Sustainable Cities: Crash Course Geography #49

Summary

The video script explores 'climatopias,' futuristic urban designs addressing climate change, focusing on sustainable urban settlements amidst environmental threats. It delves into environmental planning as an interdisciplinary field, aiming for sustainable development with a quadruple bottom line: positive outcomes for people, planet, profits, and community. It discusses challenges like gentrification, urban pollution, and the importance of retrofitting existing structures for sustainability. The script emphasizes the role of citizens and cooperatives in shaping sustainable urban futures.

Takeaways

• 🌿 **Climatopias**: These are futuristic, sustainable urban designs aimed at addressing climate change, focusing on creating sustainable urban settlements amidst environmental threats.
• 🏙️ **Urban Sustainability**: It's crucial to consider not just infrastructure but also the community and social aspects that make a city thrive, both currently and in the future.
• 👥 **Community Involvement**: Strong communities are vital for guiding urban challenges, especially with the pressures of climate change and its uneven distribution of vulnerability.
• 🛠️ **Environmental Planning**: An interdisciplinary field that includes urban planning, geography, economics, and agriculture, focusing on building sustainable communities.
• 🌱 **Ecological Design**: Efforts to mimic nature in building design, including the use of passive solar elements and creating structures that function like living machines.
• 🏡 **Smart Growth**: A planning approach that controls urban sprawl and promotes walkable neighborhoods with mixed housing and commercial areas.
• 🏘️ **New Urbanism**: A neighborhood-scale approach that can lead to gentrification if not managed properly, highlighting the need for equitable economic opportunities and housing protections.
• 🌤️ **Urban Heat Island**: A phenomenon where urban areas absorb and retain heat due to the prevalence of asphalt, concrete, and steel, affecting health and biodiversity.
• 🌱 **Green-Grey Divide**: The stark contrast between wealthier, greener neighborhoods and poorer, concrete-dominated areas, impacting health, mood, and environmental quality.
• 🔄 **Retrofitting vs. Fresh Development**: The tension between reusing old materials and spaces and fresh development, with retrofitting offering significant environmental and economic benefits.

Q & A

What are climatopias?

Climatopias are utopian urban designs that attempt to address climate change, envisioned by architects and designers to create sustainable urban settlements in the face of environmental threats.

Why is it important to consider people when designing for climate change?

It's important to consider people because urban spaces need strong communities to guide and direct challenges that come from living in high density, especially with the added pressures of climate change.

What is environmental planning?

Environmental planning is an interdisciplinary field involving urban planning, geography, economics, and agriculture, focusing on building sustainable communities that are better places to live, work, and play.

What does the term 'quadruple bottom line' refer to in the context of sustainable development?

The quadruple bottom line refers to the goal of achieving positive results for people, planet, profits, and community in sustainable development.

How does zoning play a role in environmental planning?

Zoning is used to designate where different land uses can take place, such as rezone areas of cities to create walkable neighborhoods with mixed housing and shops, reducing the need for people to drive across the region.

What is ecological design and how does it relate to environmental planning?

Ecological design is an effort to build buildings and cities that mimic nature, using elements like passive solar design for heating and cooling. It's a key aspect where physical and human geography mix in environmental planning.

What is new urbanism and how does it relate to sustainable neighborhoods?

New urbanism is an approach to sustainable neighborhoods that focuses on creating areas people are drawn to, often at the neighborhood scale, but it can lead to gentrification if not managed properly.

What is the grey-green divide and how does it affect urban areas?

The grey-green divide refers to the stark contrast between wealthier areas with tree-lined streets and poorer areas with concrete and asphalt. It affects mood, health, biodiversity, and contributes to the urban heat island effect.

Why is environmental justice important in urban planning?

Environmental justice is important because it ensures that all people, regardless of race, gender, age, class, or politics, are entitled to protection from environmental hazards.

What is the difference between greenfield and brownfield development?

Greenfield development is a project on a blank slate of land, while brownfield development is done on previously used land, such as former factories or parking lots. Brownfield development can help save biodiversity and minimize habitat fragmentation.

