Indicators:

Relevant
Valid
Easy to understand
Measurable
Cost effective
Shows trends
Sensitive to change
Comprehensive

Objective Indicators (quantitative): used to measure concrete aspects of a system and are
based on observed statistical data
-majority*
Subjective Indicators (qualitative or perceptual): report peoples’ opinions and feelings about
their lives and about their communities
Indicators are useful to policy makers to assist in decision making that has a greater overall
effect

UN Sustainable Development Goals

-crucial to harmonize 3 core elements: economic growth, social inclusion, environmental
protection
5 P’s: people, planet, prosperity, peace, partnership

9/12

History of Sustainability and Environmentalism

● Thomas Malthus - saw population growth outpacing resources (Essay on Principle of

Population 1798)
● Limits to carrying capacity; sustainable yield
○ Malthusian Theory - conundrum of exponential growth of population and linear
negative amount of resources
● Richer countries tend to have smaller birth rates?

● Urban Revitalization and Reform Movement (1880s-early 1900s)

○ Response to decay: poverty, child labor, public health crisis, overcrowded, plight
of immigration)
○ Legislative reforms in zoning, building codes, child labor law, and open
space/parks
○ City beautiful movement
■ Improve the city through beautification (idea from elite)
■ 1901 plan for Washington D.C. Mall
● New York zoning regulation is 1916
○ Concept of separation of land uses for the first time
○ More scientific approach to city planning

● Visioning the First Eco City - Ebenezer Howard’s Garden Cities

○ Response to urban problems of industrializing London
○ Model for a community closely integrating housing and nature
○ Self-contained, separated land uses, surrounded by greenbelts, connected by
mass transit rail line
● Not all about banning cars (although some cities do), it’s about creating options, which
we don’t have a lot of

● Conservation vs. Preservation

○ Conserving is more about managing for future generations, but still using
○ John Muir on side of preservation (for white men/people)

○ Pinchot advocated for preservation through planned use and renewal

○ Applying sustainable yield principles as guiding objectives in the long-term
commercial management of American forests
○ Debate continues today:
■ Instrumental values vs intrinsic values
■ Protecting environment vs growing economy
■ “Overprotecting” small endangered…

● First half of 20th century - Dust Bowl

○ 1930-1936 due to extensive farming and drought
■ Topsoil destruction
■ Slow onset hazard
■ Long-term restoring process
○ Ecological Migration
■ Over 100,000 people migrated out of the region
○ Led to rethinking of practices
■ Stabilize soil
■ Grow food sustainably
■ Protection ecosystems

● First half of 20th century - Federal Government

○ Got more involved in infrastructure projects
○ Some states lost control of land uses
● Multiple use strategy incorporating dams, water and electricity projects
○ Employment and regional development

● First half of 20th century - Suburban Movement

○ Federal mortgages
 ○ Interstate highway system
○ Suburbanization
○ Social and class segregation
○ Destruction of public transit system
● Industrial land uses remained in central cities
○ Abandoned and contaminated
○ Brownfields in proximity to minority neighborhoods
○ Effects of urban sprawl
● Foundation of today’s negative impacts

● The Environmental Movement in the U.S. (1960s-today)

○ Prior to this time, environmentalism focused on preservation of wilderness and
conservation of resources
○ The environmental movement flourished in 1960s in the midst of the Civil Rights,
Peace, and Women’s movements
○ Silent Spring brought to public attention the dangers of environmental pollution
■ Documented pollution from DDT pesticide

● Rachel Carson
○ Marine biologist, author, and environmentalist
○ Started modern environmental movement
1969 - NEPA
1970 - 1st Earth Day and EPA; CCA
1972 - Clean Water Act

● Emergence of Green Design

○ Compact cities: reversal of
■ Sprawl, traffic congestion,
○ Smart growth/new urbanism
● Sustainability in 21st century
○ Urban ecology
■ Interaction of human and ecological systems
○ Bio-complexity modeling
■ UHI
■ Water demand
○ Community resilience
■ Disaster planning
■ Capacity enhancement
○ Risk reduction strategies
■ Brownfield redevelopment
■ Greenhouse gas mitigation
■ Urban adaptation planning
○ Environmental justice
○ Sustainability indicators
 ○ Collaborative design

9/19 Global Climate Change - Impacts and Scenarios

● Rapid trend of past few decades is unprecedented

○ Mostly caused by human activity
○ 2010-2019 was warmest recorded decade
● More and more recognized as a major challenge of 21st century
○ Challenging scientific and political issue of our time
○ Questions as to what should be done, by whom, and when, remain highly
contested
● IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
○ Leading institution for assessment of climate change
■ Assesses regularly the available scientific information relevant for
improving understanding of climate change and the possible
environmental and socioeconomic impacts
○ Nobel Peace Prize 2007 awarded jointly to IPCC and Al Gore Jr

● Since start of 20th century, global average surface temp has risen by 1.1 degrees
Celsius
● Between 1901 and 2018, sea level increased by 20cm on average
● Snow cover decreased from 37 mil km squared to 35 mil km squared
● Glaciers melting 31% faster than they did 15 years ago

