Jonathan Barnett - Ecodesign for Cities and Suburbs

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Ecodesign for Cities and Suburbs

Jonathan Barnett and Larry Beasley

Copyright 2015 Jonathan Barnett and Larry Beasley

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher: Island Press, 2000 M Street, NW, Suite 650, Washington, DC 20036

Island Press is a trademark of Island Press/Center for Resource Economics.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014954410

Printed on recycled, acid-free paper

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Keywords: alternative energy sources, balanced transportation, bicycle and pedestrian access, bicycle facilities, building massing and orientation, Bus Rapid Transit, climate change, edges, high speed rail, mixed-use development, multifamily site design, open-space and landscape design, parking, pedestrian network, solar access, street design, street network, suburban commercial development, suburban retrofits, sustainability, transportation, urban design, urban growth, urban parks, urban planning, urban policy, walkable communities, zoning

To Nory

Jonathan Barnett

To my partner, Sandy, first and foremost

To my mentor, Ray

To my friend, Bob

and

In memory of Miss Marion Campbell

Larry Beasley

Contents

Ecodesign: Changing the Urban Growth Model

A great irony of modern times: As the majority of people in the world have shifted to living in cities, we have evolved a form of city that is not very hospitable to our everyday needs. As we blanket the world with these cities, we have evolved a form of urbanization that is not compatible with our environment. Our settlements and their settings are in a state of profound contradiction. The more people move to cities and suburbs, the less satisfactory they become, and they place increasing stress on the operating system of our whole planet. Ultimately, this is a dangerous situation.

Legislation and public awareness of sustainability have produced big improvements in air and water quality, but there are still massive problems, especially with carbon emissions. There is huge skepticism about whether it is possible to do anything about these problems without hurting the economy and making it difficult to accommodate necessary growth.

New kinds of urban design plans and guidelines that shape development, preserve and restore older areas, and construct well-liked public places have made many cities more livable; but most real-estate investment still produces routine structures that do little to create attractive places, and urban growth continues to destabilize the natural landscape and spread out cities far more than is necessary.

In developed countries, new construction almost always takes place after a complicated and often contentious official approval process. What then gets built frequently follows simplistic development templates that ignore the rich diversity of human needs and the complex forces of the natural environment. Too often, people assume that political gridlock and real-estate market forces make a more sustainable and livable growth model impossible.

We dont agree, for two reasons.

First of all, urban growth is produced by the interaction of many component parts, and each of these components has been significantly improved somewhere. If all these improvements could be put together, they would produce a far different and superior growth pattern. Some places have gone further and now have improved growth templates already in operation, at least at a district level. In this book, we have assembled the component parts of a superior growth model from innovations that have already become reality. The political and economic feasibility of the examples we describe has thus already been established.

Our second reason is that climate scientists, who once warned about changes by the end of this century, now tell us that significant change is under way right now, bringing more and bigger storm surges to coastal and river cities, more droughts endangering food supplies and causing drinking-water shortages, and more forest fires in inhabited areas. Adapting to climate changes already under way and preventing the worst future climate change scenarios make protecting natural systems and reshaping real-estate development an immediate, urgent problem, not just an issue for future generations.

An Example of Improved Sustainability and City Design

In one place, at least, an improved growth model started with a very simple idea: to bring homes and workplaces closer together. Back in the 1980s in Vancouver, on Canadas west coast, in a delta crisscrossed by branches of its river and by many inlets from the sea, there was a big worry about huge costs for new roads and bridges. Civic leaders decided it would be cheaper and easier to cluster population growth into a few dense town centers than pay for the expensive infrastructure needed to support sprawl. They believed that this was especially relevant in the inner city where most jobs were located. This inner city sits on a large peninsula, and it had lots of room to grow by replacing obsolete rail yards and industrial areas. The idea took off and morphed into a rich and full vision of a fresh way to live in North America, adding progressive notions about livability, environmental compatibility, fiscal management, entrepreneurial governance, and inclusive public engagement as well as an emphasis on elegant urban design. Then, in the early 1990s, an influx of new investment turned these ideas into action, and the whole inner city was quickly and dramatically transformed, creating what has been popularly dubbed Vancouverism.