Building Resilient Cities

 Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUEi5K6r2xs

Sustainable New Urban Mobility

“Sustainable New Urban Mobility” This month we interviewed Philipp Rode, Executive Director of LSE Cities and Senior Research Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science. We have asked him to talk about their recent report "Towards New Urban Mobility" and what their findings mean for the future of mobility in the EU. You can read the full interview by following the link below. We also recommend reading the report itself. EUKN: You described three types of trends towards new urban mobility, i.e. international base or national base? Which of the trends are more decisive and why? Rode: Describing an international trend approach, which gives us a broader view of transport. I sometimes describe it as an Schizophrenic situation: we are seeing at the moment, clearly on a  global level,  we are very much in a period of rapid motorization. Particularly in a development world context, emerging economies, more cars are being sold i.e. emerging wealth levels, which has shifted towards a type of  motorised mobility. Which in many OECD countries and cities have already experienced its peak over the last ten/fifteen years. At that point there is no longer an increase in an motorisation  perspective. ...   Read interview

News New Urban Agenda is getting shape Radicalisation as an urban issue Related articles EUKN works on the evaluation of the Leipzig Charter SCP research on poverty in the Netherlands EUKN Statement on Brussels terrorist attacks and cancelled event

Urban Mobility Publications

Towards new Urban Mobility   Changes in urban mobility no longer follow traditional patterns of motorisation and policy makers need to embrace an increasing number of alternatives, including cycling and walking as main modes of travel, bike and car sharing, multimodal travel options and electric vehicles. Smartphone applications now support people’s travel decisions as they move through the city, opening up possibilities for smarter mobility services that respond flexibly to user needs. Read more Smart mobility trends - Reducing congestion New business models inspired by the sharing economy and disruptive technologies are ushering in an exciting new age in transportation: the era of smart mobility. The arrival of on-demand ride services like Uber and Lyft, real-time ridesharing services such as Carma, carsharing programs such as Zipcar and car2go, bike sharing programs, and thousands of miles of new urban bike lanes are all changing how people get around. Read more

Practical Green Infrastructure Solution to Alleviate Nation’s Water Woes

by GBE FACTS

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NRDC analysis illustrates the potential for billions of gallons of rainwater falling on eight U.S. cities to be harvested every year

As America’s expanding urban areas struggle with major water supply shortages and runoff pollution problems, capturing rainwater from rooftops provides a tremendous untapped opportunity to increase water supply and improve water quality, according to a recent analysis on “Capturing Rainwater from Rooftops” by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

In its report, NRDC demonstrates the benefits and potential of rooftop rainwater capture, a “green infrastructure” practice that can be used to retain stormwater runoff on-site, by analyzing ways in which eight diverse U.S. cities could incorporate this simple water collection approach. By comparing annual rainfall totals to rooftop coverage, NRDC determined that opportunities exist in each city to capture hundreds of millions of gallons of rainfall every year for reuse. By doing so, residents of these communities would obtain inexpensive onsite water supplies for non-potable uses, such as yard watering and toilet flushing; reduce runoff pollution; and would lower energy costs associated with treating and delivering drinkable-quality water.

“Our analysis shows that solutions to one of America’s biggest urban challenges are right in front of us – in this case, literally falling from the sky,” said Noah Garrison, lead author of the report and NRDC water policy analyst. “The potential exists for cities throughout the U.S. to capture hundreds of millions or even billions of gallons of rainwater each year from urban rooftops. We encourage policymakers to look closely at the bottom-line benefits of rooftop rainwater harvesting, and consider implementing policies and incentives that generate more momentum for rainwater collection while making the practice more accessible as well.”

Specifically, NRDC’s report illustrates opportunities for capturing, treating and supplying harvested rainwater for non-potable purposes in Atlanta, Ga.; Austin, Texas; Chicago, Ill.; Denver, Colo.; Fort Myers, Fla.; Kansas City, Mo.; Madison, Wisc.; and Washington, D.C. Several success stories also demonstrate the effectiveness of rooftop rainwater capture for new construction in New York, N.Y., and redeveloped buildings in Santa Monica, Calif. The total annual volume of rainwater falling on rooftops in these cities alone, if captured in its entirety, would be enough to meet the water supply needs of at least 21 percent to as much as 75 percent of each city’s population.

The report comes as the Environmental Protection Agency is in the process of updating its national standards for controlling runoff pollution from new development and existing paved areas. NRDC encourages the agency to adopt national standards for on-site stormwater retention that will increase green infrastructure approaches such as rainwater harvesting. As a result, communities can effectively transform polluted runoff flowing to our waterways into captured rooftop rainwater used as an on-site water supply resource.

“Urban areas struggling with water supply issues and runoff pollution should look to this report for ideas and encouragement,” said Jon Devine, senior attorney in NRDC’s water program.

NRDC encourages cities and states to develop policy options and incentives to encourage more rainwater harvesting. These include:

• Adopt storm water pollution control standards that require on-site volume retention.
• Adopt standards that require or promote rainwater harvesting and/or water efficiency.
• Review building, health and plumbing codes for barriers to reusing rainwater.
• Provide incentives for decreasing storm water runoff and promoting water conservation.
• Require use of rainwater harvesting on all public properties.

