategy of the private sector firms;

• Engage in consultative processes such as environmental planning and

management that are geared towards agreements on acceptable levels of

resource utilization;

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• Adoption of Bottom of the Pyramid strategies that will facilitate increased

availability, affordability and accessibility of private sector goods and

services to the urban poor;

• Offering financial and technical support to the other stakeholders in the

integration of poverty eradication strategies;

• Engaging in economic activities that are viable and incorporates the

participation of other stakeholders as actors and beneficiaries.

5.3.2 Principles of Subsidarity

The allocation of service delivery mechanisms with the urban

environment should be allocated on the basis of the closest appropriate level

consistent with efficient and cost-effective service delivery. In this view there

should be a cascading decision making level systems with local problems being

addressed locally. The principle aims to strengthen decentralization and local

democracy and in this way improve the responsiveness of policies and initiatives

to the priorities and needs of the citizens. The principle further asserts that cities

should be empowered with sufficient resources and autonomy to meet their

responsibilities to the citizenry. (Duaskardt, R.P.A., 2007)

Practical application for the private sector of the principle can be done

through:

• Lobby in conjunction with local authorities for the development of

policies that delegate responsibility and commensurate powers and

resources from the national to the city level and/or from the city level to

the neighborhood levels;

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• Foster for the adoption of local legislation to translate constitutional

amendments in support of subsidiarity into practical means to empower

the private sector to participate more effectively in city affairs;

• Partner with the city authorities in creating transparent and predictable

management systems modeled on the private sector for the development

of administrative, technical and managerial capacities at the city level.

5.3.3 Principles of Equity

Equity is the inclusion of all stakeholders to access decision-making

processes and the basic necessities of urban life. It fosters power sharing which

results into increased access and use of city resources for all, the opening of

opportunities without discrimination based on gender, race, ethnicity, education,

political affiliation or religion. Equity aims at the establishment of inclusive

cities which is an important element of urban sustainability. Inclusive cities

create environments where social, political and economic security is guaranteed

for all, this means that all citizens have equal access to nutrition, education,

employment and livelihood, health care, shelter, safe drinking water, sanitation

and other basic services. (Duaskardt, R.P.A., 2007)

Practical ways the private sector can foster the growth of equity in cities include:

• Internally practicing equity in their hiring processes and lobbying for a

similar representation in the civil authorities;

• Foster the empowerment of women by promoting them to higher

management positions in the sector and replicate this in the management

and affairs of the city authority bodies;

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• Ensure that policies and by-laws that are enacted do not only favor big

business, but also considers the interests of the informal sector.

5.3.4 Principles of Efficiency

The principle aims to guarantee the delivery of essential services and

optimal resource utilization in the process. Cost-effective management of city

resources is critical to the survival of all stakeholders and in particular the

private sector. Efficiency can be best achieved when each stakeholder is enabled

to operate based on their comparative advantage. The private sector has skills

and competencies in wealth creation through industry and product offering. By

fostering a conducive economic environment in cities the government enables

the private sector to operate at its optimal point. (Duaskardt, R.P.A., 2007)

The private sector may practice efficiency through:

• Partnering with other stakeholders (government and civil society) in the

regulation and delivery of public services;

• Share best management practices with the government to encourage the

latter to adopt innovative means of delivering public goods and services;

• Adopting clear objectives and targets for the provision of public services,

which maximizes the contributions all sectors of society can make to

urban economic development.

5.3.5 Principles of Transparency and Accountability

Any form of good governance must be founded on transparency in the

operations, activities and resource utilization of all sectors of society. The

private sector must conduct business with openness that is not only based on

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fulfilling the letter of the law but the spirit of the law. Transparency and

accountability are essential to stakeholder since it creates an environment of trust

and openness, which results in collaboration and partnerships in addressing

urban challenges. The principle demands that all critical stakeholders conduct

themselves with the high standards of professionalism and personal integrity.

The standards set must make the stakeholders answerable and account to the

other parties of their activities as is. (Duaskardt, R.P.A., 2007)

The private sector may benefit from transparency and accountability by:

• Participating in stakeholder for a and consultations on city resources

utilization and other important issues;

• Perform regular and independently executed programmes to test public

officials’ integrity response;

• Foster the introduction of a business management model to the public

sector that will remove administrative and procedural incentives for

corruption;

• Assist the public sector in adopting enforceable standards of

accountability and service delivery, such as ISO that will transcend the

terms of public office bearers.

5.3.6 Principles of Civil Engagement

Each city is endowed with civic capital that is largely untapped due to the

existing structures of administration and management that do not allow for any

meaningful and constructive dialogue of the civic body. Civic engagement

implies that there should be an active participation and contribution of the civil

body to the common good of urban life. People are the principal wealth in cities

and therefore form the object and means of sustainable human development. The

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engagement of marginalized groups is to be given priority; women and the poor

must be empowered to participate effectively in decision-making processes.

(Duaskardt, R.P.A., 2007)

Practical means of realizing this norm include, inter alia,

• Promoting strong local democracies through free and fair municipal

elections and participatory decision-making processes;

• Establishing the legal authority for civil society to participate effectively

through such mechanisms as development councils and neighborhood

advisory committees;

• Promoting an ethic of civic responsibility among citizens through such

mechanisms as “City Watch” groups;

• Making use of mechanisms such as public hearings and surveys, town

hall meetings, citizen’s forums, city consultations and participatory

strategy development, including issue-specific working groups;

• Undertaking city referenda concerning important urban development

options.

