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Cities and climate governance. From experimental initiatives to reshaping urban development.
Matthew Paterson, University of Ottawa
Research on cities/climate changeTransnational city networks
Experimental governance
Aim: to focus more on question of urban political economy and development: drivers of emissions and enduring contradictions
Ontario’s GHG emissions
The question of density Density is key to urban energy use and thus GHG emissions
Density determines:Proportion of journeys made not in a car (key determinant of transport emissions)
Note: much more important than the fuel economy of individual vehicles: a dense urbanite SUV owner who never drives has much lower emissions than a suburbanite Civic owner
Density has big influence on:House size (key determinant of household energy use)
Housing type (row houses for e.g. much lower energy use than single houses)
Source: Derived from P. Newman & J. Kenworthy, Sustainability and Cities, Island Press, 1999. This version available at: http
://www.tumblr.com/tagged/kenworthy
The question of density Density is key to urban energy use and thus GHG emissions
Density determines:Proportion of journeys made not in a car (key determinant of transport emissions)
Note: much more important than the fuel economy of individual vehicles: a dense urbanite SUV owner who never drives has much lower emissions than a suburbanite Civic owner
Density has big influence on:House size (key determinant of household energy use)
Housing type (row houses for e.g. much lower energy use than single houses)
Source: http://www.cities21.org/HH_NRG_consumption.htm
Low carbon city as transformation of urban development
North American urban contextIncreased density as key device for low carbon transitions
Already widely established as planning goal, even without climate/carbon as specific driver (increasingly in urban plans, but not yet a ‘driver’ in many places)
Highly contested process when new buildings proposed
Useful site to explore character of conflicts – values, desires, fears, etc invoked both for and against intensification
Intensification conflicts
Research ongoing in Ottawa, preliminary results
Conflicts concentrated in urban coreSignificant urban-suburban conflict
Political economy of intensification is the same as the political economy of sprawl
Competing visions of intensificationLe Corbusier vs Jane Jacobs
Ambivalence. Those who most consistently oppose intensification are those who most consistently are in favour of low carbon development
Beacon Hill-
Cyrville5%
Capital10%
Kanata North3%
Kanata South
3%
Kitchissippi
19%Rideau-Rockcliffe
6%
Rideau-Vanier13%
Somerset26%
Percentage of projects per Ward
Intensification conflicts
Research ongoing in Ottawa, preliminary results
Conflicts concentrated in urban coreSignificant urban-suburban conflict
Political economy of intensification is the same as the political economy of sprawl
Competing visions of intensificationLe Corbusier vs Jane Jacobs
Ambivalence. Those who most consistently oppose intensification are those who most consistently are in favour of low carbon development
Conclusions
Centrality of cities in climate policyControl over key policy levers
Particular types of challengesCultural
Urban development models and political-economic relations
Experiments important but attention to contradictions also important