The Environment And Governance Of Modern Cities

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.

This shows that if planning is not stable or management planning - urban good also affect the sustainability of the project.

The three pillars are environmental, social and economically sustainability. However in this report, environmental sustainability will be brought to light, the two other pillars will be trivial. In order for environmental sustainability to be defined, general sustainability must be defined. Sustainability is the ability to continue a defined behaviour indefinitely (Thwink.org, 2015). For the environment, there are three aspects which must be sustained for, renewable resources, non-renewable resources and pollution. Therefore, environmental sustainability is the degree of pollution emission, renewable resource production and non-renewable resource consumption that can be continued indefinitely for future use. CAROBN

The Eco-City Charter serves as a document to guide City leaders and residents towards a more sustainable, holistic, and healthy environment (City of Alexandria, 2010). Ecologically, the charter ensures that all parts of the natural and built environments work together as a single ecological system; economically, it ensures a healthy economy that supports and sustains people and the environment in which they live over the long-term; and socially; it ensures that a community meets residents’ basic needs and has the resiliency to prevent and/or address problems in the future (City of Alexandria, 2010).

Bigio, G and Dahiya, B, (2004) “Urban Environment and Infrastructure towards Livable Cities.” The World Bank, USA.

Network City 2005 emphasizes on the importance of the efficiency of land use and infrastructure (compact and interconnected city), protection of the environment and heritage, efficiency of energy resource usage, and increasing community cohesiveness. While the State Sustainability Strategy provide a framework on plan making in order to in line with the vision, goals and strategy to achieve sustainability. The other document which is liveable neighborhoods ed. 3 provides guidance in developing regions that emphasizing on the convenience and safety for pedestrians by creating an interconnected environment, maximizing land use, designing more compact residential areas, providing public services and public transport, as well as increasing the community’s sense of place. While The Perry Lake Redevelopment Act 2005 provides specific requirements that must be included in the plan before it is approved by the Minister of

When you think of a very self-sustainable city, what do you imagine it would include? Well, you'd probably think of a place where resources of all kinds are abundant, all aspects of the town are immaculately planned and organized, and above all, the town is very efficient on its own, and is able to maintain the happiness of its residents without the need of help from other locations. Our town works around all these policies, not to mention plenty more. Eco-friendliness is one of the most important characteristics of this town, as there are nearly no workplaces or vehicles that contribute to pollution. Public services are also very important and are available to all citizens. Everything within the town is there to make the city as productive as possible.

In 1990s America, obtaining freedom from governmental control became a social preoccupation. Starting with liberalism’s demand for increased individual freedom, what began as a small movement eventually transformed into a culture-wide fight for social justice and economic growth to create a free market where, ideally, no government would be needed. Activists term this modern movement “neo-liberalism,” or global market liberalism (capitalism), which calls for free-trade policies. While adopting such a system for American cities has been advocated by many people for its economic benefits, it also necessarily creates new relations between the city government and the residents who live there, which in turn affects the urban environment and social relations within the city. The question is a persistent one in our place and time: to globalize, or not to globalize?

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.

The process of people moving into cities, which is called urbanisation, was happening around the world in past decades. It causes cities to have more labourers and resources than before. This makes a big contribution to the social development of cities. Thanks to these social developments, public services are becoming better in these areas. Citizens can enjoy a better life by access these public services such as better medical care, more education resources and well-built transport. It means an equitable society can be created. An equitable society means citizens can have more opportunities to access social resources and to live a better life. This essay will argue that

Sustainability, a common vocab being used in design industry nowadays. It is mean to design something with a well consideration of improve environment, people and economic, which has become the fundamental aspect when comes to initiate the design thinking. According to Oxford Institute for sustainable development, the tools to measure and construct sustainable urban development are prejudicial focus on environmental and economic aspects. Most of the time, ecological and economical sustainability are well concerned but Social sustainable, which merely shown or mentioned on any press or architect’s forum. This essay will talk about the social sustainability in design, by defining the social sustainability in design, the key elements of the

Social sustainability is one of the four pillars of sustainability. It is the least clearly defined as it changes with time, the economy, the environment and political situations. With so many factors that affect it, it is as important as the other three pillars (environmental, economic and political) and should therefore be given the same treatment and attention. This essay will define sustainability, define social sustainability, discuss one key principle about social sustainability and relate social sustainability to planning.

Ten themes highlighted in Aalborg Commitments (Figure 1), involved engaging municipalities and citizens in the vision for sustainability city. This shared long-term vision can be seen through the first commitment of the Aalborg Commitments (ICLEI, 2004). Commitments two refer to implementation of effective management cycle by collaboration with European Sustainable Cities & Towns Campaign as an agency to evaluate the progress of the city who had signed the Aalborg Commitment towards sustainable city. The third, fourth and tenth commitments are focused on protecting environment (renewable resource, air, water, agriculture, forest) and reducing global problem (ICLEI, 2004). While, commitment five includes the agreement on having strategic role for urban planning and design which include balancing social needs (job, house, good facilities) with environment (ICLEI, 2004). Commitment six committed on having better mobility to reduce impact of gas emitted from transport on the environment and public health (ICLEI, 2004). Commitment seven hints at bringing into account the citizens health by promoting city health development planning (ICLEI, 2004). While, the eighth commitments focus on having sustainable local economy by actively promote sustainable local tourism and encourage local market. Finally, commitment nine secures the good quality of community in terms of safety, security and comfortable life (ICLEI, 2004).

In this book Lynch defines that performance of the city can be measured by reference to its spatial form. But the quality of a place is depends upon combined effect of place and the society which occupies that place. Here Lynch sets up new dimensions for performance in his own criteria. Author also expresses his approach on size of the city, conservation and growth, planning practices and utopian models. The dimensions which are demonstrated in this book may not be fully perfect but of course they combine all social values as well as physical values. Lynch believed that these described dimensions must cover all features of all forms of the settlements and all these dimensions should be usable where values are different.

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