How can citizens get involved in creating sustainable cities?

Citizens can get involved by participating in public planning meetings, joining cooperatives or co-ops to manage resources collectively, and advocating for sustainable practices in their communities.

Outlines

00:00

🌿 Climate-Friendly Urban Design: Climatopias

The paragraph introduces the concept of 'climatopias,' which are utopian urban designs aimed at addressing climate change. These designs, as part of the narrator's PhD research, represent the innovative efforts of architects and designers to create sustainable urban settlements amidst environmental challenges. The paragraph emphasizes the importance of considering both infrastructure and the human element in city planning, focusing on community strength and equitable distribution of resources. It highlights the challenges in realizing these ideals, such as the exclusion of impacted communities in decision-making and the lack of funding for retrofitting landscapes. The narrator, Alizé Carrère, sets the stage for discussing environmental planning and its interdisciplinary nature, which includes urban planning, geography, economics, and agriculture.

05:04

🏙️ Sustainable Development and Urban Planning Challenges

This paragraph delves into the complexities of sustainable development and urban planning. It discusses the concept of the 'quadruple bottom line,' which seeks positive outcomes for people, planet, profits, and community. The challenges of balancing environmental conservation with economic growth are highlighted, as well as the use of tools like zoning to create walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods. The paragraph also introduces 'smart growth planning' to control urban sprawl and 'ecological design' to create buildings that mimic nature. However, it acknowledges the tensions that arise, such as gentrification and the displacement of lower-income residents due to increased land and rent values. The importance of considering historical and social equity in city planning is emphasized.

10:08

🌱 Environmental Justice and Sustainable City Solutions

The final paragraph addresses the environmental pressures created by urban concentrations of people, such as waste, pollution, and water resource strain. It discusses the 'grey-green divide' and its impact on health, biodiversity, and the urban heat island effect. The paragraph also touches on the historical lack of environmental justice in city planning and the need to reconcile past decisions with future sustainability goals. It explores the concept of retrofitting existing buildings to reduce environmental impact and the benefits of reusing materials and spaces. The importance of involving citizens in the planning process is highlighted, with examples of cooperative housing models that provide non-speculative housing and flexible living spaces. The paragraph concludes by emphasizing the need for community involvement in shaping sustainable cities and the potential for collective action to create a healthier, more equitable urban environment.

Keywords

💡Climatopias

Climatopias refer to utopian urban designs that aim to address climate change by creating sustainable urban settlements. They represent the futuristic visions of architects and designers who are responding to environmental threats. In the video, climatopias are a central theme, showcasing innovative approaches to urban planning that are both environmentally friendly and people-centric.

💡Environmental Planning

Environmental planning is an interdisciplinary field that involves urban planning, geography, economics, and agriculture. It focuses on building sustainable communities that are better places to live, work, and play. The video emphasizes the role of environmental planning in sustainable development, which includes the responsible use of natural resources and promoting economic opportunities and environmental justice.

💡Sustainable Development

Sustainable development encompasses a broad range of actions and policies aimed at meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It is characterized by the 'quadruple bottom line' which includes positive results for people, planet, profits, and community. The video discusses sustainable development in the context of balancing environmental conservation with economic growth.

💡Smart Growth Planning

Smart growth planning is an approach that aims to control and direct urban sprawl, focusing on the efficient use of land and the creation of walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods. The video mentions smart growth as a tool to reduce the need for extensive car travel, thereby decreasing carbon emissions and promoting more sustainable urban living.

💡Ecological Design

Ecological design is an effort to build structures and cities that mimic nature, incorporating elements like passive solar design for heating and cooling. The video highlights ecological design as a key intersection of physical and human geography, where the built environment is designed to work in harmony with natural systems.

💡New Urbanism

New urbanism is an approach to urban planning that focuses on creating walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods with a range of housing options. It aims to create areas that are attractive and livable, but as the video points out, it can also lead to gentrification if not managed carefully, potentially pricing out long-time residents.