● Energy entering atmosphere from the sun is reflective and must go out again
● The lower albedo is, the greater the heat absorption on earth
● Increasing emissions of greenhouse gases are a major contributor to climate change
● CO2 concentration in Earth’s atmosphere higher than any time since measurements
began

● Heat Waves - North American Pacific Coast - June 2022

○ U.S. had never seen heat of such magnitude
○ Unprecedented temperatures were “virtually impossible” without climate change
○ greenhouse gases made them likelier by at least a factor of 150

● Global climate change impacts - sea level rise

○ “Thermal expansion”, water in oceans expanding as it gets warmer
○ Melting of possible ice sheets is a far bigger issue
■ Greenland, ice is already melting
■ Antarctica thought to be more stable, but is losing ice due to icebergs
breaking off
○ Sea level rise already causing land loss in Caribbean
○ Loss of ice sheets and higher temperature pose dangers to wildlife and natural
habitats
● Record temperatures in Antarctica
○ Glaciers are retreating at an accelerated rate since 2008
○ Thwaites glacier (doomsday glacier)
■ Contributes 4% to global sea level rise annually
■ More warm water circling below the glacier than previously believed
■ Total collapse of glacier and adjacent ice sheet would raise global sea
levels by about 10 feet
○ A-76 iceberg
■ Area of 1.688 square miles, largest in world
● Precipitation
○ Precipitation increases in some parts of the world and decreases in other
○ Proportion of heavy rainfalls increases in most land areas
● Drought
○ Losing hydropower
● Human health
○ Cities likely to face significant increases in temperatures and frequency of heat
waves
■ Correlation between heat waves and increased mortality rates
○ Changes could be even more acute if action is delayed
● Risks to human health
○ Increased temp affects mortality in ways: heat induced mortality, famine,
exacerbation of non-infectious health problems, spread of infectious disease

● Global climate change and its impacts are occuring faster than expected
● Future climate change is already built into the system
● Climate-related changes are expected to continue while new ones develop

● Scientists use climate models to show possible future impacts of global climate change
under a variety of different scenarios
○ Future GHG emissions
○ Policy selections
○ Behavioral actions
○ Other aspects that might impact future climate trends
● Precipitation is much harder to predict than other features of climate change
● All models anticipate future droughts, heavy rainfalls, and floods

● Projected differences in sea level rise

○ Ice sheets likely will continue shrinking
○ 18-59 centimeters predicted range of sea level rise
○ Worst case scenario of 6 feet sea level rise by 2100
○ Potential for 13 million coastal residents in US to be displaced by end of century
○ Drive up pace of urbanization
○ Displacement, housing pressure, probably even homelessness
 ● Projected changes in extremes are larger in frequency and intensity with every additional
increment of global warming

9/26

50 questions on midterm, open book, 75 minutes, definitions from textbook, Fill Out Study Guide

● Urban Resiliency
○ The Anthropocene - The “Great Acceleration”
■ We are changing the planet
■ Environmental disasters and climate change
● 1995 - 2015 30,000 deaths per year and more than 250-300
billion $ in economic losses
● European heatwave 2003
● Hurricane Sandy
■ Climate change plays a role
● Historic data not a good indicator anymore
■ Cities play a central role in defining how society will be adapting to
global environmental change, risks, and uncertainties
■ Cities are particularly vulnerable
■ Cities influence disasters
● Emissions
● New hazards
● Intensify current disasters

■ Cities are a significant part of the solution

● New York Dryline
● Underground storage tanks

○ Emergence of urban resiliency planning

■ Prior ideas were static; a fail-safe mentality
■ Cities are affected by global crises that are hard to predict
● 2011 Japan Earthquake and Tsunami
○ Catastrophic flooding
■ Cities need to have resiliency/adaptability
● Need to be able to contain failure and keep it from
spreading; a safe-to-fail mentality
● Anticipate failure
● The concept “resilience” was first popularized in the 1970s in
the context of ecological research by C.S. Holling
○ A resilient system can bounce back
 ● Cities are in a contiguous state of flux and “bouncing back”
to original state after a disaster is impossible
○ And it would be undesirable, as the city would go
back to the same level of vulnerability that it was
before
○ “Bouncing forward” instead
● There appears to be no consensus on how these concepts
can be made operational or even how it should be defined
● “the capacity of individuals, communities, etc. within a city to
survive, adapt, and grow no matter what kind of chronic
stresses and acute shocks”

■ Stability - withstand a disaster and its consequences (does not

work)
■ Recovery - ‘bounce back’ from a change or stressor to return to
original state
■ Transformation - renewal, regeneration, and reorganization of a
system after stress event; potential opportunity for doing new things
■ Adaptation - allow a system to better survive and redevelop in its
environment under particular stress
○ Adaptation and adaptive capacity
■ Includes actions taken to reduce vulnerabilities
■ Reactive - response to stress
■ Proactive - lessen impacts of future events

■ These strategies must be multi-faceted

■ Adaptive capacity is the ability to implement these strategies
○ Stronger the economy = more resources to rebuild, retrofit, and restore
important functions of community
■ Increase standards of living