The complete NRDC report is available HERE.
For more information on rooftop rainwater capture, please see Noah Garrison’s blog.
Photo: Steve Crane

Source: http://greenbuildingelements.com/2012/02/14/capturing-rainwater-from-rooftops-report-spotlights-practical-green-infrastructure-solution-to-alleviate-nations-water-woe

• http://www.sustainablecitiescollective.com/grmeyers/35605/capturing-rainwater-rooftops-report-spotlights-practical-green-infrastructure-solutio

Livable Communities through Urban Forestry

By Suzanne H. Crowhurst Lennard, Ph.D.(Arch.), Director, IMCL

PART 1

WHY WE NEED TREES IN THE CITY

We know intuitively that we need trees in our cities. They enhance the public realm, provide shade, cool the air in summer, frame our experience of the city, and make the city more beautiful.

Most historic cities – especially in Europe – are graced by the presence of many trees. But it has been quite a fight to get modern architects and planners to accept these untidy, unruly, objects as co-inhabitants in the urban realm.

Modern cities around the world have been built as agglomerations of “objects in space”. Buildings are as large as possible to maximize real estate investment opportunities. Open space is used to showcase the architects’ daredevil, artistic, or outrageous fantasies. Trees would spoil the view, and moreover, they have an annoying habit of scattering their litter hither and thither in the fall.

Older, wealthy residential neighborhoods are usually filled with trees, and yet the poorest neighborhoods lack parks and street trees.

In our efforts to bring more trees into our cities, we have a great, new ally – Pope Francis – who in his encyclical[1] affirms: “We were not meant to be inundated by cement, asphalt, glass and metal, and deprived of physical contact with nature.“

The Pope speaks out against consumerist global development that benefits the economy at the expense not only of the poor – but of the earth: “…the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor.”

Scientific Evidence:

Scientists in all manner of research fields – public health, pollution analysis, landscape architecture, child development, ecology, biology, etc … by now have published a plethora of research findings that show we humans need trees and other forms of nature in our lives in order to keep healthy; and that it is detrimental to the health of the earth to build cities without nature[2].

Air Pollution:

In highly air polluted areas (areas with high PM 2.5) you have about three times the rate of asthma, aggravation of heart or lung disease and premature mortality. The main causes are vehicles, industry, mining, and construction.

In Los Angeles, when the 405 freeway was closed, air quality improved 75% around the freeway, 25% across the region[3]. Now, it might be nice to solve this problem by closing all our freeways – but that would be a very long-term solution, if at all possible – involving re-planning our cities as “cities of short distances” and encouraging more people to accept alternate transportation modes. But in the short term, we need to get trees to help us.

Many studies show that trees remove air pollution[4] . This is of particular value in street canyons where vegetation can reduce particulate matter by as much as 60%.  AMEC Foster Wheeler [5] won an IMCL award at the 52^nd IMCL Conference for their work for the Greater London Authority illustrating how green infrastructure could improve air quality along some of London’s most polluted roads. In canyons, upper canopy trees are avoided because they can trap pollution below them, but more slender trees, as well as bushes and green walls can be invaluable.

Pine trees are especially effective – their needles pick up more particles than broad leafed trees[6]. Since particulates are heavier than air, pollution is worst close to the ground. Low bushes are therefore very efficient for cleaning the air for bicyclists and pedestrians, especially children.

Biodiversity:

Trees are keystone supports for wildlife habitat for breeding, shelter, and food. But a tree cannot be an ISLAND. One tree cannot provide all the food needed to support diverse birds, squirrels, and insects, so trees have to be linked to other trees, bushes, plants, flowers, and the earth.

We need to increase biodiversity in our cities[7]. Urban wildlife corridors are required to support the interaction of multiple species, supply diverse food sources, and provide safe routes for wildlife. This helps avoid habitat fragmentation, and territorial problems.

Not all trees are created equal. ‘Oaks benefit everything from caterpillars to songbirds. Even fish prosper, because the aquatic invertebrates they feed on favor oak leaves on stream bottoms’ reports Richard Conniff[8]. According to Douglas Tallamy, a University of Delaware entomologist, who published a ranking of trees and shrubs according to how many caterpillar species they harbor, In contrast to oaks, which accommodate 537 species, gingkoes host just three. Willows support over 450 species, including insects that provide food for birds.

Gingkoes may host just 3 species of caterpillars, but that is not to say we should ban gingkoes and other non-native trees from our streets entirely because they certainly are magnificently beautiful in the fall.

Beauty:

Beauty is also important. Where would Washington DC be without the Japanese cherry trees? And Portland’s Japanese garden would certainly be the poorer without the beautiful Japanese maple. And of course, beauty plays an important role in sustaining our psychological well-being.

Health:

We have known for many centuries that trees contribute to health and well-being. Hundreds of spa towns throughout Europe attest to this knowledge – and many of these spas have existed since Roman times. The treatment “prescription” that an Italian patient is given includes not only drinking the water, and taking mud baths, but also walking amid beautiful architecture in the park at Montecatini Terme and breathing deeply.

And a German patient may be prescribed treatment at Baden-Baden and told to take the waters, listen to the music at the café in the park, and take long walks beneath the massive trees along the banks of the rippling stream.

Numerous studies show that the availability of parks and green spaces increases the likelihood of physical exercise, and this results in better physical health, both for young and old[9].

Even the sight of a tree from one’s hospital room increases recovery from surgery[10] ,  and Kuo[11] has shown that a view of trees from one’s apartment reduces crime & aggression.