5.3.7 Principles of Security

Security is what guarantees the protection of the inalienable right to life,

property and liberty. Civil liberties can only be assured for the citizenry if they

are assured of security. Cities must strive to avoid human conflicts and natural

disasters by involving all stakeholders in crime and conflict prevention and

disaster preparedness. Security also implies freedom from persecution, forced

evictions and provides for security of tenure. Cities should also work with social

mediation and conflict reduction agencies and encourage the cooperation

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between enforcement agencies and other social service providers (health,

education and housing). (Duaskardt, R.P.A., 2007)

Practical means of realizing this norm include, inter alia,

• Creating a culture of peace and encouraging tolerance of diversity,

through public awareness campaigns;

• Promoting security of tenure, recognizing a variety of forms of legal

tenure and providing counseling and mediation for people at risk of

forced evictions;

• Promoting security of livelihoods, particularly for the urban poor,

through appropriate legislation and access to employment, credit,

education and training;

• Implementing environmental planning and management

methodologies based on stakeholder involvement;

• Creating safety and security through consultative processes based on

rule of law, solidarity and prevention, and supporting appropriate

indigenous institutions that promote security;

• Address the specific needs of vulnerable groups such as women and

youth through women’s safety audits and youth training programmes;

• Integrating emergency management among municipal departments

and with national plans;

5.4 INTEGRATED APPROACH FOR GOVERNANCE

‘Due to the complexity of challenges there is a need for integration of the

different social, economic and spatial dimensions. Concrete (sectoral)

interventions will never result in sustainable answers and can have negative and

even dangerous social, environmental and spatial consequences.’

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An integrated approach to urban development has several dimensions.

Urban challenges can be looked at in terms of where they manifest themselves or

for whom they are most relevant. They can also be considered in terms of the

most suitable level of governance or territorial scale required to address them

effectively. Many predominantly urban challenges, even those that are most

visible at a neighborhood level, such as the integration and empowerment of

marginalized groups, depend on national, and sometimes European, policies.

Even if a problem is local and has a local solution, its solution may just shift the

problem to another nearby locality, so an overly narrow territorial approach may

be counterproductive. Understanding the territorial dimension of urban

challenges is, therefore, fundamental.

The debate around the sustainability of bio-fuels has shown that

challenges and objectives need to be understood and formulated by taking into

account a wider context and secondary effects. Objectives might be met at the

very local level but not on a wider territorial scale. For instance, the

development of eco-neighborhoods helps to reduce energy consumption and

waste in housing and living, but may generate more private car use if it is not

well integrated spatially in terms of proximity to services and easily accessible

public transport. Objectives and targets have to be relevant and effective at

different territorial scales.

An implicit approach to addressing challenges is often present in the

formulation of the challenge itself – sometimes unintentionally. It is not

uncommon for strong interest groups to formulate challenges in a way that

serves their particular interests, too. There is a danger that only the strongest

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voices are heard and that shorter-term market interests override long-term public

interests. The European urban development model relies on cities’ capacity to

formulate challenges and strategies that correspond to longer-term visions and

objectives that are sustainable and inclusive. This implies giving weaker

stakeholders a say in the formulation of future visions and in the development of

the cities, whether at neighborhoods or a wider territorial level, and transparency

in strategic planning processes. Real partnerships need to be set up between all

relevant actors from the private and public sectors as well as civil society.

(Zezůlkova, Marie, City of Brno.)

5.5 NEED FOR FLEXIBLE MULTI-SCALAR GOVERNANCE

Coordinated approaches in a multilevel governance framework are

needed to effectively tackle the challenges of tomorrow. Problems solved at the

level closest to the citizens who are able to deal effectively with them have to be

complemented with better coordination at a higher level, to avoid transferring

problems from one local level to another, or from the city centre to its periphery.

In essence, what is needed is a functional and flexible approach that both

respects the principles of subsidiarity and can be adapted to a functional

geography and the specificities of different territorial scales.

There are many models for handling the growing discrepancies between

the administrative and functional setup of urban areas. Some models aim at a

better adjustment of the administrative setup to the functional reality, e.g.

merging neighboring settlements with the city and creating strong metropolitan

bodies that take over a series of functions from the local municipalities. Other,

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less ambitious models build on different forms of cooperation between

municipalities belonging to the same Functional Urban Area, e.g. by mono-

functional agencies or metropolitan bodies with limited delegated power. Due to

the political difficulties in changing administrative borders or creating strong

supra-local bodies, the latter model may be favoured. But the democratic

legitimacy of this lighter model of FUA governance may be questioned because

it has less transparency and less accountability to directly elected bodies. (Baert,

2010)

Though local projects and intervention must be framed and understood in

a larger territorial context, it is equally important that there is an understanding

among actors at higher governance levels of what is happening at the local or

micro-local level. National, regional or citywide policies have in some cases

replaced local policies that were focused on deprived neighborhoods and

embedded both social development and urban regeneration. This mainstreaming

of local projects into regional or national policies may result in a fragmentation

and a lack of common understanding of objectives and issues at stake, even

among the various associations on the ground. There is a need to use common

visions to link up the various bodies involved, and consequent requirements for

training and mediation work. In this context, it is essential to ensure good

communication between various levels. (Duaskardt, R.P, 2007)

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5.6 SYNTHESIS

Cities over the world face complex and rapidly evolving challenges.