💡Environmental Justice

Environmental justice is the idea that every person is entitled to protection from environmental hazards, regardless of race, gender, age, class, or politics. The video discusses the historical context of environmental justice, which emerged from the civil rights movement, and its importance in urban planning to ensure equitable distribution of environmental benefits and burdens.

💡Urban Heat Island

The urban heat island effect refers to the phenomenon where urban areas are significantly warmer than their rural surroundings due to the concentration of human activities and infrastructure. The video explains how the lack of vegetation in certain urban areas can exacerbate this effect, impacting mood, health, and biodiversity.

💡Gentrification

Gentrification is the process by which an influx of investment raises the value of land and rent in lower-income areas, often leading to the displacement of long-time residents who can no longer afford to live there. The video discusses gentrification as a potential negative outcome of sustainable neighborhood initiatives if not managed with equity in mind.

💡Cooperative (Co-op)

A cooperative, or co-op, is a group of people who collectively manage a resource, such as housing or agricultural production. The video provides the example of the La Borda co-op in Barcelona, which offers non-speculative housing and allows members to collectively own and manage the property, aiming to keep housing affordable and equitable.

Highlights

Modular floating communities and zero carbon smart cities are examples of climatopias, utopian urban designs addressing climate change.

Climatopias are futuristic visions by architects and designers to create sustainable urban settlements amidst environmental threats.

Climate change is a daily reality that can be both frightening and inspiring, prompting innovative urban design.

Sustainable cities require strong communities to navigate the challenges of high-density living and climate change.

Environmental planning is an interdisciplinary field focusing on building sustainable communities.

Sustainable development encompasses responsible use of natural resources and long-term city growth.

Environmental planners aim for a quadruple bottom line: positive results for people, planet, profits, and community.

Sustainable development can be contradictory, as environmental and economic benefits don't always align.

Urban planners use models and tools like zoning to create relationships within the city that preserve open space.

Smart growth planning controls urban sprawl and promotes walkable neighborhoods with mixed housing and shops.

Ecological design builds structures that mimic nature, using elements like passive solar design for heating and cooling.

New urbanism focuses on sustainable neighborhoods but can lead to gentrification and displacement of lower-income residents.

Urban areas offer efficient access to services but also create pressure due to economies of scale, leading to waste and pollution.

The grey-green divide in cities affects mood, health, and biodiversity, with wealthier areas having more vegetation.

Urban planning must reconcile the past and plan for the future, considering environmental justice and impact.

Retrofitting existing buildings can reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and minimize habitat fragmentation.

Cooperatives, like La Borda in Barcelona, provide non-speculative housing and a community-driven approach to urban development.

Public planning meetings allow citizens to get involved in the design of their cities and neighborhoods.

Transcripts

Modular floating communities, towering skyscrapers covered in trees, and zero carbon smart cities.

These are some examples of what I call climatopias, which are utopian urban designs that attempt

to address climate change, and they’re the focus of my PhD research throughout 2022.

They can take many different forms, but climatopias are the futuristic visions of architects and

designers around the world who are seeking to create sustainable urban settlements in

the face of mounting environmental threats.

Climate change is something many of us are dealing with everyday, and that can be both scary and motivating.

But as we design for climate change, it’s important to think not just about infrastructure,

but also about what really makes a city a city -- the people.

So we have to ask ourselves -- what helps a city evolve and thrive, both today and in the future?

Or put another way, what makes a city sustainable?

Urban spaces need strong communities to help guide and direct the various challenges that

come from living in high density with other humans -- especially with the added pressures

of climate change and how that vulnerability gets distributed unevenly.

But those ideals are often difficult to materialize in real life.

Oftentimes the people who can make planning decisions don’t include everyone who might

be impacted by the decision making process.

Or sometimes, there isn’t funding to modify or retrofit landscapes designed for one purpose

-- like the flow of cars -- with more accessible options like bike lanes.

Planning for the future is no small task, but as geographers we have the spatial skills to take on the challenge.

I’m Alizé Carrère, and this is Crash Course Geography.

INTRO

Like many of the specialties we've talked about in this series, Environmental Planning

is an interdisciplinary field involving urban planning, geography, economics, and even agriculture,

which focuses on how we can build sustainable communities that are better places to live, work, and play.