Almost all trees have medicinal properties[12] . The bark of the willow contains salicin, similar to the active ingredient in aspirin.  Eucalyptus is renowned for its antiseptic, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties

Neighborhoods with more trees:

Research shows that the more trees you have in your neighborhood, and the larger the trees are, the better you rate your own health. Moreover, you are correct – because people living in neighborhoods with more and bigger trees have significantly fewer cardio-metabolic conditions[13].

While some trees produce a lot of pollen, and thus cause asthma, it has been found that in neighborhoods with more diverse trees[14], there is reduced asthma in kids.

In neighborhoods with more trees, mothers are significantly less likely to deliver undersized babies[15] , according to studies in 2011 by Geoffrey Donovan. This may in part have to do with reduced levels of stress. Being in green places among trees also protects emotional well-being in young and old[16].

Child development:

There is a tremendous amount of research on how all aspects of child development are affected by their access to trees and green areas. For example, play in nature improves balance & coordination[17] .

Contact with nature expands children’s sensory faculties and cognitive capacity[18] . Learning about nature requires a larger vocabulary than possibly any other subject (except, perhaps, learning about humans). Contact with nature has been shown to improve children’s concentration[19]  and emotional resilience[20].

Play in nature has been shown to encourage more social play[21] , and reduce[22] and relieve[23]  incidence of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Play in nature also teaches responsibility and nurturing skills[24]  according to Cobb. 

Biophilia:

Edmund Wilson coined the term biophilia, explaining that bonding with nature that is alive – birds, animals, insects, and human beings increases love for the earth, sense of awe, and desire to protect the earth[25] .  At every age, we all feel more alive and enjoy life more when we are in touch with other living things.

Since trees are the cornerstone for biodiversity, we need trees to flourish in order for all other life to flourish.

Trees mediate air temperature:

“Large parks or residential neighborhoods with extensive vegetation can produce air temperature reductions as great as 10deg.F compared to nearby areas with little vegetation” according to McPherson and Simpson [26]. Trees shade buildings in summer and admit sun in winter reducing energy demands[27]. A large front yard tree can save about 9% of a typical home’s total air conditioning costs by shading the building from the afternoon sun and cooling the air around the building.

As a result of this air cooling effect, trees shape social life in public.  Outdoor cafes and restaurants benefit if they can take advantage of shade from trees in hot summer months. Benches that take advantage of shade will be more popular in the summer than those with no shade. In winter, the opposite is true.

Tree shade may also encourage spontaneous conversations in public: people are more likely to pause to talk if they are comfortable walking through a tree-shaded square on a summer day than if they are walking across the same square without trees; conversely, they are more likely to pause to converse if the square is sunny on a cold autumn or spring day. This argues for deciduous trees.

Trees hide ugly buildings:

Trees also offer us the most delightful advantage of hiding ugly buildings. I would have a lot of work for them if only they would grow taller!!!

                

This talk was presented at the Livable Communities through Urban Forestry Conference in Washington DC, August 6, 2015 by Suzanne H. Crowhurst Lennard, Ph.D. (Arch.), Director, International Making Cities Livable Conferences.

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[1]  http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html

[2] Kardan, O. et al. Neighborhood greenspace and health in a large urban center. Sci. Rep. 5, 11610; doi: 10.1038/srep11610 (2015).

[3]  Arthur Winer, Yifang Zhu and Suzanne Paulson. Carmageddon or Carmaheaven? Air Quality Results of a Freeway Closure. http://www.accessmagazine.org/articles/spring-2014/carmageddon-carmaheaven-air-quality-results-freeway-closure/

[4]  Nowak, D. J., Crane, D. E. & Stevens, J. C. Air pollution removal by urban trees and shrubs in the United States. Urban forestry & urban greening 4, 115–123 (2006)
Nowak, D. J., Hirabayashi, S., Bodine, A. & Greenfield, E. Tree and forest effects on air quality and human health in the United States. Environmental Pollution 193, 119–129 (2014).
 http://www.fs.fed.us/nrs/pubs/jrnl/2014/nrs_2014_nowak_001.pdf

[5] http://www.buildingcentre.co.uk/project/a-green-street-vision

[6]  Pugh, T. A. M., MacKenzie, A. R., Whyatt, J. D., Hewitt, C. N.: Effectiveness of Green Infrastructure for Improvement of Air Quality in Urban Street Canyons, Environ. Sci. Tech., 46, 7692-7699, http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es300826w  , 2012.
See also http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18873391   and http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/121-a14/

[7]http://e360.yale.edu/feature/urban_nature_how_to_foster_biodiversity_in_worlds_cities/2725/

[8] http://e360.yale.edu/feature/urban_nature_how_to_foster_biodiversity_in_worlds_cities/2725/

[9]  Richardson, E.A.; Pearce, J,; Mitchell, R.; & Kingham, S. 2013. Role of physical activity in the relationship between urban green space and health. Public Health: doi: 10.1016/j.puhe.2013.01.004.
Epstein, Leonard H., S. Raja, S. Gold, R. Paluch, Y. Pak and James Roemmich  (2006). “Reducing Sedentary Behavior: The Relationship between Park Area and the Physical Activity of Youth.” Psychological Science, Vol 17, Issue 8: 654-659.