Ranging from climate, to poverty, economic downturns and demographic shifts,

cities now need to confront an unprecedented array of issues. Addressing them

requires ingenuity and versatility, whether in policymaking, investment

decisions or everyday livelihoods.

To meet the challenges of tomorrow, cities have to overcome seemingly

conflicting and contradictory objectives and move towards more holistic models

of sustainable city development.

Since governance plays a major role in cities we need to have different

approaches. The approach is

The Future of Cities have to deal with challenges in an integrated, holistic

way.

The Future of Cities have to match place and people-based approaches.

The Future of Cities have to combine formal government structures with

flexible informal governance structures as a function of the scale of

challenges.

City cooperation is necessary for coherent spatial development.

Towards socially innovative, inclusive and integrated multi-scalar

governance.

Thinking of governance in cities beyond its taken-for-granted institutional

format and encompasses forms of governing everyday life, transnational

networks and forms of governance that break away with bounded geographical

units.

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CHAPTER 6

EVERYDAY URBAN LIFE

6.1 INTRODUCTION

Cities and urban settlements in general are the face of the future. Today,

some 50 percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas. In 2005, the

world’s urban population was 3.17 billion out of a total of 6.45 billion. The year

2007 marks a watershed in human history, when for the first time; half of the

world’s population will be living in cities. How will this fact affect the cities of

the future?

Cities are centers of excellence, bringing together innovators,

entrepreneurs, financiers and academics. They attract a rising tide of humanity,

of people hoping for a better life for themselves and their children. Cities

provide opportunities, economies of scale, a future with more choices. And yet

cities have also been blamed for causing environmental catastrophes, for

marginalizing communities, for diminishing the quality of life of the poor. They

have been castigated as centers of disease, social unrest and insecurity. Cities are

also at risk from industrial hazards, natural disasters, and the specter of global

warming.

A successful city must balance social, economic and environmental

needs: it has to respond to pressure from all sides. A successful city should offer

investors security, infrastructure (including water and energy) and efficiency. It

should also put the needs of its citizens at the forefront of all its planning

activities. A successful city recognizes its natural assets, its citizens and its

environment and builds on these to ensure the best possible returns.

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6.1 THE FACE OF THE FUTURE

Today’s cities are part of the global environment. Their policies, their

people and their quest for productivity have an impact far beyond the city

borders. City level experiences are essential to the formulation of national

policies, and city and national policies in turn translate onto the global level.

Today, global policy makers recognize that cities have a tremendous impact on

issues ranging from local economic stability to the state of the global

environment. Over the past 50 years, cities have expanded into the land around

them at a rapid rate. Highways and transport systems have been built-in tandem

to support this physical growth. Valuable farmland has been eaten up and car

dependency has increased. Urban populations are expected to grow by another 2

billion people over the next three decades, and it is expected that cities in

developing countries will absorb 95 percent of this increase. Most worryingly, as

UN-HABITAT’s State of the World’s Cities Report for 2006/7 points out, is the

fact that in many cases urban growth will become synonymous with slum

formation. Already, Asia is home to more than half of the world’s slum

population (581 million) followed by sub-Saharan Africa (199 million) and

Latin America and the Caribbean (134 million) (UN-HABITAT 2006). Cities

and urban settlements must be prepared to meet this challenge. To avoid being

victims of their own success, cities must search for ways in which to develop

sustainably.

Urban settlements can learn from the natural world cities can be seen as

ecosystems. In the same way that a natural ecosystem like a rainforest or coral

reef is a complex system of interlinkages between elements, everything in a city

is connected to everything else. If land use is changed in one area of a city, it

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will affect the transportation system, infrastructure and economy in other areas.

Local governments today play a leading role in developing new approaches to

treat the natural and built environment, and the people that interact with it, as

one interconnected “city ecosystem”. Their innovation and creativity in striving

for sustainable urban development will reach into all areas of policy

development and decision-making.

6.2 THE ENVIRONMENT-AN ESSENTIAL ASSET FOR CITIES

Managing environmental resources as a group of strategic assets that are

crucial to a municipality’s goals, important to ecosystem health, and beneficial

to the community is key to successful urban management. What are the ways in

which the environment can be viewed as an asset for cities? The natural

environment provides cities with countless ecosystem services. Some of these

are so fundamental to urban livability that they may seem invisible to urban

managers: air, water, open space. Environmental resources are frequently taken

for granted, rather than being utilized, enhanced, and invested in.

