We live on an urban planet. For the first time in history, the
majority of us live in cities. How we grow those cities; how we
build neighborhoods; how we provide housing; how we choose to get
around; how well we incorporate nature into the places we live—these
are the challenges that will largely determine our future. And with
millions and millions of people moving every year from the countryside
to the city, all of these difficulties seem even more insurmountable.
Cities represent the majority of the world’s population. They
create the most wealth, consume the most resources and produce the
most waste. The U.S. population—more than 300 million people—is
growing at a rate of one percent per year. Of those 3 million net
new people, 1 million are immigrants. More than 90 percent of metropolitan-area
population growth since 1950 has been in the suburbs.
The real estate industry considers growth good and desirable. Almost
everyone and every organization, including the Sierra Club, consider
growth inevitable. Growth can create tremendous societal benefits,
and it can impose serious social burdens. One of those burdens is
urban sprawl. Living in sprawl seems like a bargain at first, but
it turns out that the lower sticker price of the home is eroded
very quickly by what you’re paying to keep the gas tank filled,
and to heat and cool a 3,000-square-foot home.
Building cities has always meant replacing our natural landscape
— forests, wetlands, grasslands with streets, parking lots,
rooftops and other impervious surfaces. As development moves further
and further to the metropolitan fringe, it competes with open-space
habitat and prime farmland. Loss of open space has a negative impact
on the environment. The farther we have to travel between home and
work, and work and play, the more likely it is that we will drive.
The end result is that the nation’s air quality has suffered.
Research has shown that compact, pedestrian and transit-friendly
communities have a positive impact on air quality by improving travel
alternatives.
Some consider the modern city as the most artificial and unlovely
sight on this planet. The “concrete jungles” found in
many cities have saddled many cities with acres of contaminated
land; inadequate waste management facilities; inefficient water/wastewater
systems; and highly segregated and unequal distribution of opportunities
for economic growth. This reality has led some people to consider
abandoning the concept of cities altogether; that the only way to
solve the “city problem” is by leaving the city.
Rather than embracing this negative reality, the growing trend is
toward smart growth—that is, growth that invests time, attention
and resources to restoring community and vitality to cities. Smart-growth
advocates want big cities to return to a small-town atmosphere through
development that is environmentally sensitive, economically viable
and community-oriented. Along with the boom in urbanization, we
are seeing a boom in urban innovation. Simply put, we are getting
better at building better cities. The central challenge now of the
smart growth movement is to find a way for a wide range of people
to feel comfortable living in affordable, revitalized cities.
Following are several examples of the measures being taken by cities
across North America.
Greenprint Denver
The city of Denver, Colo., believes that it is possible to turn
the situation around. In the summer of 2005, Mayor John W. Hickenlooper
joined 49 other mayors in a U.S. Conference of Mayors. Cities everywhere
have made and are making a significant environmental footprint.
Covering two percent of the world’s surface, cities accommodate
50 percent of the world’s population and consume 75 percent
of its resources. The mayors pledged to improve the environment
of their cities and reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) by trying
to meet or exceed targets set forth by the United Nation’s
Kyoto Protocol.
This pledge was one of the first actions taken by Hickenlooper after
launching Denver’s Sustainable Development Initiative in an
effort to integrate environmental impact considerations into the
city’s programs and policies. In less than a year, with help
from business and community partners and dedicated city staff, an
action agenda for sustainability was produced. Because of his work,
Hickenlooper was added to a list of the “Top Five Mayors in
the Nation” published by TIME Magazine.
GREENPRINT DENVER |
Greenprint Denver charts the city’s course
over the next five years and will position the city as a national
leader in a global effort to meet the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their
own. Denver's smart growth creates economic opportunity and
a better quality of life for all residents while maintaining
affordable communities that are accessible to jobs and essential
services. Vibrant, livable urban centers that support walking,
biking and mass transit, and that reduce reliance on cars are
part of Denver’s master plan for the future, called Blueprint
Denver. At the core of the zoning and transportation plan are
transit-oriented developments, which are neighborhoods that
are built around bus and light-rail stops so that housing, offices
and shopping are all within walking distance.