○ Social capital
○ Ground recovery effort often taken up by local community
■ Citizen participation
■ Place attachment
■ Sense of community
○ Ecosystems have big role in preventing shocks and disturbances
■ Cool islands
■ Flood barriers
■ Stormwater runoff
 ■ Carbon sinks
■ Health
○ Generate ecosystem services is something urban landscapes struggle
with
■ Biophilic design
○ Need for flexible holistic forms of governance
○ Networks and institutions that are able to
■ Capture and share knowledge
■ Adapt to social, ecological and economic and political changes
■ Built capacity for long term observation and monitoring processes

Qualities of resilient cities

● Emphasizes need for broad consultation and engagement of communities
● Integration and alignment between city systems promotes consistency in
decision making and ensures that all investments are mutually supportive to a
common outcome

Resiliency indicators:
● Measuring urban resiliency is not easy
● Large scientific topic

City Resilience index

● Practical tool to help cities understand
● Better investment decisions and planning practices
● What matters: what helps and hinders
● Developed in collaboration with cities
● Empower to diversify economics
● Transportation to connect communities
○ 12 goals:
■ Health
■ Economy
■ Leadership
○ 52 indicators
■ Observable critical factors that contribute towards resilience of
urban systems
○ Cityresilienceindex.org
● Urban design principles
○ Density. Diversity and mixed use
○ Pedestrian first
○ Transit supportive
○ Place-making
○ Complete communities
○ Integrated natural systems
○ Local sources
○ Engaged communities
○ Redundant and durable life safety and critical infrastructure
○ Resilient operations
10/3

How to Research Sustainable Solutions

Quality research:
● Systematic
● Logical
● Empirical or evidence-based
● Replicable

Identify a research problem

Review existing literature
Form a research question or hypothesis
Develop a research methodology
Collect data
Interpret findings and write up results

Library one search

Check that a journal is peer reviewed
ulrichsweb
Scopus
Web of science

Choose an urban sustainability problem that interests you and research a possible
solution for it
● Research question
● Search terms
● Database search
● Annotated bibliography
● Research-based solutions

● Narrower is usually better

1. Population Growth

2. Urbanization & Rural to Urban Migration - urbanization describes the process of

more and more people moving from rural to urban areas. As a result cities are growing
in size and population

3. Poverty & Inequalities

4. Environmental Degradation

5. Ecosystem - present a biological system consisting of interacting organisms and

their physical environment

6. Adaptive Capacity - the capacity or ability of a system to adopt to changes in its

environment

7. Sustainability Science - emerged in the 21st century as a new academic discipline

and focuses on the interrelationships between natural and social systems, and with how
those interactions affect the challenge of sustainability

8. Sustainable Development - the most common definition by the Brundtland

Commission defines sustainable development as development that meets the needs of
the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs

9. Coupled Human-Ecological Systems - humans are dependent on natural systems,

such as the water cycle or other nutrient cycles. On the other hand, humans alter these
cycles by their effect on the natural environment

10. Wicked Problems - problems that are incredibly difficult to resolve because they
are difficult to define, evolve constantly, and have no final solutions. Instead, any
resolution most likely generates further issues. These kinds of problems require a new
approach to research and decision making

11. Social Ecological Systems - a system that includes societal (human) and
ecological (biophysical) subsystems in mutual interaction; ecosystems, from local areas
to the biosphere as a whole provide the biophysical foundation and ecosystem services
for social and economic development

12. Brundtland Commission - makes a report that is the source of the modern
paradigm of sustainability. It is significant for demanding ethical issues such as gender
and economic equity be part of sustainability’s definition. It requires a balance of
economic, social, and environmental dimensions

13. Carrying Capacity - the maximum sustainable population an area will support
before undergoing environmental deterioration
14. Ecological Debt

15. Cradle to Grave vs. Cradle to Cradle Products

16. Ecological Footprint - the amount of biologically productive land and water area
required to produce all the resources an individual, population, or activity consumes as
well as the land area needed to absorb the waste they generate, with consideration for
prevailing technology and resource management practices

17. Ecological Overshoot - the world’s ecological deficit caused by human overuse of
ecosystem products and services; the process of exceeding the Earth’s carrying
capacity, leading to environmental deterioration and ecosystems’ inability to provide
adequate services

18. Environmental Impact Formula - Population x Affluence x Technology

19. Sustainable Yield - the ecological yield that can be extracted without reducing the
base of capital itself

20. Three E's or Pillars of Sustainability - the 3 guiding areas of sustainability

problems and solutions: environment, economy, and social equity as outlined in the
Brundtland Report (1987) and the Rio “Earth Summit” Convention (1992)

21. Five P's of Sustainable Development - people, planet, prosperity, peace,

partnership

22. Basic Functions & Characteristics of Indicators

23. Objective vs Subjective Indicators

24. UN Sustainable Development Goals

25. LEED Certification

26. Dust Bowl - one of America’s first major socio-ecological disasters caused by
drought and over-farming of the Central Plains

27. The Limits to Growth - (1972) a book that suggests we would soon reach the
Earth’s carrying capacity, and launching the term sustainable development into the
modern sustainability discourse

28. Conservation vs Preservation

29. Non-Anthropocentric Values - values that consider the environment for its own
health and well-being, rather than for instrumental (anthropocentric) human uses
(biocentric, ecocentric, preservationist values have a similar gist)