To assess just how valuable the natural environment is to cities, let’s look

at the role that forests on the outskirts of a city play. If a forest is cut down for

firewood and to permit city expansion, the value of the forest is reduced to the

value of the wood as fuel, and the value of the land for development. However,

forests help watershed protection, and their removal can jeopardise urban water

supplies. In addition, clear-cutting forests often results in serious erosion,

damaging surrounding agricultural lands and causing urban flooding. Sprawling

urban development imposes much higher costs on the provision of infrastructure

such as roads, sewers, water and power. It is therefore more cost effective for a

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city to maintain its forest ecosystem as the city’s watershed, benefiting from all

of the environmental services that the forest provides-drinking water, erosion

control, soil protection, flood control, recreation, biodiversity-and to harvest the

wood products at a sustainable rate from the forest in perpetuity.

Making sure that a city’s environmental assets are used sustainably is

important to the urban economy for many reasons, in addition to the reduction of

costs. As society and the economy marches inexorably towards globalization,

cities across all regions must compete with each other to attract enterprise,

investment and employment. The quality of life or ‘livability’ which a city offers

is important in ensuring its future economic performance.

The most successful urban centers have a mutually rewarding relationship

with the environment which builds on the city’s natural advantages and which in

turn reduces the burden which the city places on its surroundings. Urban life

provides opportunities for economies of scale in regard to human energy and

material requirements. (Rees, 2003).

6.2 INTERNAL CITY-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS

Misuse of the urban environment can have grave consequences for the

city. Poor urban planning which permits construction on unsuitable land such as

wetlands can result in damaging floods.

Inadequate waste disposal leads to the spread of disease. Coastal cities

which fail to manage their coastline efficiently will find themselves with erosion

and siltation problems, and are likely to lose valuable income from tourism.

Urban sprawl will damage urban biodiversity, and the costs of providing

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infrastructure will be significantly higher. Many urban settlements will be

completely unable to keep pace with urban expansion, and unserviced slums will

proliferate, with their attendant problems of poor health, poverty, social unrest

and economic inefficiency. While healthy ecosystems provide cities with a wide

range of services essential for their economic, social and environmental

sustainability, damaged ecosystems have a very negative effect on urban

residents, and in particular on the urban poor.

6.3 The Advantages- Integrating Environmental

Considerations into Urban Planning:

We have seen how disregarding environmental issues has a significantly

damaging effect on cities and urban settlements. What are the advantages and

benefits of formally including environmental considerations in urban planning

and management systems? How can municipal decision-makers best manage the

social, economic and environmental demands placed on the city? Where are the

entry points for integrating environmental considerations into urban planning

and management? What are the arguments for integrating the environment into

city development strategies? The arguments for sustainable development are

clear and universally accepted. For a city to grow and develop in the long term,

it cannot disregard its environment. The environment cuts across all sectors,

income groups and management areas. An ad hoc approach to environmental

issues is fragmentary, expensive and inefficient. For a city to be effective and

efficient, it must consciously integrate the environment into its planning and

management mechanisms.

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The social, economic and environmental challenges which urban

settlements face today, coupled with the speed of urban expansion, have

encouraged the development of new and innovative approaches to local

governance. Local governments are becoming increasingly aware of the benefits

of citizen participation in urban decision-making. Governance approaches which

encourage urban stakeholders to have a say in the management of their city

provide several entry points for the inclusion of environmental issues in urban

planning.

A city’s environmental credentials, and therefore its marketability, are

strengthened if prospective investors can see that sustainable resource use has

been factored into the city development strategy, especially the cost of known

restraints such as finite water supplies, energy costs, the economic and job-

creating potential of eco-efficient industries (for example, waste recycling and

renewable energy), and local urban agriculture (Swilling, 2006).

Aside from the goal of sustainable development and the impetus to

maximize economic, social and environmental benefits, integrating the

environment in urban planning and management has additional attractions on a

very local scale. The city budget may benefit from environmental policies which

encourage recycling and produce income from the sale of recyclable resources,

while at the same time needing less landfill space. Energy efficiency can reduce

municipal spending. Eco-efficiency can result in lower operating costs for local

businesses, giving the city a competitive advantage (Swilling, 2006). Energy

systems planning could enhance the competitiveness of local industry, while

solar water heating, district heat and power systems, micro-cogeneration

(combined heat and power systems) and methane production all benefit the local

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economy (Moffatt, 1999). Circular Economy methods like local industrial

planning have the potential to reuse water resources. (Shi Lei, 2004 and Zhu

Dajian, 2004).

An integrated environmental policy can help stimulate the local economy

by planning for sustainable neighborhoods. This might include sustainable

construction involving energy efficiency and the use of compact fluorescent

lighting, rainwater tanks/water-conserving irrigation systems, renewable energy

alternatives (such as solar water heaters, insulation, geothermal heating and

cooling systems), and neighborhood based sewerage systems (Swilling, 2006).

In addition, modest income-generating activities that provide some income for

the urban poor, such as water vending, the provision of toilet facilities, biogas,

waste recycling, and composting (UN-HABITAT and UNEP, 2003) also have

environmental benefits.

An integrated environmental policy also works to reduce environmental

hazards and health, especially those which affect the urban poor. Absence due to

sickness among the workforce adversely affects the economic efficiency of local

industry, competitiveness and the attractiveness of the city to external investors.

Moreover, localized environmental hazards especially in peri-urban areas are

potential sources of pandemics (Cities Alliance, 2006), and run counter to the

principles of equity and social inclusion.