Through Greenprint Denver, a growing network of businesses,
universities, nonprofit and government agencies is forming to
assist one another with strategies to pursue a regional interest
in sustainable development, to explore increased opportunities
within the community, and to identify opportunities in national
and international markets where green businesses are emerging
as the new standard. Denver has consistently ranked in national
surveys as one of the top 10 cities in the country for its sustainability
practices. Denver also has graced FORTUNE magazine’s
list of “Best Cities for Business” for the past
five years, and has been one of Dun and Bradstreet’s “Top
10 Cities for Small Business.”
In 2006, Mayor John Hickenlooper was credited with bringing
a creative, energetic, pro-business governance that embraces
the best environmental practices that also make good economic
sense. Furthering this legacy, in his State of the City
address on July 12, Mayor Hickenlooper announced a long-term,
citywide initiative called Greenprint Denver to promote the
importance of sustainable development and ecologically friendly
practices throughout the community. An action agenda for smart
government, Greenprint Denver is a roadmap for the city that
saves resources, streamlines processes, and avoids future costs
and waste. The focus has been on identifying the many areas
where both budget savings and environmental benefits can be
realized, in some cases by taking a longer-term view.
The initiative is the first comprehensive effort of its kind
in Denver and was able to build on previous innovations, including
one of the nation’s first municipal “Green Fleets”
of hybrid and alternative-fuel vehicles. The city also boasts
the following: pioneering the use of energy-efficient and long-lasting
Light Emitting Diode (LED) traffic signals in 80 percent of
the city’s signals; implementing FasTracks, a large-scale
regional transit measure; and an international airport that
is among the most environmentally progressive in the world.
In Denver, innovative outcomes now build on themselves, and
Denver boasts a nonprofit organization, Micro Business Development,
that provides interest-rate-reduced loans to qualified sustainable
micro-enterprises to continue the cycle.
With 300 days of sunshine in the Mile High City, examples of
partnerships with a new focus on renewable-energy technologies
are now making integrated approaches to make sustainable development
economically viable. Through the Colorado Clean Tech Initiative,
a consortium of the University of Colorado, the National Renewable
Energy Lab and CORE (Connected Organizations for a Renewable
Economy), a leading sustainable business trade association in
Denver, participants collaborate to convert the latest clean
technology into businesses. Denver recently hired an energy
and clean-technology-industry business-development representative
to grow green industries that will lead to economic growth while
at the same time reducing pressures on the environment, and
introducing new employment and training opportunities. Creating
new jobs in new markets is a key economic factor to being a
competitive city.
Energy efficiency and green industry provide economic development
opportunities as well as provide businesses with the opportunity
to cut long-term operating costs. The city of Denver is partnering
with the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation to encourage
green or high-performance commercial buildings, allowing business
to save on long-term operating costs and use natural resources
more wisely.
Green buildings can command the highest market sale and rent
prices, although this means that they are often out of reach
of low-income residents. Therefore, Denver is developing energy-efficiency
standards and incentives for new affordable housing, and, through
a partnership with Xcel Energy, including permanent efficiency
upgrades as part of its Low-Income Energy Assistance Program
(LEAP) to assist low-income residents with energy bills.
Greenprint Denver encourages investment in permanent improvements
that save money to meet basic needs and build a healthy, culturally
vibrant community with economic opportunity for everyone—now
and in the future. By establishing sustainability as a core
value and operating principle in city practices and policies
while facilitating the growth of green industry for the community,
Hickenlooper has ensured a healthy city for future generations.
Highlights of the action agenda include:
• A commitment to reduce GHGs by 10-percent per capita
over 1990 levels by 2012
• A plan to work regionally to plant a million trees over
the next 20 years, to maximize community cooling, air quality,
stormwater and aesthetic
benefits
• Increase residential recycling subscriptions by 50 percent,
and reduce total waste to landfill by 30 percent in the next
five years.
• Construct solar and methane power plants capable of
powering more than 2,500 homes
• Require that all city-financed buildings be built to
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver
standard, and introduce incentives for private-sector green
building
• Introduce energy-efficiency standards for all city-supported
affordable housing projects, to make low-income housing even
more affordable over the long term
• Expand the city’s “green fleet” to
include 100-percent biodiesel usage, and replace light-duty
vehicles with hybrids wherever possible
• Increase by 20 percent the new development located within
a half-mile of existing transit stations by 2011
• Improve, protect and conserve water resources
• Promote green economic development and new jobs for
the metro area through partnerships with the Metro Denver Economic
Development Corporation |
Minneapolis Alliance for Sustainability
Minneapolis, Minn., achieved the pollution reduction necessary to
meet the Kyoto Protocol, one of the first cities in the nation to
do so—a strategy that has earned the city tremendous environmental
and economic benefits. Climate disruption is a global problem, but
we feel the effects locally.
The Minneapolis-based nonprofit Alliance for Sustainability has
been co-sponsoring annual Sustainable Sweden Tours to some of the
country’s 70 “eco-municipalities.” From rural
villages to the urban capital of Stockholm, 20 years ago Swedish
communities began developing innovative green solutions using a
holistic, democratic planning process called The Natural Step (TNS).