Environmental planning is part of sustainable development -- which can mean everything from

using natural resources in a way that protects the environment to helping cities grow in

ways that can be sustained for generations to come.

As environmental planners, this means we focus on creating designs that use natural resources responsibly.

We work on how to promote economic opportunities and environmental justice which is when everyone

is involved in environmental laws and policies.

We also work on social equity, which is where everyone has just and fair access to things

like housing and jobs that pay enough to cover basic needs.

Borrowing a phrase from business, this goal is the quadruple bottom line: positive results

for people, planet, profits, and community.

But sustainable development can be a contradiction -- what’s good for the environment and what’s

good for the economy don’t always match up.

So whenever we’re trying to sustain or conserve something, a key question to ask is: what

are we really trying to conserve?

For instance, we might focus on conserving the environment and limiting our use of natural resources.

So urban planners will use a host of models and planning tools to help create relationships

within the city that preserve and use open space.

Like zoning, or designating where different land uses can take place.

Residential zone areas of cities can be rezoned or redesignated to create walkable neighborhoods

with mixed housing and shops, rather than just one or the other.

This creates compact zones where people want to live, work, and play, which reduces the

need for people to drive across the region.

Zoning and other tools are often part of smart growth planning, which tries to control and

direct the movement of sprawl, or places on the outskirts of cities like suburbs and edge

cities expanding into open, undeveloped land.

In our planning we can also use ecological design, which is an effort to build buildings,

and even whole cities, to mimic nature.

And buildings that are designed like living machines, or that emphasize passive solar

design elements that use the Sun for heating and cooling are just the beginning.

Ecological design is a key place where physical and human geography mix, but as we’ve learned

in previous episodes, cities encode a lot about our ways of life and cultures within

the design and architecture of their buildings -- and we can conserve that, too.

But no matter what we’re trying to conserve, we’re going to create tension.

For one, urban planning is about relationships, so it’s rarely a neutral act.

One approach to sustainable neighborhoods includes new urbanism, which is like smart

growth but usually just at the neighborhood scale.

It often creates areas people are drawn to, which can then cause gentrification.

Gentrification is when the value of land and rent increase in lower income areas from a

new influx of investment.

This growth becomes problematic when people aren't treated equitably, as we learned when

talking about redlining and urban renewal.

If cities don't plan ways to increase economic opportunities for lower-income residents,

or protect low-income housing, people can be priced out of their neighborhood -- or

city -- because they can no longer afford the rent.

There's no one solution or easy answer to this problem, but we can at least start by

staying focused on the people involved and the history of the area, keeping equity in mind.

In cities we’ve also got large concentrations of people, and that allows for efficient access

to services like health care, public transportation, and education.

And things like electricity or internet access are cheaper.

Urban areas are also centers of diffusion and cultural exchange that can drive innovation

and new economic frontiers and technological advances.

But large concentrations of people also create pressure.

Partly because of the same economies of scale that make it efficient to offer services like

education and renewable energy, there’s also a lot of waste, pollution and strain

on water resources.

And while there are more services in urban areas, they’re not distributed evenly, which

can create uneven health outcomes.

One strikingly visible example of this is the grey-green divide.

On the (usually) wealthier side, houses are comfortably nestled amongst shady, tree-lined streets.

And on the other side of a single road, everything suddenly changes to shades of concrete and asphalt;

grey roads, grey roofs, grey sidewalks.

This has an effect on our mood, our health, and even the biodiversity of life around us.

And all this vegetation also helps to minimize the effects of the urban heat island, where

all that asphalt, concrete, stone, and steel absorbs heat -- and prevents air pollution from dissipating.

In fact, whether air pollution is common because of the physical geography of the city or because

there are more heavy polluters like cars or factories, there are a lot more asthma cases,

ear-nose-throat illnesses, and people with weaker immune systems in cities.

This is particularly true in poorer areas of cities with substandard housing, where

people have the fewest resources and little ability to access health care.

There are other problems too, like air pollution from factories and cars can mix with water

in the atmosphere, creating acid rain.