30. Thomas Malthus - saw population growth outpacing resources (Essay on Principle of
Population 1798)
Malthusian Theory - conundrum of exponential growth of population and linear negative amount
of resources

31. Urban Revitalization & Reform Movement

32. Ebenezer Howard's Garden City

33. Rachel Carson & Silent Spring

34. City Beautiful Movement

35. The Suburban Movement

36. Clean Air Act

37. Clean Water Act

38. Inter-vs Intra-Generational Equity -

Inter-generational equity: is the measure of fairness between generations, usually
expressed in terms of how present action negatively affects conditions for future
generations
Intra-generational equity: is the measure of fairness for people and groups in the
present generation, such as the fair distribution of resources like water, food, education,
or political representation

39. Social Justice - a political and philosophical concept which holds that all people
should have equal access to wealth, health, well-being, justice, and opportunity

40. Environmental Ethics - is a field of philosophy that considers right and wrong
human behavior with the environment, as well as the value of the non-human elements
of the environment

41. NIMBY & LULU

NIMBY: stands for Not in My Back Yard. It is the tendency for people, especially
homeowners, to repel unwanted land uses to other locations while usually enjoying the
services those unwanted land uses supply
LULU: Locally Unwanted Land Use.

42. Environmental Racism - is discrimination that leads to high burdens of

environmental hazards on communities of color
43 Distributive & Procedural Justice

44. Food Deserts - low-income census tracts in which a substantial number or

proportion of the population has low access supermarkets or large grocery stores that
offer healthy food at reasonable costs

45. Environmental Justice & Injustice -

46. Climate Justice

47. The Urban Revolution - processes that originated during the growth of the first
cities in the Near East; encompasses the behaviors that simultaneously occurred as
people began to reside in urban communities, such as the cultivation of crops, herding
of animals, the mass production of goods, and the development of a writing system

48. Social Organization - how people interact with each other, including the kinship
systems they use and how they assign communal tasks, decide who has access to
goods and knowledge, and make communal decisions

49. Ecosystem Management - the use, protection, and conservation of our

environmental resources in a way that seeks to ensure their long-term sustainability.
This concept considers humans and the environment as a single system than as
individual parts

50. Regenerative Capabilities - the processes of renewal, restoration, and growth that
make ecosystems resilient to natural events in order to prevent irreversible damage

51. Greenhouse Gas Emissions - greenhouse gases are gases in the atmosphere that
absorb and re-emit solar radiation back to the earth’s surface. The four most common
greenhouse gases (GHGs) are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), halocarbons,
and nitrous oxide (N2O)

52. Climate Change Mitigation & Adaptation

53. Institutional Capacity

54. Climate Models - sophisticated computer programs that quantitatively represent the
interactions of the atmosphere, oceans, land surface, ice, and human behavior. There
are myriad climate models available, ranging from relatively basic models that focus on
Earth’s heat balance to very complex and detailed simulations that aim to show possible
future impacts of global climate change under a variety of different assumptions

55. Albedo - a measurement used to determine how much solar energy is reflected
from earth back to space
56. Radiative Forcing - the strength of climate forcing agents in changing the earth’s
temperature

57. Advanced Scenario Planning - presents a flexible framework that allows decision
makers, to develop long-term strategies based on many different possible scenarios.
Advanced scenario planning and includes methods such as aggregated averages, risk
assessments, sensitivity analysis of factors or decisions driving the scenarios,
identification of unacceptable or worst case outcomes, and assessment of common and
different impacts among the scenarios

58. Anticipatory Governance Framework - relies on the development of and analysis

of a range of possible scenarios, rather than a forecast or selection of a single scenario.
It presents a new model for decision making while dealing with high uncertainties and
consists of the anticipatory future steps and feedback creation of flexible adaptation
strategies, monitoring and action

59. Climate Change Action Plans - many cities and states have developed “Climate
Change Action Plans” to mitigate and adapt to climate change. These plans help to
identify and evaluate feasible and effective policies to reduce GHG emmissions through
a combination of public and private sector policies and programs. In addition, these
plans provide a framework to change current development patterns and establish a
sustainable way of living in the future, which reduces the vulnerability to climate change
and increases the adaptive capacity of of communities

60. City's Influence on Disasters

61. IPCC

62. Urban Fabric - the physical elements of an urban environment; these include
buildings, parks, streets, trees and sidewalks, to name a few

63. Role of Cities in Causing and Resolving Climate Change

64. Climate Change Impacts in Cities

65. Chronic Stresses vs Acute Shocks

66. Fail-Safe vs Safe to Fail

67. Key Approaches to Resilience

68. Qualities of a Resilient City - Reflective, robust, redundant, flexible, resourceful,

inclusive, integrated

69. Urban Resilience Pillars

70. Social Capital - the connections and relationships between people that enable
them to work together, generally for practical benefits

71. Planning for Urban Resilience

72. Food Systems - a complex web of activities necessary for food to travel from field
to fork. It includes the growing, harvesting, processing, packaging, transporting,
marketing, consuming, and disposing of food. It also includes the inputs needed and
outputs generated at each step, their environmental and social impact, and the
governance and economics of food

73. Food Security - the condition in which all people, at all times, have physical, social,
nd economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary
needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life