[10]  Ulrich RS. (1984) “View through a window may influence recovery from surgery.” Science.  224: 420-421

[11]  Kuo, Frances and Sullivan, William C., (2001). Aggression and Violence in the Inner City. Effects of Environment via Mental Fatigue. Environment & Behavior, Vol 33 No. 4. 543-571

[12]  http://treedoctorkc.com/how-trees-work-for-us/

[13] Kardan, O. et al. Neighborhood greenspace and health in a large urban center. Sci. Rep. 5, 11610; doi: 10.1038/srep11610 (2015).

[14]  Cariñanos, P., & Casares-Porcel, M. (2011). Urban green zones and related pollen allergy: A review. Some guidelines for designing spaces with low allergy impact. Landscape and Urban Planning, 101(3), 205–214

[15] http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2011/01/more_trees_in_a_city_bring_sur.html

[16]  Huynh, Q et al (2013). Exposure to public natural space as a protective factor for emotional well-being among young people in Canada. BMC Public Health. 2013 Apr 29;13:407. doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-13-407.

[17]  Grahn P., Martensson, F., Lindblad, B., Nilsson, P., & Ekman, A. (1997) “Ute på Dagis (Out in the Preschool)”. Stad and Land 145. Håssleholm, Sweden: Nora Skåne Offset
Fjortoft, I. (2001) “The Natural environment as a playground for children.” Early Childhood Education Journal 29 (3): 111-117.

[18]  Kellert, S. R., (2002). “Experiencing Nature: Affective, Cognitive, and Evaluative Development in Children.” In Kahn P, Kellert S eds. Children and Nature. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press

[19]  Wells, N. (2000) “At Home with Nature: Effects of ‘greenness’ on children’s cognitive functioning.” Environment and Behavior 32 (6): 775-795.

[20] Wells, N. & Evans. G. (2003) “Nearby nature: A buffer of life stress among rural children.” Environment and Behavior 35 (3): 311-330.

[21]  Kirkby, M. (1989) “Nature as Refuge in Children’s Environments.” Children’s Environments Quarterly 6 (1): 7-12.

[22]  Faber T. A  (2001) “Coping with ADD: The Surprising Connection to Green Play Settings.” Environment and Behavior. 22

[23] Kuo, F., & Faber Taylor, A. (2004). “A potential natural treatment for Attention- Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Evidence from a national study.” American Journal of Public Health, 94(9), 1580-1586.

[24]  Cobb E. (1977). The Ecology of Imagination in Childhood. New York: Columbia University Press

[25]  Wilson, Edward O. (1984). Biophilia. The Human Bond with other Species. Cambridge, MA & London, UK. Harvard University Press

[26]  McPherson, G. and J.R. Simpson, 1995. Shade trees as a demand-side resource. Home Energy Magazine. 12(2) (March/April). Available online at http://www.homeenergy.org/show/article/year/1995/magazine/90/id/1115

[27]  Pandit, R. & Laband, D. (2010). Energy Savings from Tree Shade. Ecological Economics 69 1324-1329

PART 2 

STRATEGIES FOR INCREASING THE URBAN FOREST

Parks are not the only way to increase the number of trees in the city, and the access to green areas. And indeed, the concept of the park – where it is, how large, what shape, and whether wild or cultivated - needs a little rethinking. Urban waterways, green streets, green buildings, community gardens also provide strategies for increasing the urban forest and access to nature.

 

Parks:
More important than just more, bigger parks is how accessible a park is. It is not sufficient to draw a quarter mile radius around the periphery of a park to determine how many people that park serves. Some large parks may be fenced, with only one or two entrances, so a quarter mile walk from that entrance may only reach a handful of homes. On the other hand, a small strip park alongside a stream in a densely populated area in the center of the city may offer easy access to thousands of families living within a quarter mile walk.



More trees and parks in poor neighborhoods:
The great scandal in the US is that while white and more affluent communities often have many old-growth trees and are well supplied with parks, low-income and ethnic neighborhoods have fewer parks[1] . This inequality clearly contributes to the lower health levels in poor neighborhoods. Poor neighborhoods are in greater need of street trees, and easy access to parks and community gardens than are wealthier neighborhoods. Following Kardan’s suggestions[2], one powerful way to make a city healthier would be to plant 10 trees per block in poor neighborhoods.

Create Green Fingers:

We need to follow the examples of new neighborhoods such as Vauban, in Freiburg, Germany that connect the green places, for the sake of humans and biodiversity. A small stream running along the southern edge of the Vauban neighborhood is protected as a natural area, and from this, three green fingers reach deep into the neighborhood, providing undisturbed natural habitat, natural play areas for different ages, and simple community areas for barbecues and social events.


The city of Portland is justly proud of its Park Blocks that run almost continuously for 17 blocks north to south through the city center. This extensive linear park contains 335 mature elm, oak, and maple trees and a rich assortment of wildlife, as well as human life. Portland is attempting to create additional natural corridors by linking neighborhood parks with green streets. The ultimate aim is to enable these green streets to function as biodiversity corridors.

Restore Urban Waterways:
Many of our cities used the river as their industrial heart. Rivers and river banks became polluted, unsuitable both for nature and for humans. Many cities have made major efforts to reclaim the industrial banks and clean the rivers, but there is much still to do. Trees such as willows need to be planted to help foster biodiversity, and to reconnect the regenerative power of the land-water interface. Ljubljana just won title of 2016 Green Capital of Europe in large part for their admirable restoration of their river banks.