The effects of which can be felt hundreds of miles away from the cities where it formed.

And there are water quality issues, like sewer overflows and dumping chemicals in urban waterways.

Most cities were built long before environmental justice was part of the urban planning discussion

-- which according to the US environmental protection agency grew out of the civil rights

movement in the 1960s and is the idea that every person is entitled to protection from

environmental hazards, regardless of race, gender, age, class, or politics.

And so creating sustainable cities is about planning for the future and reconciling the past.

And as we work to make the built environment evolve with our own understandings of justice

and environmental impact, there’s a tension between retrofits that reuse old materials

and spaces and fresh development.

For instance, we have to decide what to do about beautiful old buildings built in areas

with lots of earthquakes.

Urban planners may work with structural engineers to determine what kind of retrofitting is

necessary to make a building earthquake-proof -- or if the safest thing for everyone is

to have the building come down.

And reusing what’s there, like the work of French architects Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal,

who have won awards for their work retrofitting buildings, can have enormous global impact.

The materials and construction industries are responsible for 10% of the world’s greenhouse

gas emissions in the early 2020s, which will be reduced dramatically if existing buildings

and infrastructure can be reused.

The push to reuse, rather than build fresh, also saves biodiversity outside cities and

minimizes how many habitats get fragmented when urban sprawl is allowed to run amok.

Much of this can be at risk when a greenfield development is chosen over a brownfield development,

whether for housing, shops, or factories.

In a greenfield development, the project is a blank slate for the architects and builders.

While brownfield development is done on top of land that has already been used, whether

that land used to be a factory, car dealership, or even a parking lot!

Retrofitting is just one tool we have as we think about effective ways to address climate

change and atmospheric warming.

As people try to change their lifestyles, many are constrained by structural problems,

like living in a place with no public transportation, or that are designed poorly for accessibility, walking, or biking.

Planning with an eye towards sustainability, and working with what already has been built,

offers a way to start addressing those larger retrofits we need as a society.

And, if we’re going to shift to new technologies like electric cars, or retrofits like efficient

windows and insulation, we have to also make space and be willing to help those who can’t

afford the changes.

Who pays for retrofits or who pays the environmental costs for unsustainable designs are political.

As a society, we often just accept that there will be some people who have to live with

the economic or environmental consequences of the types of development decisions we make,

and that can be heavily placed on vulnerable groups.

So creating sustainable cities can’t just be a part of our future -- it also has to be part of our present.

And that means citizens like you or I can get involved.

For example, a cooperative, or co-op, is a group of people who come together to collectively

manage a resource, whether that’s housing or agricultural production.

And in Barcelona, the La Borda co-op is building off a collaborative housing model used in

Denmark, Germany, and Uruguay that provides non-speculative housing.

This means that people don't own the individual units they live in, but they also don't pay

rent to another person or company–instead, they join a co-operative business as members.

It's a little complicated, but what's important here is that it's a way of opting out of trying

to always make a profit on land or housing.

Individuals can't sell or even rent their space in the co-op, and this keeps prices

low for everyone.

The complex was also built to be flexible in order to meet the needs of each of the residents.

In fact, their building wasn’t completely finished before people moved in!

This allows the co-op members to finish the building to suit the needs of the group, rather

than needing to remodel later, so they save on the impact of construction.

And we see this type of co-op effort all over the world.

From grocery stores in Detroit to housing in Greece, to sustainable agriculture in Kerala, India,

groups of people are banding together to leverage their numbers and purchasing power

to envision new ways to exchange goods and services that will allow for secure, healthy lives.

But with a smaller footprint.

Planning our cities and neighborhoods -- including our communities in rural spaces! -- is a community effort.

In many cities and regions, there are regular public planning meetings that people can attend

to learn about how their leaders are designing for the future, and speak up for places and

spaces planners might not be thinking about.

As communities come together and define their neighborhood, they create the type of place

they want their location -- and their future -- to be.

Which we’ll keep talking about next time in our final episode.

Thanks for watching this episode of Crash Course Geography which is filmed at the Team

Sandoval Pierce Studio and was made with the help of all these nice people.

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