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6.4 SYNTHESIS

Cities which integrate the environment in urban planning and

management benefit in many ways. Such cities prove more liveable, more

equitable, and more inviting to investors. Their citizens are healthier, and fewer

working days are lost to environment-related illnesses. Urban space and

infrastructure respond better to public needs. In addition, cities which integrate

the environment into their planning and support international action to combat

global environmental threats such as climate change, which may endanger the

future of many urban settlements. By incorporating the environment in urban

planning and management, urban managers help to create cities which are

prepared for, and more resilient to, environmental disasters.

Local authorities are encouraged to use planning, management or

assessment to include environmental considerations at any level of urban

planning, in any sector. Planning offers a long term overarching development

framework into which more narrowly focused short-term plans can be

integrated. Environmental management systems may be institutionalized in the

city management structure, or may run in parallel to the city’s financial

management structure. Assessments evaluate the environmental effects of a

policy, plan or programme.

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CHAPTER 7

REGENERATIVE CITIES

7.1 INTRODUCTION

Life on earth is robust and has the ability to regenerate. However, the

collective ecological footprint of humanity now significantly exceeds the

regenerative capacity of the earth. Cities are major contributors. We are eroding

the natural capital and thus resilience of the earth, rather than living off its

regenerative income. Under current trends, humans will require the biocapacity

of two Earths by 2030.

The vision of regenerative cities is not just about the greening of the

urban environment and the protection of nature from urban expansion – however

important this is. It is, above all else, about the greening of urban systems of

production, consumption and construction. Across the world, a wide range of

technical, management and policy solutions towards this end are already

available which have ecological, social and economic benefits.

` In recent years there have been many urban regeneration initiatives in the

shrinking cities of industrialized countries. Europe and the US have their fair

share of these, particularly in former coal mining regions such as the Ruhr region

or South Wales. These initiatives aimed first to restore the urban fabric. Some

have also been concerned with restoring peri-urban areas – for example, turning

Brownfield sites such as coal slag heaps or derelict factory it’s into landscape

parks or housing developments. These kinds of regeneration projects have

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received much funding and media attention and have improved the lives of

millions of people. (WWF, Living Planet Report 2012).

The concept of regenerative cities goes further by addressing the

linkages between urban systems and ecosystems. Significant damage has already

been done to the world’s ecosystems through urban resource consumption and

waste disposal, and new ways of thinking are required to reverse the damage.

We need to start thinking of regenerative rather than just sustainable urban

development. The time has come for cities to take specific measures to help

regenerate soils, forests and watercourses rather than just sustaining them in a

degraded condition. While urban regeneration is about restoring damaged urban

environments, this report argues that regenerative urban development is about

creating a fairer, restorative relationship between cities and the world beyond,

utilizing appropriate technologies, policies and business practices, and building

vibrant new local economies in the process.

Some national governments have already introduced important policies

such as waste disposal regulation and taxation, carbon taxation, energy

efficiency ratings and feed-in tariffs for renewable energy which are primarily

implemented at the local level. Zero waste policies and support schemes for

sustainable local food production are also in place in some countries. But much

more needs to – and can – be done to ensure that the triumph of the city does not

end up as a global environmental tragedy. (Herbert Girardet, 2012)

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7.2 REDEFINING URBAN ECOLOGY

Urban ecology is the scientific study of how living organisms relate to

each other and their surroundings in an urban context. Its traditional focus was

on ecological processes within cities. But as urbanization has ever farther

reaching impacts on biodiversity, biogeochemical cycles, hydrology and climate,

the horizon of urban ecology expands to include all the territories involved in

sustaining urban systems in order to help clarify how regenerative urban

development can be implemented in practical terms. (Herbert Girardet, 2012)

A look at the relationship between traditional human settlements and their

connection to their local landscapes may be useful. Villages and towns tended to

emerge in places of resource abundance, in areas of rich soil, on the banks of

rivers and lakes and on sea shores.

7.2.1 Agropolis: The City and its Local Landscape

Figure: 27 Agropolis landscape

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In his book ‘The Isolated State’ the prominent 19th century geographer

and economist Johann Heinrich von Thünen described the way in which human

settlements, in the absence of major transport systems connecting them to the

outside world, were systemically embedded in their local landscape through

various logically arranged modes of cultivation. They maintained their

productivity and fertility by crop rotations and by returning appropriate amounts

of organic waste to it. This traditional settlement type could be called Agro polis.

In many parts of the world, villages and towns had this kind of systemic

relationship to the landscapes they emerged from. They depended for their

sustenance on nearby market gardens, orchards, forests, arable and grazing land

and, of course, local water supplies. Until recently, many Asian towns were still

largely locally self-sufficient in food as well as fertilizer, using human and

animal wastes to sustain the fertility of local farms.7 Their only energy sources

were firewood, muscle power and, perhaps, small amounts of wind and water

power. What can we learn from these traditional arrangements for the future

while utilizing modern methodologies and technologies? (Herbert Girardet,

2012)

7.2.2 The Rise of Petropolis

The industrial revolution caused an explosion of urban growth that

continues to this day. Steam engines and their successor technologies enabled

the unprecedented concentration of industrial and commercial activities in urban

centres. Cities increasingly declared independence from their local hinterland

and became centres of consumerism as well as global economic and transport

hubs. This globalization process, based on new modes of transportation, has

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made it easier to supply food, raw materials and manufactured products from

ever greater distances.