Streams are biodiversity corridors but most streams in our cities have been channeled underground so as not to interfere with our use of the surface for construction and car access. Wherever possible we should try to bring them back to the surface as urban streams.

This has been accomplished in numerous European cities and towns. Freiburg, Germany uncovered the tiny streams called Bächle that run off the Black Forest through the streets of the old city, and these are now used to paddle in, and cool hot feet in the summer. The university town of Tübingen, Germany uncovered a stream that ran through the historic heart of the city. It now helps to cool the air in summer.

In slightly less dense urban areas it is possible to restore the stream’s natural banks. The reconstructed town of Plessis-Robinson, just south of Paris has restored streams and lakes as a central feature of their development, creating walkways, parks, and gardens along the banks.

 

Green Streets:
Streets are potential green fingers and biodiversity corridors. A few trees can encourage social life on the street. More trees, diverse trees, and a mix of bushes, earth, and rainwater ditches can foster greater species diversity. Street trees also help clean the air.

In Vauban, Freiburg, the narrow residential streets are an extension of the green fingers. These are Wohnstrasse (Living Streets), intended for children’s play, bikes and pedestrians. The only reason a vehicle is allowed in is for delivery or emergency access. Only handicapped residents are allowed to park there. Permeable stone lined rainwater channels are provided by the city, and residents may choose what tree they want in the strip owned by the city.

Vauban also has a network of traffic-free bike/pedestrian lanes through the most heavily wooded sections of the development.
Green pedestrian networks are also needed into and around the city center, to provide healthy pedestrian commuter routes. Almost every small town in England has a fine web of almost secret green rights of way that weave into the town center, nipping between houses and along the banks of streams in the suburban areas, through city blocks and along the borders of parks in the city center. Poundbury has created such a wealth of these pedestrian short cuts that the streets themselves sometimes seem deserted.

In Krakow, Poland a major pedestrian commuter route leads into the city center through a park.

In quiet neighborhoods, such as Carmel, or Berkeley, California trees also perform a grand job of calming traffic. This is a model easily adopted by residential neighborhoods.

Arterial roads carrying a great deal of traffic are in major need of greening to reduce pollution and slow traffic. This is especially important when the roads have stores and residential buildings on either side that require the ability to easily and safely cross the street. In these situations, even roads carrying heavy traffic need to widen sidewalks, add buffered bike lanes, reduce the number and width of traffic lanes, add crosswalks and roundabouts, and plant trees.

 

Green Buildings:
Trees can also help to provide green walls and roofs. In addition to climbers and vines trained on a scaffold across a façade, fruit trees have traditionally been grown in this way. Just imagine, leaning out of your bedroom window and picking a fresh pear for breakfast!

Trees can also be grown on roofs and terraces. Green roofs improve biodiversity, slow rainwater and keep buildings cool. Even green arbors, vines, small trees and gardens in pots on roof terraces – as can be seen on every other rooftop in Rome - help to cool the atmosphere, without requiring immensely high-tech structural solutions.


The most successful and well-tested projects I have seen are those by the artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser. The Hundertwasser House in Vienna is public housing commissioned by the City. It is human scale – 5 and 6 stories – with gardens and trees on terraces and on the roofs. The building is beloved by residents and tourists.

Hundertwasser has designed dozens of buildings all over Europe, but perhaps his most ambitious project is Bad Blumenau, an extensive spa village in Eastern Austria. Each building is a little hill, covered with grass and trees, creating a rolling green landscape. Here, the spa park is atop the buildings.

-Trees in Urban Public Places
We have a huge need in North America to rebuild community, regenerate a social network and increase democratic dialogue and civic engagement. This is important for many reasons, including the social and physical health of the population. Preventative action on the level of creating a healthy environment would also save billions of dollars in health care expenses.

Researchers in public health and social science have discovered that when people are tied into a rich daily pattern of face-to-face interaction with friends, familiars and neighbors, they do not fall ill so often, if they get sick it is not so serious, and they live to a riper old age. They have what is called a strong “Social Immune System”. 

It is a central tenet of IMCL that we desperately NEED more Community Places – squares and piazzas that generate social interaction. It is absolutely essential to bring people together, to build community in neighborhoods, to facilitate civic engagement and strengthen social immune systems.


Trees are an essential tool for achieving that goal. They shape social life.

In a community place, a tree creates the ideal location for an outdoor cafe or restaurant, or for public benches where elders can sit and watch the children playing, or lovers can embrace. A broad canopied tree filtering the sunlight will enhance a café or restaurant. A smaller tree giving dark shade will provide a cool corner for a couple of benches.

Trees keep the paving cooler. So a square with many trees supports many conversations on the move, peripatetic, as people’s paths cross, while they make errands, commute to and from work.



Whenever we want to bring people together in the city, trees must play a major part. Outdoor farmers markets, like those in Aix-en-Provence, or on Portland’s South Park blocks, benefit from the trees. The plane trees in Aix, and the oak, elm and maple trees in Portland keep the produce fresh, and make the market even more inviting for humans.

Munich’s Viktualienmarkt, a combination of a vast farmers market and beer garden, at the heart of Munich, is magnificently shaded by chestnut trees.

We need more public squares that are free of traffic, where people shop, meet, walk, eat out, meet friends, and enjoy their city, and these squares need trees!

