Green Metropolis : Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, And Driving Less

Sustainable cities are an ecosystem with not many environmental issues. Some of the issues that are not present within a sustainable city are air pollution, mass population and excessive water and energy usage. A sustainable city does not have a negative impact on the environment. It has a small ecological footprint, which is the impact of a person or community on the environment. It would also have a lot of greenery, meaning a lot of vegetation and use renewable energy, solar panels and wind energy.

Sustainability has become a relevant word in the vocabulary of many organizations, governments and individuals. More than just a word, sustainability relates to the ability of institutions to continue executing their functions without forgetting the effects on the environment and taking into consideration the fair treatment of their employees and the human rights of society. Although sustainability is a widely used term by many individuals, the understanding of this term is not as clear as its popularity. When discussing the ideas of sustainability, most people automatically associate the term with the human impact on the environment. Others relate sustainability to the ability to cut costs and inefficiencies within the organization. A few individuals believe that sustainability is a matter of human rights. So what exactly is sustainability?

Urban sustainability is the idea that an urban area can be organised without excessive reliance on the surrounding countryside and be able to power itself with renewable sources of energy. The aim of this is to create the smallest possible environmental 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 to make the urban area overall contribution to climate change minimal. Therefore allowing the next generations and future generations to have the required resources without compromising them. However sustainably needs to focus also on other issues such as crime and economic factors.

Making a sustainble city of tommorrow requires extensive city planning. Urban cities in Canada are making strides to create large metropolitan areas more environmentally friendly by using the latest green technologies and strategies. With comittment and time, all Canadian cities can implemet methods that will create livable cities for future generations.

Although urban sprawl is not what I will be focusing on for my sustainability action plan, it leads into an even more

The city’s top three energy goals include increasing overall city energy efficiency by 5%, city building energy efficiency by 10%, and the renewable energy usage by 20 megawatts (City of Chicago, 2015a). Further, since 71% of carbon emissions come from the energy used by buildings in the city (City of Chicago, 2015a), it is unsurprising that government has taken notice. As stated by the City of Chicago (2015a), a goal has been set to increase renewable energy use 25% by the year 2026. Reductions in carbon emissions are not only beneficial in terms of energy efficiency, but they also reduce harm to the environment that can lead to climate change (City of Chicago, 2015a). It is also important to note that increasing energy efficiency can include building new, costly infrastructure that will pay off long-term, or can be as easy as replacing all street lights with energy efficient bulbs. In fact, updating street light energy efficiency is such a simple and cost-effective energy usage reduction tactic, it used in many of the cities we have studied this semester, such as Portland (Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, 2011). It is evident that the City of Chicago (2015a) believes that no sustainable effort is insignificant.

Cities have always been the center of economic growth and development. People like to live the city lifestyle because of its promise for many jobs and prosperity. (L, Katherine) But as we look deeper into the health concerns of Canadian cities, we can find that they are becoming less healthy for citizens to live because of urbanization, pollution and poor water treatment. Municipalities in Canada should continue to look at solutions in how to make a more sustainable lifestyle to benefit the public health of local citizens.

Sustainability is a broad and increasingly familiar topic in our culture. Sustainable farm-to-fork restaurants have sprung up all over the United States, urban gardening has become a popular habit for those living in the city, and numerous stores have recycling centers and ‘green’ products. What do these things have in common? Each example mentioned above helps resources last for future generations. Farm-to-fork restaurants support local agriculture, which supports dozens of plants growing and purifying the air and our environment. They also minimize fossil fuels released into the air from traveling long distances. Urban gardens help counteract city pollution. Recycling centers cut the amount of waste in landfills, and green products last longer

Goal number 11 is Sustainable Cities and Communities. The purpose of this goal is to help make cities more livable and sustainable by providing affordable housing, investing in transportation, creating public green spaces, and making communities more inclusive. They aim to reach most of their targets by 2030, which includes providing access to housing, upgrading slums, improving transportation and road safety, protect culture and heritage, provide access to green spaces for all, promote inclusiveness, and support the least developed countries all over the world.

You would be surprised at the number of cities all over the world that experience gentrification, albeit gentrification follows the trend of taking place in urban areas. “Until about 2005, most planners and urban theorists regarded gentrification as a local issue. It was first described by Ruth Glass as a neighborhood-scale process of urban transformation. However, as whole cities and whole counties have become gentrified, the scale of the phenomenon now challenges the original concept (“Gentrification: now global! | UrbanPolicy.net”, 2018).” We can see examples of gentrification happening in places all over the globe, for example in places, Sydney, Vancouver, Amsterdam, and Johannesburg just to name a few. Yet as gentrification happens across the globe one thing remains the same there always seems to be an underlying political-economic-social cause of the change. One can begin to recognize this as a stark and undeniable truth when you begin to compare and contract cities miles apart or across the entire globe from each other. Places that you would never even think of being in the juxtaposition of one another. While there is no denying that gentrification has many fruitful gains the questions is who reaps the rewards is it just a select few or does the vast majority benefit? Another concern worth bringing up is the issue of sustainability. How does a

A sustainable city is when harmony is reached between the environment, economy and society. Environmentally, sustainable cities are ecologically friendly by using alternative sources of energy such as solar or wind power. Economically, governments should share a similar decision-making process with institutions and with the public by having a common belief in what should be done by improving sustainability. Sorensen, Marcotullio, and Grant (2004), find that a good decision making process consists of planning and control at the municipal and national political levels which would allow local level functions to become reinforced. Socially, sustainable cities are classless, meaning that there are no social divisions which serve as limits; leading to a more equal society. One of the many ideas would be using mixed housing to remove the class divisions between people. Also, city streets would be walkable, with businesses and services located at close proximity to promote a healthier lifestyle and serve as an alternative to using cars for transportation. The writers differ in their analysis when examining the approaches to improving sustainability in cities. This section will analyze four important ideas on how cities can become more sustainable.

Sustainability is a topic that has become very important in recent years. Sustainability is defined as, “the ability to continue a defined behavior indefinitely.” ("Finding and Resolving the Root Causes of the Sustainability Problem", 2014)

Sustainability is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations” (Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future 1987). The concept of sustainability comprises of four pillars: environmental; economic; political and social; as can be seen in the image below. Environmental sustainability is the use and management of the environment in a way that it does not deplete our finite resources. Economic sustainability is a long term sustainable economy that supports its community and political sustainability is the collaboration of different bodies of government to achieve a sustainable future. Now social sustainability is hard to define as it encapsulates many different factors; however to be very broad it is to achieve social justice. The real objective for sustainability is that all four pillars work together equally in a precautionary principle;

The increasing amount of green house gases (GHG) released in the atmosphere is causing significant changes in the environment leading to unpredictable weather patterns and warming of the climate system is putting a great pressure on city development and infrastructures. This essay outlines three problems caused by climate change in urban areas, and evaluates the effectiveness of some of the mitigation and adaptation strategies. This essay reasons that mitigation and adaptation strategies need to work in synergy in order to address the situation effectively.

Urbanization, which is becoming a buzzword during the last few decades, is enlarging at a booming speed. It is predicted that 93 percents urban growth will occur to the year 2020, in the developing world (Elliot J.A, 1999). Generally speaking, more than half of the people around the world have been moved to cities, which led to a series of “matters” connected with people’s life that changed in a dramatical way. In this period, sustainable development, another buzzword during the past few years, came into people’s view and gradually became the mainstream of society development. Its definition is to make the development continue in a long term, which means allowing appropriate economic growth and industrialization without