This analysis of sustainable cities has four parts:

1. This page, which introduces the issues of sustainability as it relates to cities and sets up the question of how to address these issues from multiple views. You will select three of the views that we have used this term to examine these issues.

2. Review the views that we have used in this class.

list and explanation of the different views

3. Links to a case studies on sustainable city initiatives. Pick one.

San Jose, California - http://www.sustainable.doe.gov/success/sust_city.shtml

Chattanooga, Tennessee - http://www.sustainable.doe.gov/articles/cinder.shtml

4. The application assignment for unit 4. This application assignment has much more detailed instructions and examples than previous application assignments.

 

Sustainable Cities

Cities, even healthy cities, face an enormous challenge in becoming sustainable. The origin of cities was as a nexus for trade which meant they relied on import and export of goods and energy. The cities used to be a control point for these activities, now they are the center for trade and the source of most of the consumption as well. Changing from a net consumer of energy and material to being more self sufficient will require fundamental changes in the operation.

Another challenge to cities and the economy that they represent, is to acknowledge that there are real limits to the size of a city and that growth can't simply continue. There is substantial confusion between being "sustainable" and supporting "sustainable growth". Because growth concepts are so closely tied to economic health, many promoters of sustainable communities have assumed that it will require some continued level of economic growth.A key distinction in this debate may be the concept of "sustainable development", where development means an improvement in conditions rather than simple growth.

Principles for sustainable cities

Many different sets of principles have been developed in order to guide cities toward sustainability. Portland published their "Sustainable City Principles" in November 1994. These principles defines the goal, the principles and specifies how city elected officials will act and use resources. This level of detail makes it very clear what the responsibilities of the city are. For a list of these principles, please see:

http://www.sustainableportland.org/Sustainable%20City%20Principles.pdf

Although these principles and city histories are interesting area on their own, we are going to focus on examining these studies of sustainability from multiple views.

Sustainability initiatives have to operate on many fronts

Programs that promote sustainability have to address many issues including, materials and energy balance, creating networks of industries, strategies under uncertainty, public perception and choice, and building institutions to regulate and enforce new rules. Each of these issues suggest different problem solving approaches (i.e. views). For example, the problem of finding a balance between energy production and use suggests a possible steady state solution when viewed with a systems approach. This is only the first step in analyzing energy sustainability however, the problem would also have to be considered from other approaches such as how people and businesses would choose to save energy and how institutions could be constructed to provide incentives for conserving power or finding alternative energy sources. Any true solution will have to bring together multiple views and integrate them into a coherent story. The different views won't necessarily converge into one simple image of a solution, and in fact you should expect that the multiple views will always highlight different aspects of the problem. The challenge for us is to make sense of these multiple views without simplifying away the interesting details.

go to step 2: Review the summary of the four different "viewers" that have been used in this course.

References