This is the second part of a talk presented at the Livable Communities through Urban Forestry Conference in Washington DC, August 6, 2015 by Suzanne H. Crowhurst Lennard, Ph.D. (Arch.), Director, International Making Cities Livable Conferences.

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[1] Estabrooks PA1, Lee RE, Gyurcsik NC. (2003) Resources for physical activity participation: does availability and accessibility differ by neighborhood socioeconomic status? Ann Behav Med. 2003 Spring;25(2):100-4.
Powell LM, Slater S, Chaloupka FJ, Harper D. Availability of physical activity-related facilities and neighborhood demographic and socioeconomic characteristics: a national study. Am J Public Health. 2006;96:1676–80.

[2]  Kardan, O. et al. Neighborhood greenspace and health in a large urban center. Sci. Rep. 5, 11610; doi: 10.1038/srep11610 (2015).

Source links: 

http://www.livablecities.org/articles/livable-communities-through-urban-forestry-part-1

http://www.livablecities.org/articles/livable-communities-through-urban-forestry-part-2

 

Healthy Streets for Children

By Lamine Mahdjoubi

Lamine Mahdjoubi, Faculty of the Built Environment at the University of the West of England challenged the audience: “A lot of people say that a livable city is one that is livable for children. But as I am going to show, in cities around the world, children are disappearing from our urban environment. I will share with you some of the work we have been doing in looking at the link between child play, health and the built environment. 

“The Good Child Enquiry by the Children Society asked thousands of children throughout the UK “What is your definition of a good life?” The first thing is friendship. Socializing is a very powerful measure of a “good life” for children. The second important thing is play. Play is a powerful catalyst for children to socialize, exercise, etc.” The study also showed that children have fewer friends than before, said Lamine, so there are fewer opportunities for them to socialize. They are spending less time playing out of doors, and more time sitting indoors. Nearly twenty percent of children play outside less than one hour per week.

“Children used to play close to home on the street, so the rise of the car has had the biggest impact on children’s play. And we seem to have become obsessed with the idea that children have to play in ghettoized playgrounds. But our work at the University of the West of England has found that children find playgrounds boring.” Lamine examines the recent changes in patterns of child play nationally, where economic resources are going, and the various barriers to children’s play, including parental attitudes. He then presents his research that compares play in formal playgrounds, with informal play in the street.

He concludes that we have to find a way to make our streets safer and more attractive for children, to entice them back to the street, because this is where children’s health can benefit most from extensive physical activity, and where children can experience the most rewarding social interaction with their friends.

 

Source: http://www.livablecities.org/blog/healthy-streets-children-lamine-mahdjoubi

Loneliness is Life Threatening: We Can Design Cities to Foster Community

From Livale Cities

We urban planners need to stop creating a built environment that is making people sick and causing premature deaths. I am not talking here about the dangers of traffic or pollution, lack of healthy food, or damage to the eco-system. I am talking about how some of the most common forms of urban development – suburban sprawl and vertical high-rise sprawl - cause loneliness, which can lead to depression, chronic inflammation, and life-threatening diseases, including increased risk of cancer. “Loneliness”, says Steve Cole, a genomics researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, “really is one of the most threatening experiences we can have.”

NPR recently reported on a study by Cole published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  Cole noticed that when people felt lonely, they had significantly higher levels of norepinephrine in their blood. Norepinephrine is the chemical that protects us in life-threatening situations, and stimulates the production of white blood cells needed to heal wounds. The problem is, this process also shuts down immune defenses making us more vulnerable to infections.

These chemical reactions in the body may have evolved in prehistoric times when we lived in tribes. A lone individual was vulnerable to attack from animals or hostile tribes. But the human body’s responses are still the same today.

Cole’s study from the field of genomics explains the chemical changes in the body that account for a phenomenon long observed by researchers in public health and social sciences: persons with a strong social network involving daily face-to face interaction with a wide variety of people don’t get sick so often, if they get sick, it isn’t so serious, and they live to a greater old age. Social scientists have concluded that those with strong social networks have built up a strong “social immune system” that protects their mental and physical health.

Social isolation is associated with poor physical and mental health and early death. At its worst extreme, for example, prisoners who are held in social isolation, it is justly deemed torture and can lead to madness, self-immolation and suicide. In its less dramatic and more common situations, such as elders with limited mobility who live alone in a high-rise apartment, or children and youth in sprawling suburbs who are told to go straight home after school, not to play on the street, and to wait home alone for their commuting parents, loneliness can have more subtle, but nonetheless devastating effects on health.

And chronic loneliness may amplify chemicals in the brain associated with fear and anxiety, leading to more social avoidance – a vicious cycle.

So what should urban planners be doing to protect health? Every effort should be made to create a built environment that facilitates the development of social life and community in a safe and hospitable public realm. Social interactions should be facilitated by wide sidewalks, traffic-free or traffic-tamed streets and public squares. The public realm should be enclosed by human-scale buildings providing eyes on the street, and ensuring sunlight at street level. Children and elders should live within eyesight and earshot of people on the street. Streets should be well-populated by local shoppers and pedestrians on their way to school or work. This requires a compact urban fabric for the city center and neighborhood that brings everything within a walking radius, and neighborhoods that are interconnected with public transit so that part of every trip is made on foot in the public realm.