TNS gained popularity after the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio because
it is compatible with the global action plan outlined in United
Nations Agenda 21.
TNS combines a scientifically based definition of sustainability
with a systems approach to community planning. Developed by Swedish
oncologist Karl-Henrik Robért and a group of European experts,
it addresses the need for cities to embrace a vision for a better
future, then to figure out how to get there by using assets available
to them in their communities.
The mission of the Alliance is to bring about personal, organizational
and planetary sustainability through support of projects that are
ecologically sound, economically viable, socially just and humane.
Today, the tours and concepts are drawing community leaders from
places like Dane County and Ashland, Wis.; Duluth, Minn.; and Vandergrift
and Pittsburgh, Penn.—all of which are planning to incorporate
sustainability principles and practices into their regions.
The 2010 Olympics has adopted TNS
principles
The resort community of Whistler in the Canadian Rockies, site of
the 2010 Olympics, has adopted TNS principles. It recently embarked
on a 15-year “Whistler 2020” plan that allows it to
maintain a tourism-based economy while practicing environmental
stewardship, complete with transition guidelines and community-wide
resource sharing. In the works: transforming an “athlete village”
lodging development into a residential neighborhood of affordable
housing that showcases sustainable building and land-use practices.
For the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games, sustainability means managing
the economic, environmental and social impacts and opportunities
created by our Games in ways that will produce lasting benefits,
locally and globally. This is our opportunity to demonstrate how
sustainability, in all of its aspects, can be incorporated throughout
the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Promoting sustainable development has become one of the fundamental
objectives of the Olympic Movement. The International Olympic Committee
added environmental protection to the Olympic Charter in 1994 and
made it the third pillar of the Olympic Movement, equal to Sport
and Culture. Organizers plan to ensure the Games leave a positive
legacy, not just for sport, but also for Canada’s environment,
economy and local communities. Wherever possible, the 2010 Winter
Games will conserve resources such as energy and water, prevent
pollution, and protect and enhance natural marine and forest ecosystems.
Sustainable Seattle
While continuing to press for national leadership to curb GHGs,
the city of Seattle has chosen to take action now. Seattle has demonstrated
day in and day out that local climate solutions are about responding
to our own most pressing local challenges: challenges like
reducing traffic congestion and providing more efficient transportation
alternatives; or curbing urban sprawl by increasing affordable housing
in the city or stretching the available supply of renewable hydroelectricity
through increased energy efficiency. Reducing urban sprawl is one
of the most effective climate-protection strategies. Mayor Greg
Nickels’ “smart growth” strategies for Seattle’s
City Center and urban centers reduce global warming pollution by
reducing dependence on cars and increasing energy efficiency.
Nickels has released the Seattle Climate Action Plan, the most comprehensive
set of investments and programs in the city’s history for
fighting climate change. The $37-million 2007-2008 package will
fund a host of initiatives that will help people conserve motor
fuel in their vehicles, and natural gas in their homes and work
places. The Office of Sustainability and Environment will monitor
progress on the plan every two years.
Chicago Sustainable Business Alliance
Chicago, an industrial city marked by freeways and endless concrete,
has become an unlikely candidate for the “greenest”
city in the United States. Since Mayor Richard Daley took office,
Chicago has created or planned more than 2 million square feet of
green roofs, more than all other U.S. cities combined. More than
500,000 trees have been planted; numerous new green spaces have
been created; and cleanups have begun on acres of contaminated lands.
The Chicago Sustainable Business Alliance is a network of enterprises
and organizations dedicated to realizing the benefits of incorporating
sustainability principles into their products, services and practices.
The Alliance provides the necessary resources, connections and support
for these companies to thrive.
Open to businesses in the Chicago region dedicated to realizing
the advantages of incorporating sustainability principles into their
products, services and practices, the Alliance provides necessary
resources, connections and support to these enterprises.
As today’s cities continue to grow in population, several
metropolitan areas are making sure the environment isn’t a
casualty; more local leaders need to follow the example.
MINNEAPOLIS |
In 2003, the Minneapolis City Council adopted
Resolution 2003R-133, which initiated the development of the
Minneapolis Sustainability Plan to promote the use of sustainability
principles to guide city decision-making. The resolution intended
to create a process in which Minneapolis could truly become
a sustainable city, and provided methods with which to measure
development.