The phenomenal changes in human lifestyles that have occurred are

reflected in new concepts of urban land use planning, particularly for

accommodating the road space needed for motor vehicles. The modern city is a

Petropolis: All its key functions – production, consumption and transport – are

powered by massive daily injections of fossil fuels. But there is growing

evidence that the resulting dependencies are ecologically, economically and

geopolitically precarious, particularly since fossil fuel supplies which modern

cities depend on are finite.

What goes in must come out again: Petropolis is a dependent system.

Whilst relying on external inputs for its sustenance, it also discharges vast

quantities of solid, liquid and gaseous wastes without adequate concern for the

consequences. The challenge now is to reduce this systemic dependence before

the risks of food and energy insecurity, storms and sea level rise start to

undermine the very existence of this urban archetype.

Figure: 28 Petropolis

In recent years the most dramatic growth has occurred in coastal cities,

particularly in Asia and Africa. With the expansion of global trade, coastal

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populations and economies have exploded on every continent. Of the 17

megacities of over ten million people around the world, 14 are located in coastal

areas. Forty per cent of the world's cities of one to ten million people are also

located on or near coastlines. Careless development practices have damaged or

destroyed important habitats such as wetlands, coral reefs, sea grass meadows

and estuaries. With substantial sea level rise expected by 2100, major coastal

conurbations such as London, New York, Shanghai, Kolkata, Dhaka and Lagos

will become the primary victims of global greenhouse gas emissions, impacting

not only property values but also the existence of the cities themselves. (Herbert

Girardet, 2012)

7.2.3 ECOPOLIS: THE REGENERATIVE CITY

The systemic changes required to address these existential challenges

would transform the modern Petropolis into a regenerative city – an Ecopolis.

Ecopolis reintegrates itself into its surrounding environment, not only drawing

on regional biologically productive land but also developing the potential for

regional renewable energy supplies. Of course, the options for this vary greatly

according to the unique locations and conditions of cities. Since cities today tend

to be much larger than traditional human settlements, their reintegration into the

local hinterland is a major task. The fact that far more people live in cities today

than in the days of the Agropolis must be taken into account in developing

appropriate concepts and strategies.

For Ecopolis to become reality there must be a focus and understanding

on urban metabolism as well as form and land use. Most modern cities have a

linear metabolism: Resources flow through the urban system without concern

about their origin or the destination of waste by-products. Inputs and outputs are

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treated as largely unrelated. Fossil fuels are extracted from rock strata, refined

and burned, and the waste gases are discharged into the atmosphere. Raw

materials are harvested and processed into consumer goods that ultimately end

up as rubbish which cannot be easily or beneficially reabsorbed into living

natural systems. Trees are felled for their timber and pulp and often forests are

not replenished. Similar linear processes apply to food: Nutrients and carbon are

removed from farmland as food is harvested, processed and eaten. The resulting

waste – with or without treatment – is discharged into rivers and coastal waters

downstream from population centres and usually not returned to farmland.

Rivers and coastal waters all over the world are ‘enriched’ with sewage, toxic

effluents and mineral run-offs. (Herbert Girardet, 2012).

Figure: 29Ecopolis

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aspect is the redesign of products themselves to ensure that they end up as useful

technical and biological ‘nutrients’.8 It is also particularly important to convert

the vast quantities of urban organic waste into compost, and to return the plant

nutrients and carbon they contain to farmland that feeds our cities. (Herbert

Girardet, 2012).

Ecopolis, aiming for long-term

viability, systemically addresses

the environmental externalities

associated with urban resource use.

It does this by mimicking the

circular metabolic systems found

in nature: In nature, all wastes

become organic nutrients for new

growth. Similarly, urban wastes

can become valuable inputs into

local and regional production

systems. In recent years, the

recycling of paper, metals, plastic

and glass has made substantial

progress in many cities, but much

more needs to be done. One key

Figure: 30 Urban Metabolism

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7.3 REGENERATIVE URBAN TRANSFORMATIONS

7.3.1 Reinventing Adelaide: 2003-2013

An urbanizing world requires major policy initiatives to make urban

resource use compatible with the world's ecosystems. Metropolitan Adelaide has

adopted this agenda and is well on its way to becoming a pioneering

regenerative city region.

New policies by the government of South Australia on energy efficiency,

renewable energy, sustainable transport, waste recycling, organic waste

composting, and water efficiency, wastewater irrigation\ of crops, peri-urban

agriculture and reforestation have taken Adelaide to the forefront of

environmentally responsible urban development.