As a recent study on The Effects of the Urban Built Environment on Mental Health by Giulia Melis et al shows, there is less evidence of depression, particularly among women and elders, for those living in the dense heart of Turin, a mixed-use, urban fabric of five and six stories with a vibrant social life in the streets, squares and inner courtyards, compared to less compact peripheral areas of the city. 

This is the way the traditional city was constructed for millennia. Our current aberration of suburban sprawl and vertical sprawl – urban forms invented for the purpose of increasing economic wealth – have produced untold mental and physical ill health by generating loneliness. It is time we designed cities to increase social life, community, and well-being!  

Source link: http://www.livablecities.org/blog/loneliness-life-threatening-we-can-design-cities-foster-community

How to Make an Attractive City

"We've grown good at making many things in the modern world - but strangely the art of making attractive cities has been lost. Here are some key principles for how to make attractive cities once again."

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy4QjmKzF1c

Urban resilience with gardening and sustainable employment hopes

by Stoney Chenal

Not until I moved to the South of Vietnam did I hold a strong idea of raising community gardens in cities. But this place is definitely different from Hanoi where I once spent 3 months to ride bicycles around Hanoi to find land for a community garden. One doesnt have to be very critical to realize that the chance for green jobs in Ho Chi Minh city is boundless.

Amazingly, all of reasons for the idea of urban gardening to be advocated and implemented are good. Starting a garden in the school, students can joyfully escape from existing boring environment and science lessons. Young learners even start growing curiosity and desire to explore the beauty of interconnectedness: every ecological element, such as soil, water, seed-plant-root, animals in the garden and so on, is a part of bigger systems and determine the way one another works. Children and youth grow physically and mentally from getting their hands dirty at the practical and interactive learning environment – that can alone solve many urban problems like internet addiction or street violence. At the household and community levels, the idea of growing your own food is far more than effective to protect human health, especially when food safety and chemical food poisons are no longer big concerns of housewives only. Imagine what can be better way to strengthen relationships between neighborhood members who share common spaces, planning, resources, labor works and benefits. Last but not least, there is no doubt that urban gardens are crucial parts in sustainable urban landscape design. 

Using different sustainable materials such as coconut and bamboo, architects find more fun and skillful in designing green spaces for the city.

In short, this is a win-win solution: for human and for nature. My question was that once it is this important, in what further term, urban gardening can figure out solutions for other ecological and environmental problems led by unsustainable practices, and at the same time, create new hopes? Systematic collapse such as man-made climate change threatens not only the natural ecosystem but also livelihood of thousands of people. That is the main motivation for me to start a vocational training programme on urban gardening in Ho Chi Minh City, together with Green Youth Collective – a local social enterprise. Through the process of feasibility study, nothing I could use to illustrate personal surprise to see how many local organizations, restaurants and cafeterias, schools had brought gardens into their spaces. (Im growing a journal saving all stories and people I have met working in the area!) That also means there are immense market demands for jobs available in urban gardening. The good news is this trend is nowhere going to stop.

Our plot for the training is located within a system of a big community garden, where youth easily interact with professional farmers and families with parents and kids spending free time to grow, to harvest and to cook right at the garden. The objective is simple: for them to know how to work with ecological elements, but not forget the idea of a system. This illustrates a picture of sustainability in which the output of a certain production process can be used as the input for one another.

Our working place! Such a beautiful harmonized space to think and to create. Dont you agree?

The programme offers many different faces of urban gardens: either its on a wall, or a rooftop, or a hydroponic garden like this with recycled plastic bottles. Half of bottles are white painted, in order to keep nutrient water from sunlight, and to change the way it should look. Sort of great idea, yeah? We have guest speakers who are gardeners and business owners of places like this to come and to conduct interactive sessions with youth. The design of vocational training programme also serves an objective of equipping youth essential skills, knowledge and attitudes to find their own jobs. There are many entrepreneurs who are our partners have already offered internships and jobs for youth!

Waste management, composting, plant container building..are also the things we are instructing to youth. From my perspective, this is a great way to learn how to live within the limits: when you can not exploit more, you learn how to use available resources in different purposes. Works can be creative and fun!

This start-up belongs to the range of what I belive and work for sustainability literacy. Urban gardening is a beautiful and powerful example of community empowerment, initiating sustainable practices towards resilience to change.

For all information, please contact My Hanh, Project Manager at hanh@greenyouthcollective.org.

Source: http://urbanclimatevn.com/2014/11/14/urban-resilience-with-gardening-and-sustainable-employment-hopes/

 

 

Copenhagen – Beyond Green

The city of Copenhagen is well known for being a green city. Through strategic urban planning and a history of environmental ambitions, Copenhagen has created swarms of cyclists, large recreational areas, a high share of renewable energy, clean water in its harbor, and a world class system of district heating and integrated public transportation.

What is not as well known about being a green city are the social and economic benefits. The study documents that Copenhagen’s green city strategy has not only brought great reductions in the CO2 emissions, decreased pollution, created several green jobs and produced annual growth rates of an impressive 12 percent in the green sector. The city’s green ambitions have also triggered a great improvement of the quality of life for the citizens of Copenhagen and created growth, export and job opportunities throughout the entire economy of the city – not just in the clean-tech sector.