74. Food Justice - refers to a variety of movements recognizing that our current food
system structurally reinforces racial, gender and social inequalities

75. Food Miles - distance food travels from production to consumer

76. Food Swamps - areas “flooded” by highly processed junk food, disproportionate
advertising for unhealthy food, and excessive fast food outlets

77. Food Waste - is food produced but not consumed

78. Food-Energy-Water Nexus - a concept that explores how food, energy and water
are interconnected, and the wider implications of these interconnections for decision
making

79. Local Food Systems - food production within a given geographic area that
minimizes food miles and has increased use of direct marketing approaches

80. Food Accessibility - access by individuals to adequate resources for acquiring

appropriate foods for a nutritious diet
Urban Sustainable Design 10/17

History:
● 27BCE: Roman Empire developed major infrastructure(aqueducts and sewage),
mixed-use buildings, shared open spaces, and invented cement

● 20th century urban design a reaction to problems in Victorian cities

Early Utopian Visions (1898-1930s)

Broadacre City - decentralized and anti-urban; Frank Lloyd Wright
Radiant City - highly centralized, high rise towers, separated by green spaces,
superblocks, separate uses; Le Corbusier
- Influenced urban renewal and US zoning

Urban Renewal (1949-1970)

- Demolished traditional mixed-use neighborhoods
- Forcibly relocate residents
- Build housing projects, highways, shopping, etc.

Suburbanization (1950s-?)

Traditional Neighborhoods
- Neighborhood center
- 5 minute walk
- Pedestrian friendly, accessible
- Diverse

Suburban Sprawl
- Housing subdivisions as clusters or pods
- Shopping centers
- Office parks

Causes of Sprawl
- Post WWII legislation supporting single-family home ownership
- Development of interstate highways system
- Local road development/disinvestment in public transit
- Shops and jobs followed movement to suburbs
- Planners advocated single-use zoning

Consequences of Sprawl

Socio-Economic
- Reliance on personal vehicles
- Traffic
- High cost of service provision
 - Inner city decay
- Segregation and isolation
- Homogeneous landscapes
- Reduced sense-of-place
- Loss of farmland

Environmental
- Habitat loss and fragmentation
- GHG emissions/climate change
- Resource use
- Pollution

Solutions to Sprawl

Ian McHarg: Design with Nature

- Urban form should follow ecological function
- Identifying suitable locations for development

New Urbanism
- Use a planning approach that looks at beautification
- Create places that look unique
- Green
- Walkable
- Wants people to know their neighbors and stay
Criticism is that it is very expensive and only get built in certain areas

Smart Growth
- High densification
- Going into empty lots
- Multi-use buildings
- Well-connected to public transportation
- City of Clarksville

Complete Streets
- Aim to design right of way for all users regardless of age, ability, or mode of
transportation
- Importance of multiple transport options and walkability

Site-level Sustainable Design Strategies

- Reflective surfaces
- Cool, green, or solar roofs
- Painting street or roof white reflects light and reduces urban heat island
and cooling costs
- Green infrastructure
- Vegetation including street trees, bioswales, rain gardens, green roofs etc.
provides multiple benefits
 - Reflective paint on streets?
- Green roof in Chicago
- Pervious Pavement

Benefits of Green Infrastructure

- Environmental
- Economic
- Social

Sustainable Design Standards and Ratings

- Community level
- STAR Communities (sustainable tools for assessing & rating communities)
- LEED
- Site-level
- LEED
- BREEAM

US Green Building Council (USGBC) and LEED

- National nonprofit
- Diverse membership of organizations
- Consensus driven

- Strategies:
- sustainable site development,
- water savings,
- energy efficiency,
- materials and resources selection,
- indoor environmental quality

Problems with LEED

- Has become expensive, slow, confusing, unwieldly, resulting in
- Mediocre green buildings with wrong goals
- Few super high level eco structure built by ultra motivated and wealthy
owners - stand as a beacon of impossibility
- Chasing money
- Discouraging for professionals who want to build green but can’t afford to
certify
- System is easy to manipulate
- Focus on points
- Basic certification is too low a hurdle to merit green stamp of approval
- Does not consider regional differences

Characteristics and Principles of Sustainable Cities

- Low ecological-environmental impact
- Solar and other renewable forms of energy
- Energy efficient bulidings
 - Urban density and cluster housing
- Zoning and designs that create dense, mixed-use neighborhoods
- Maintain public green spaces

- Green Economy and Employment

- Cities invest in pushing eco-industries and tourism

- Pedestrian and Cycle-Friendly Design and Transit

- Build pedestrian and cycling infrastructure
- Build, promote, and subsidize public transit
- Penalize or disincentive car use

- Emphasis on Resilience
- Decentralized or distributed infrastructure

- Place-making
- Emphasize local culture, history, and build sense of community

- Connect economic, ecological, and social dimensions

- Try to find strategies for different interest groups

- Planning and policies that support sustainability and resiliency

- Political will to engage in sustainability
- Sustainable urban planning and policies are critical