This process was started by a vigorous move towards efficient resource

use and the acknowledgement that it could greatly stimulate South Australia’s

economy. The reasons are quite simple: a city region that takes active measures

to improve the efficiency of its use of resource also reduces its reliance on

imported resources. It re-localizes parts of its energy and food economy and

brings a substantial part of it back home. During a nine-week period in 2003,

many seminars and events were held in which a wide cross-section of the

population was invited to discuss ways in which metropolitan Adelaide could

reinvent itself. The resulting report became the basis for a considerable range of

new policy initiatives by the city of Adelaide and the government of South

Australia. (Future of cities forum, 2013)

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The past decade has seen Greater Adelaide adopt many aspects of

regenerative urban development. The city now boasts:

Over 26 per cent of electricity produced by wind turbines and solar PV

panels;

Photovoltaic roofs on 120,000 (of 600,000) houses, and on most public

buildings;

The world‘s first bus running on solar energy;

Solar hot water systems mandated for new buildings;

Large scale building retrofit programmes across the city region;

60 per cent carbon emissions reduction by municipal buildings;

Construction of Lochiel Park Solar Village with 106 eco-homes;

15 per cent reduction of CO2 emissions since 2000;

Water sensitive urban development;

Three million trees planted on 2,000 hectares for CO2 absorption and

biodiversity;

An ambitious zero-waste strategy;

180,000 tonnes of compost a year made from urban organic waste;

20,000 hectares of land near Adelaide used for vegetable and fruit crops;

Reclaimed waste water and urban compost used to cultivate this land; and

Thousands of new green jobs

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7.3.2 Energy for Cities

Germany’s 100% Renewable Energy Regions

Renewable energy is a key ingredient in the regenerative development of

human settlements. In this context the opportunities for smaller communities to

generate the energy they consume locally and even become energy exporters to

neighboring towns and cities are increasingly becoming a reality.

Across Germany there are over 100 regions that have implemented – and

even, in some cases, already exceeded – a 100 per cent renewable energy (RE)

target. These so-called 100 per cent RE regions encompass about a quarter of the

country's population. Municipalities have played an important part in developing

renewable energies in Germany and will continue to do so in future. In the

energy sector, they are the driver of the transformation process towards an

Ecopolis. They have far reaching instruments of control with regard to RE

authorization and installation, enabling local implementation of national energy

policies. Local governments and citizens partially fund the installation of RE

systems and may be involved in their operation as lessons through their public

works departments. Increasingly, communities are adopting their own renewable

energy development goals, forming cooperatives or seeking to attract companies

active in the industry t o invest in them.

Feed-in tariffs especially have played a key role by acting as a

connecting framework linking people, policy, energy and economy. Germany

hereby shows that a regenerative city region, actively involving the local-

community, is a cornerstone in implementing a national energy transition policy.

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One of the main lessons learnt from Germany is that the pride of ownership

cannot be underestimated. When local citizens have a personal financial stake in

RE projects, social acceptance of these projects tends to be greater, and barriers

to progress are more easily eliminated.

With active national government support, potentially everyone can

participate in the decentralized development of RE, particularly with public or

community-based wind farms or solar systems. Local farmers can produce not

only food but energy for sale as well. The installation, maintenance and

operation of RE systems can mostly be carried out by local businesses like

tradesmen, technicians, and farm and forest workers. In other words, many small

and medium-sized enterprises have the opportunity to benefit from RE

development while promoting regional added value. (Future of cities forum,

2013)

A successful national RE policy comprises a wide range of measures:

Priority for RE access to the grid;

A feed-in tariff that compensates RE producers who feed electricity into

the grid to recover investment and running costs, plus a reasonable profit;

Low-interest loans that accelerate adoption of RE and efficiency

improvements;

Strong building insulation standards and labeling of efficiency

performance for buildings;

Support for the development of RE storage options and smart grid

technologies;

Promotion of efficient technologies, power saving light bulbs, and

efficient appliances

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Eco-taxes on petroleum and conventional power use; and

Automobile emission standards that encourage fuel efficiency

With strong national policy frameworks in place over the past decade,

several towns and regions have already surpassed a 100 per cent renewable

electricity target. One example is the town of Lichtenau in Westphalia which

produces a 27 per cent surplus of renewable energy and is exporting electricity

into the national grid. The country as a whole reached its 20 per cent RE target

in 2011 and is on track to reach 35 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050.

The German Federal Environment Agency has set an ambitious target reaching

100 per cent overall RE by 2050.

Figure: 31 Germany’s 100% Renewable Energy System

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7.4 SYNTHESIS

Cities are a tremendous asset and are often cited as places where solutions

to the world’s environmental and climate problems can most easily be

implemented. As places where people live closely together, cities have the

potential to make efficient use of resources. Can we create spatial structures that

satisfy the needs of urban citizens while also assuring their ecological and

economic viability? Can we create prosperous, just, secure and clean habitats

that enable positive human interactions with natural systems?

A fundamental rethink of urban systems design is required to shift from

urban systems that damage and degenerate ecosystems to ones that renew and

sustain the health of ecosystems on which they ultimately depend.

Creating parameters for appropriate action will involve both political and

business decisions – from transnational to national and local levels of decision

making. It involves drawing up novel legal frameworks as well as addressing the

profit logic of developers and other commercial enterprises.

It is in cities where creativity flourishes and people can interact and

engage most vigorously in the search for solutions. The primary task is to find

cost-effective ways to make our cities function in an environmentally

responsible manner and for long-term perspectives to prevail. A Roadmap

towards Regenerative Cities to be started from all cities to solve cities

problems.