The mission of Green Growth Leaders is to examine the evidence of green growth and document the benefits. It is from this starting point we set out to examine the economic and social benefits of green initiatives in Copenhagen. What we have learned is that urban green investments offer benefits far beyond environmental. What we have found is evidence of how sustainable life can be more fun, more profitable, and healthier, than ordinary life.

You can download the study here

Source: http://greengrowthleaders.org/uncategorized/copenhagen-beyond-green-2/

The end of the car city - A Convenient Truth

The end of the car city - A convenient truth from Alexander Ståhle

Planning sustainable cities for community food growing

A guide to using planning policy to meet strategic objectives through community food growing.

For the first time, this guide brings together in one place examples of planning policies around the UK that support community food growing.

It is aimed primarily at planning authorities to help them to use food growing as a way of creating healthy communities, itself a specific recommendation within the Planning Practice Guidance that goes with the National Planning Policy Framework for England, but a principle that is relevant across the UK.

The report sets the planning context in the four nations, and provides the background to community food growing. The bulk of the report is structured around the different issues that food growing helps to address, from sustainability to residential amenity via health and wellbeing, green infrastructure, regeneration and many other agendas. Within each section we document how food growing has been woven into planning policies to meet these priorities in local areas, and illustrate these with examples of growing projects that have also been set up to help meet that particular agenda. In some cases, such as in Brighton & Hove, the food growing spaces were set up as a direct result of planning policies, which have now led to over a third of new residential developments having integrated space for community food growing.

We end the report with recommendations, firstly to planners with practical steps, or top tips, on putting these ideas into policy and practice, then more broadly recommendations to local groups about their potential role. We then make recommendations for what national government in each of the four nations can do better to embed community food growing into local planning policies and processes.

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Report contents

Summary

Introduction

• What is community food growing?   
• The role of planning   
• National planning policies and frameworks   
• Local planning role   

How community food growing contributes to local strategic objectives

• Sustainability   
• Green infrastructure   
• Health and wellbeing   
• Education, skills and enterprise   
• Regeneration and community development   
• Design and residential amenity  

Writing planning policies to support community food growing

• Local plan making   
• Evidence gathering   
• Leadership   
• Ability to deliver  

Recommendations   

Other resources  
References   

download this report

Download a PDF version of Planning sustainable cities for community food growing

Source: http://www.sustainweb.org/publications/?id=295

The 12 Rules of Sustainable Urbanism

The 12 rules of sustainable urbanism are enshrined in the Freiburg Charter, a document produced by what is possibly the world's most sustainable city; the city which won the World Habitat Award in 2013 (for which prize in 2014 nominations are now open, by the way. See: www.worldhabitatawards.org).

Situated in southern Germany it has long been a beacon of sustainable urban development and has already received many awards over the last 30 years, including the European City of the Year 2010 (from the Academy of Urbanism).

The Charter has 12 principles to guide planning and development if a sustainable city is to be achieved. The document is being widely discussed and used by planning authorities around the world. Many of these beat a path to its door to see at first hand what is going on. There's nothing like a site visit to inspire and really get a good idea of how things work on the ground.

In Germany, many local towns and cities have adopted some of the examples set by Freiburg, but it has also spread to other countries including Mulhouse in France and Basel in Switzerland, as well as further afield.

And I have already written about a suburb of Freiburg, Vauban, asking if it is the world's most successful model of and urban development.

The German city is twinned with nine other cities around the world, with which it has close connections, providing support and planning guidance. Prior to discussing the 12 Rules, the Charter begins by laying out nine objectives that should be at the forefront of every responsible development project:

1. the conservation of identity, strengthening of neighbourhood and encouragement of its cultural diversity and distinctiveness;
2. the expansion of public transport and its interconnection with existing and new developments;
3. the wise use of resources, minimising additional land take up, and the encouragement of moderate degrees of urban density;
4. safeguarding and interconnecting green spaces with networks working towards quality standards and the conservation of public spaces;
5. the assurance of social harmony and advancement of social and functional interaction;
6. safeguarding existing jobs and creating new and innovative ones;
7. advancing a culture of discourse;
8. creating long-term partnerships between the community, and the public and private sectors;
9. participation in lifelong learning processes, seeing urban life in its wider context.

The authors of the Charter add that is important to ensure the early participation of citizens with dialog to promote positive, sustainable change.

Following the laying out of these objectives, the 12 guiding principles are then expounded upon, grouped in three categories:

Spatial

1. Diversity, safety and tolerance
2. City of neighbourhoods, Including decentralised governance and the protection of a city's identity
3. City of short distances, with accessibility to all infrastructure networks available on foot or by bicycle
4. Public transport and density: land users with civic function and high frequency of use shall be located near to public transport nodes

Content:

5. Education, science and culture, as these have a strong influence on public life
6. Industry and jobs provision as the most important task for the future
7. Nature and environment, with all planning proposals evaluated for their environmental impact
8. Design quality, especially for public spaces, using expert panels.

Process:

9. Long-term vision, incorporating awareness of the past and looking way into the future
10. Communication and participation of all levels and sectors of society
11. Reliability, obligation and fairness, to build trust and consensus
12. Cooperation and partnership, with financial support for projects and incentives for investors plus exemplary actions.

The charter is available on the website of the Academy for Urbanism. For more information contact Prof. Wulf Daseking, Email: d@seking.de; website www.freiburg.de/greencity

Source: http://sustainablecitiescollective.com/david-thorpe/239556/12-rules-sustainable-urbanism