The City Council resolution also called for the creation of
Minneapolis Sustainability Indicators. The initial indicators
were developed out of two public roundtable meetings facilitated
by Crossroads Resource Center (through a grant from the Minnesota
Office of Environmental Assistance), which involved about 100
residents and professionals expressing a 50-year vision for
the city’s future; more than 30 indicators were developed.
To move indicators into action, a strategic plan is necessary,
but not sufficient. Without an action plan, a community risks
collecting data that will provide it with an attractive graph
of environmental, economic and social decline, without a strategy
for changing the slope of the curve. With an action plan, it
may get that downward slope anyway, if there is insufficient
political support for implementation of the plan. Key to implementation
of any sustainability action plan is the support of the local
power base. Indicators are useful only insofar as they serve
to create and maintain that support.
In some situations, a necessary component in implementing sustainability
will be to organize the sustainability constituency to lobby
more effectively, and to work to elect people more in tune with
sustainability goals. |
VANCOUVER |
| Even in Canada, Vancouver has used the
concepts of “livability” and sustainability as key
planning tenets for several years. Vancouver’s success
is exemplified in measures taken to preserve the diversity and
increase the density of the downtown core. By creating a place
where people can work and live, and where parks, shopping centers,
office towers and apartment buildings coexist, Vancouver has
reduced the need for transport and made water, power and waste
management more efficient. |
PITTSBURGH |
If you haven’t seen Pittsburgh
lately, you haven’t seen Pittsburgh. Once described by
journalist James Parton as “hell with the lid off,”
Pittsburgh has reached a milestone in its continued environmental
renaissance. Today, Pittsburgh’s skies and its famous
three rivers are so clean that the city hosted the 2005 Bassmaster
Classic, considered the “Super Bowl of fishing”
among fishermen.
As the region prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary in
2008, the world will look back and see how far Pittsburgh has
come.
More importantly, Pittsburgh will stand out as a leader in the
environmental movement, and as a national pacesetter in the
development of green buildings—with more “green”
square footage than any other city. Ranking third after Seattle
and Portland, Ore., Pittsburgh has the greatest number of certified
structures—17 and counting.
Just consider the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, the world’s
first certified green convention center. Located on a former
brownfield site, the convention center reflects the environmental
friendliness that is a hallmark of this region. The building’s
green credentials (its annual energy savings is about 35 percent)
help attract environmental groups to Pittsburgh, such as the
American Wind Energy Association, U.S. Green Building Council,
Water Environmental Federation, Ecology Society of America and
others.
Pittsburgh’s convention center, in fact, has set the bar
for the greening of other public buildings nationwide.
Many of Pittsburgh’s green buildings are tourist-related,
including Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, Heinz History
Center Smithsonian Wing, Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens,
Pittsburgh Glass Center and the WYEP FM Studio. And, the city
government is currently considering new laws that would allow
Earth-friendly project buildings to be built 20 percent higher
or larger than current zoning allows.
You don’t have to go far from Pittsburgh’s compact,
walkable downtown to find green. Residents and visitors can
walk the riverfront trails and wave to kayakers as they paddle
by. Or, they can step aboard the public transit system and ride
the “T” subway for free in the downtown area.
Pittsburgh is also home to one of the first green passenger
boats in the world. The Explorer vessel of the nonprofit RiverQuest
is used for river-based science education. The 150-passenger
boat serves more than 10,000 students a year while reducing
emissions to air and water, and implementing innovative propulsion
technology and alternative fuels.
Biking is big in Pittsburgh. BIKE magazine named Pittsburgh
one of the top five cities for mountain biking in the country.
The city’s public transportation system’s “Ride
Rack Roll Program” provides bike racks on 75 public buses
on eight popular routes. Citywide, there are more than 130 “Public
Art Bike Racks” installed throughout Pittsburgh. Each
rack — designed to be cool and functional art—holds
two bikes.
Pittsburgh is also joining the fight against global warming.
The city’s 27-year-old mayor, Luke Ravenstahl, recently
signed the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Climate Protection
Agreement. And, in an innovative move in December, the city
of Pittsburgh—which has purchased hybrid vehicles —
is planning to turn Heinz Field’s waste vegetable oil
into bio-diesel fuel for those vehicles that run on diesel fuel.
Pittsburgh beats every other city in the nation when it comes
to local food systems, too. Consider this: Pittsburgh boasts
a whopping 188 community gardens—that’s one for
every 3,000 residents, and nearly four times as many as runner-up
Seattle. |
Dennis Walsh is a communications specialist focusing on renewable
energy, social entrepreneurship and green philanthropy. He is the
editor of America’s GreenHouse, a renewable energy newsletter,
and the increasingly popular Green Philanthropy blog.
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