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CHAPTER 8

LESSON FOR INDIAN CITIES

In this dissertation, it does not attempt to provide a comprehensive

overview of every single challenge concern faced by Indian cities today. Rather,

it aims to focus on some critical areas which a close with the concepts of

inclusion, resilience and authenticity, including some which have consistently

been of concern to policymakers and citizens alike and captured the imagination

of urban stakeholders.

8.1 DENSE CITY

‘The future cities of Asia have to dense rather than sprawls’. India’s

density (364 person/sq.km) (census, 2011). The two main important issues about

high density cities are 1) the costs and benefits of the form and 2) how to dense

should it be and “higher than what”? “As long as our cities within density

thresholds (i.e. neighborhood densities of 250 to 1, 000 persons/ha) there are

efficient and cost effective solutions within our resources.”(Jenks, 2005)

Figure: 32 Urban Density and Transport Related Energy

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8.2 URBAN FORM AND TRANSPORT SYSTEM

Barcelona and Atlanta (population- around 2.8 million) and with roughly

the same standard of living. Yet, studies have shown that the per capita

ecological footprint of Atlanta is four times that of Barcelona. India’s future

urban trajectory should follow Barcelona rather than Atlanta? The “DNA” of

city gets in its urban eco-system in the early stages of development by choice of

urban form and transport system.

Figure: 33 Sprawl Vs. Compact cities

Most of the discussion about urban sustainability in India centers around

“green codes” for buildings. The problem with so-called green code is that they

exclusively focus on maximizing an individual’s building whereas the real gains

come from overall urban form. (Sanjeev Sanyal, THE ALTERNATIVE

URBAN FUTURES REPORT, 2010)

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8.3 WALKING IS A FORM OF TRANSPORTATION

A 2008 study of 30 Indian cities showed almost 40% of all trips in urban

India involved no motorized vehicles at all-28% walked and 11% cycled.

Walking is a form of transportation that is almost entirely neglected by urban

planners in India even though the majority of Indian city-dwellers walk all or

part of their journeys. Without last-mile walkability, neither buses nor

metropolis would effectively. Density, as the central paradigms for future urban

thinking in India. (Sanjeev Sanyal, THE ALTERNATIVE URBAN FUTURES

REPORT, 2010)

8.4 SYNTHESIS

Urban planning in India has traditionally taken the form of master plans,

usually developed and implemented by specially constituted development

authorities which are outside the purview of the local administration and hence

not directly accountable to the local population (unlike local governments which

have an elected council that is accountable to the citizens).

Given this scenario, many of India’s cities have taken it upon light

themselves to introduce innovative measures in urban planning, management

and governance, demonstrating vision, creativity, and a departure from business

as usual.

Indeed, to make Indian cities liveable from the perspective of inclusion,

resilience and authenticity, which are intricately interconnected, and cannot be

achieved independently of another, there needs to be a fundamental shift in the

way planners and policy-makers approach urban development. Learning from

the success stories as well as many failed initiatives.

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CHAPTER 9

CONCLUSION

Cities today have to be competitive. They operate in a global marketplace,

competing with other cities and urban settlements around the world for

investment. A city cannot compete, however, if it cannot offer investors security,

infrastructure and efficiency. Hardly any city can offer these elements without

incorporating environmental issues into its planning and management strategies.

Today, cities and urban settlements around the world employ a range of

urban planning and development approaches, all of which provide opportunities

for the integration of environmental considerations. A city can chose to integrate

environmental issues right across the city, using supra-sectoral concepts and

strategies such as Localizing Agenda 21, or may focus on integrated local

environmental management. Integrated strategies for certain sectors and

environmental commodities are also an option, and institutional, legal and

market-policy frameworks can be very useful in supporting environmental

interventions. Ecological construction and living policies also offer a vehicle for

introducing the environment to urban planning. The systemic changes required

to address these existential challenges would transform the modern Petropolis

into a regenerative city – an Ecopolis. Ecopolis reintegrates itself into its

surrounding environment, not only drawing on regional biologically productive

land but also developing the potential for regional renewable energy supplies.

The vision of regenerative cities should be think of in Indian as well in all

cities. The regenerative cities is not just about the greening of the urban

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environment and the protection of nature from urban expansion – however

important this is. It is, above all else, about the greening of urban systems of

production, consumption and construction. Across the world, a wide range of

technical, management and policy solutions towards this end are already

available which have ecological, social and economic benefits.

Change will be evolutionary-sustainable city in 2020 will be different

from today and different again in 2050. The city today is the basic building

material available for the city of the future. Future of cities will be built on the

understanding of today’s challenges. The future does not happen just like that. It

involves understanding the present challenges concepts and technological

capabilities to address the challenges. The regenerative city is not mere solutions

for cities it’s just a rethinking of solving problems as cities grows challenges are

many to deal for the human life’s. Now the new emerging Indian cities are an

opportunity for planners to seed a sustainable urban form and sustainable

initiatives. In order for better living. A city of tomorrow will be dense, which is

less dependent on non- renewable resources, which produces less water or zero

waste, which absorbs its emission, which grows its own food and city which is

just. A future of cities is hard to conceptualize, easy to describe and difficult to

forecast, so it is our only hope for the global survival of an expanding population

that will have to share limited resource on a finite globe.

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