10/24

Sustainable Neighborhood Design - Case Studies

Hammarby Sjostad - The Symbiocity Approach

- Less than 1% of waste ends up in landfills; either recycled or incinerated

otherwise
- Founded on initiative of swedish govt. And skl international
- www.symbiocity.se
- Holistic approach to sustainability and urban design
- District development close to Stockholm’s downtown
- Focus on building a sustainable community that is twice as efficient as a typical
district
- 200 hectares of former Brownfield (industrial waterfront)
- 25,000 people in 11,000 housing units
- 200,000 sq meters of commercial space for 10,000 jobs
- Wide range of educational cultural and recreational programs and infrastructure
- Hammarby Model:
- Attempt at a blanched “closed-loop” urban metabolism
- Unified infrastructure of energy, water and waste
- Energy:
- Energy supply only based on renewables
- Most energy for heating and cooling from local combustible waste
which is recycled or from renewable sources
- Natural gas is another energy source for neighborhood
- Sewage water is purified and the waste is then recycled into
natural gas
- Heat produced thru this process is then recycled for use at a
district-heating unit

- Waste:
- Goal of 20% waste reduction
- Biodegradable waste composted nearby and each apartment block
has recycling facilities
- Waste vacuum system
- One-stop collection helps reduce amount of vehicle traffic
- Underground storage for garbage; garbage trucks don’t have
to access neighborhood anymore

- Water:
- Surface water cleaned locally to reduce amount of runoff entering
drainage system
- After purification process, the water travels out into the lake
hammarby sjo, re-energizing water lake levels
- Roof gardens also serve to reduce roof runoff during storm events

- Transportation
- Promote public transport and reduce private vehicular traffic
- Road network design give preference to buses, light rails, bikes,
pedestrians, etc
- Transport efficiency and increases convenience for passengers
- 4 light rail stops
- 3 bus routes
- Ferrylink system - takes 5 min to cross lake; every 5-10 minutes all
day
- Emphasis to reduce use of private cars

- Architecture and Design

- Mixed development
- Promotes functional and social integration
- Reduces transport needs
- Sustainable buildings
- Minimize hazardous substances
- High quality indoor climate- buildings in gold level
 - Life cycle analysis
- Children- and family -friendliness
- Families’ perspective and functionality
- Public open spaces, schools, sports clubs, day care, and
recreation where different groups can interact
- Public Realm and social infrastructure
- Has provided its residents w necessary institutinal spaces
- Schools, retirement homes, health care facilities,
commercial services and space
- Hammarby sjostad has many amenities for their residents,
inviting people into the public realm
- Mooring places for small boats, sports hall, library,
youth center, culture and theater center, high quality
public space
- Landscape architecture
- Network of varied parks, green spaces and walkways runs
thru district
- Counterbalance to dense urban landscape
- Green surfaces and trees that help to collect rain
water locally
- Vegetation also filters the pollutants from stormwater
and ensures cleaner air
- Natural landscape, where possible, has been preserved

Freiburg’s Vauban and Riselfeld Neighborhoods

Goal: to create strong, vibrant, healthy, sustainable and resilient community

● City council controlled process from outset rather than responding to private
developers
● Social dimensions of sustainable neighbourhood design was considered thru all
stages in planning process
● Community was closely engaged in development process at every level
● Planners and architects allow individual designs within an overall framework of
design codes

Rieselfeld Neighborhood
● 70 hectares at outskirt of freiburg
○ Largest neighborhood project in the state
● 12,000 ppl and 4,200 apartments
● All houses are built as low energy buildings
○ Most have photovoltaics and solar heating
○ Energy concept includes CHP power station

● Concept w great focus on green open spaces

 ● Simple building design
● Mixed-use
● Cyclists and pedestrains have priority
● Bike and traffic-calmed streets where children are allowed to play
● 18mph speed limit within the development
● Predominance of underground parking or carports with storage above

Vauban
● 38 hectares in an area of farmer french military base
● Neighborhood for 5000 residents and small local businesses
● Low energy buliding is obligatory
● Majority are zero-energy or energy plus buildings
● Received much attention for its efforts at promoting car free living
● Costs of housing and parking are separated
● 14,000 extra for cost of a garage parking space
● Majority of households do not own a car
● Private motor vehicles are parked in either of the two garages
● Linked to the light rail since 2006
● U-shaped access roads limit the traffic entering interior living spaces
● Roadways allow to drop off needed items
● Life happens in interior pedestrian spaces
● Extensive set of walkways and paths connect different housing areas
● Relatively compact and dense housing pattern
● Primarily attached and multifamily housing
● Green spaces between housing rows, vegetation
10/31

Sustainable Transportation

● Petroleum supplies 95% of total energy use by world transport

● Transport responsible for abt 23% of world energy related GHG emissions

Transportation sector:
● Land-based transportation systems generally have highest usage in urban
systems
● Road vehicles account for more than ¾ of total transport energy use
● Transportation of what and how impacts GHG emissions and guides adaptation
and mitigation

Key Challenges:
● 1.2 billion cars on the road
● Up to 4 billion cars by 2050
● Average vehicle speed during peak hour is as low as 10 kmph

Impacts of Climate Hazards on urban transportation systems - water

● Floods
● Storms & winds
● Sea level
● Physical damage to roads, etc
Other
● Heat
● Secondary hazards: fire from drought, landslides from rainstorms

● Vulnerability of transportation assests depend on:

1. Design and spatial layout of transport infrastructure
2. Basic urban form
3. Availability of resources

Mitigation Strategies for Urban Transportation Systems and related land use
● Subsidies for public transit
● Speed limits
● Land uses have a big impact
● Walkability
● Zoning regulations
● Incentives for high-density urbanization that discourage sprawl

Sustainable urban Transport

● A means to an end
● Accessibility (not mobility) is the goal
● Avoid - Shift/Maintain - Improve
○ A: reduce or avoid need to travel (System Efficiency)
 ○ S: shift to or maintain share of more environmentally friendly modes (Trip
Efficiency)
○ I: improve energy efficiency of transport modes and vehicle technology
(Vehicle Efficiency)
○ The hope is that people will feel able to downsize
● Energy efficient transportation:
○ Better energy security (fuel and energy costs)
○ Less externalities (noise and accidents)
○ Stronger economic development (jobs, private investments, reduce
congestion and time savings)
○ Better air quality (lower welfare costs, etc)
● Challenges to ASI approach
Issues
○ Missing walking and cycle facilities
○ Inadequate public transport
○ Inadequate effort to control transport demand
○ Increasing accidents
○ Free parking

Mitigation measures
○ Priority to Non Motorized Transport (NMT)
○ Support Public transport
○ Land use transport integration
○ Travel demand management measures

● Pedestrian death rates have gone up due to cell phone use

Non-motorized Transport
● 10 bikes = 1 car parking spot
● 5 times more people can move per hour on a bicycle track compared with a traffic
lane
● Cities in Europe have successfully created walk-only zones
● Elevated bus stop platform

Transit Oriented Development (TOD)

● TOD’s are essentially activity centers established around a transport node

○ Medium to high density housing
○ Mix of retail, employment, commercial and civic development
○ Enhanced accessibility to via walking and cycling links

○ Provides city opportunity for affordable housing

● TOD placemaking
○ Close proximity to rail station
○ Well defined public spaces
 ○ Mix of uses - livability, vibrant places
○ Pedestrian scale - comfortable and safe
○ Active ground-floor retail
○ Sidewalks cafes
○ Tree lined streets
○ Reduced and hidden parking
● Benefits of TOD community
○ Vibrant, diverse, pedestrian scaled neighborhood integrated w city
○ More walking and transit trips = reduced dependency on cars, improving
health
○ Increased mobility choices for everyone, esp: lower income, etc
● City
○ Compact, mixed use creates jobs
○ Increases housing supply, including affordable housing
○ Transit proximity provides reduced trips
○ More efficient use of limited resources
○ Qualifies for multiple sources of public financing from state and federal
and metropolitan transit authorities
11/14

Urban Ecology & Green Networks

Green Networks - planning strategy for integrating ecosystems into developed

landscapes in response to deleterious effects of fragmentation and ecological
degradation

Related to: Green infrastructure, ecological networks, greenways, green or ecological

structure, habitat networks, dispersal networks

5 Key Elements:
● Focus on conserving biodiversity at the ecosystem, landscape and regional scale
● Maintaining or strengthening ecological coherence, mainly through providing for
ecological interconnectivity
● Ensuring that critical areas are buffered from potentially damaging external
activities
 ● Restoring where appropriate degraded systems
● Promoting complementarity between land uses and biodiversity conservation objectives, andpa

Ecosystem services are the transformation of a set of natural assets into things we
value

Urban Ecosystem Typologies: preserved, restored, hybrid, synthetic, regenerated

● Mega-scale (continental) networks - ex. Pan-European Ecological Network for

Europe; Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Corridor
● Macro-scale (national and regional) networks - ex. Dutch National Ecological
Network
● Meso-scale (city) networks - ex. Chicago Area Green Infrastructure; Copenhagen
Finger Plan; Phoenix Connected Oasis
● Micro-scale (individual project or site)

-NYC High Line Park and Dryline

-Overpasses over highways just for animals to get across; grey to green infrastructure
-Portland Green Streets
-Musee du Quai Branly
-Roof gardens
-vertical indoor farms
11/21 - City of Freiburg; Germany’s Green Capital

● Founded in 1120
● Strategically located at a junction of trade routes
● Heavily bombed during WW2
● Reconstruction based on city’s medieval plan:
○ Density
○ Walkability
○ Connectivity
○ Accessibility
● Everyone has access to public transit

Today
● Pop. of 230,000, 60sq mi (40% is forest area)
● One of the oldest universities in Germany (est. 1457)
● No heavy industry
● Hub of regional tourism, academia, and research

Freiburg’s Green Roots

● With its large academic community, it was an early stronghold of the Green
Movement in Germany during the 1970s
● Successful protest against a nearby nuclear power plant in 1975
● Leaders joined the political arena, the administration, found a job in educational
or research activities, or founded green-spirited companies
● In the last 2 decades, Freiburg has been pushing the eco-theme rather
successfully

Global Transportation Concept

● Approved in 1969 as an integral part of the development of the city
● Traffic management and cycle path network plan that is updated every 10 years
○ Reduce traffic in the city and give priority to local transport, bicyclists and
pedestrians
○ Create a rational balance between all modes of transport
○ Create global traffic calming and concentrate private vehicles onto well
constructed main arteries
○ Control parking in public area

○ Bike path network since 1969

○ 1972, decision made to retain and expand light rail network
○ 1973, city center was converted to a pedestrian zone
○ Public transit network has been steadily expanded and modernized
Bicycle
● 300 miles of bike paths and bike friendly streets
● Over 8000 bike parking spaces
● Cycling is promoted with free maps and other information
● Major multistory parking facility
 ● Adjacent to main train station
● Excess to all modes of transport
● Green rooftop and powered partially by photovoltaic panels
Public Transit
● Light Rail Netowrk comprises 30 km
○ Backbone of public transport in city
○ 70% of pop. lives within 500 meters of a tram stop
○ Light Rail every 7.5 minutes during rush hours
○ renewable energy utilized to power light rail (80% hydro/20% solar and
wind)
○ Connected to 168 km of city bus routes as well as to the regional railway
system
○ Regional train service every 30 min
○ public transport is convenient
● Other policies
○ Another policy is traffic calming
○ City center is pedestrian zone
○ Speed limit 19 mph for most streets
○ In some streets, cars can travel no faster than walking
○ Residents can apply for changing the status of their street
○ Freiburg doesn’t want cars to be able to cut through residential
neighborhoods
○ Car sharing is also supported by city
○ Controlling parking another key feature
■ No free, uncontrolled parking in the city center
■ Parking is on a sliding scale of charges and regulations from the
city outwards
■ Encourage commuters to use public transit
■ Closer you park to downtown, the more expensive it gets
● Results and Impacts
○ Nearly 90% of 30,000 university students take public transportation or bike
○ From 1967 to 1997, percentage of ppl using cars on a regular basis fell
from 63 to 40%
○ 4,000 fewer cars enter the city center each day
○ 70% of local journeys are made using light rail
○ GHG emissions declined by 13.8% between 1992 and 2007
○ Requires public support and buy-in

● Energy
○ Progressive energy policy
○ Model of sustainable energy development in Germany
○ 3 events strengthened the determination to find alternatives to nuclear and
fossil fuel
○ Energy policy has 3 basic pillars:
■ Energy saving
■ Efficient technologies
 ■ Renewable energy sources
● Energy Saving
○ Since 1992, strict building design standards for new houses
○ No more than 65 kilowatt-hours of heating per square meter per year
○ Adds about 3% to the cost of the house
○ Reduced heating oil consumption from 12-15 liters to 6.5 liters per square
meter
○ Support program to improve energy efficiency in existing buildings
○ Insulation and energy retrofits
○ City provided 1.2 mill Euros subsidies from 2002-2008
● Efficient Tech
○ Freiburg relies heavily on combined heat and power plants
○ Produce both electricity and heat by capturing the waste heat from
electricity production
○ 50% of Freiburg’s electricity produced with CHP
○ Only 3% in 1993
○ 14 large-scale CHP plants and about 90 small-scale CHP plants
○ 2 large-scale plants near landfills using gas as fuel
○ Others use natural gas, bio-gas, geothermal, wood chips, and/or heating
oil
○ Reduced reliance on nuclear power from 60% to 30% (still import nuclear
power largely from France; don’t like talking about that)
● Energy Policy - Renewable Energy Sources
○ Leader in environmental protection
● Renewable Energy Sources - Solar
○ Most sunny days in Germany
○ Over 1,800 hours each year
○ 400 PV installation on both public and private buildings
○ Over 150,000 square meters of PV cells
○ Produces over 10 mil kwh/year
○ 60 ‘plus energy’ homes create more energy than they consume
○ 6000 Euros per year for their residents
● Wind
○ Freiburg is not ideally suited for wind energy
○ Five windmills are within the city’s boundaries
○ 14 million kwh/year
○ Regional legislation has made it difficult for private development of wind
power
○ No projects planned currently
● Hydropower
○ Only small, eco-friendly facilities are on the river and on smaller canals
and streams
○ Generate about 1.9 mil kwh/year
○ Additional hydropower is also imported
○ Slightly more expensive for the consumer
 ○ Extra costs go to funds supporting the development of more renewable
energy

Sustainable Neighborhood Development

● Residents of Vauban don’t mind not having a car
● Good place to raise a family
● Quiet without traffic noise - helps reduce stress level
● Hard for US to get a grasp on density

Parks and Green Zones

● Germany’s largest communal forest (12350 acres)
● Covering over 40% of municipal area
● 44% are used as an environmentally appropriate economic forest
● 56% are conservation area
● Over 1500 acres of parks and 160 playgrounds
● Provide greenery, recreation and biodiversity
● No pesticides and only indigenous plants and trees allowed
Green Economy
● Environmental companties, research and education play a big role in Freiburg
● Nearly 10,000 ppl employed by 1,500 companties
● Contributes 500 million Euros annually to the economy
● Renewable energy pridcution is encouraged w tax credits from federal gov
● Grassroots financing scheme allow citizens to invest directly in renewable energy
sources
● Citizens invested over 6 million Euros in renewable energy projects
● Positive image attracting eco-tourism

Factors for Success - 5 Big Cs as preconditions for successful sustainable policy

implementation and urban development
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