1. Introduction to Urban Sustainability

“If sustainable development does not start in the cities, it simply will not go. Cities have to lead the way.” (Maurice Strong)[1]

City as an open, linear and unsustainable system

It is since 2008, for the first time in human history, more than half of the world’s population now lives in cities. As urbanization continues to grow worldwide, to some extent, we can say that the future of our world is the future of cities.

Urbanization has brought to us many benefits, especially in terms of economic and job opportunities. As centers of communication, education, science, religion, commerce, and political power, cities are hubs of innovations and great places for cultural and social exchange. In terms of environment, the concentration of people and resources provides us the advantages of energy efficiency and convenience in transportation, goods and services delivering, as well as helps preserve biodiversity by reducing the stress on wildlife habitats (Miller 2004).

As cradles of civilization, cities’ influences on culture and society have gone far beyond their proportion of the total population (Cunningham et al 2003). In earlier time, there was just a small percentage of population lived in urban areas, up to only 3% in 1800 and 13% in 1900 (Bugliarello 2008). Then, together with population booming after World War II, industrialization has rapidly boosted urban expansion around the globe. However, most of these urbanizations, particularly those in developing countries, are more on quantity rather than quality. In the international Sustainability Survey[2] conducted by SustainAbility and GlobalScan (2011), most of the experts think that urbanization is a positive for global business, but a negative for society.

In fact, while cities bring many advantages, they are also the cause of many environmental and social problems. Most of cities are not self-sustaining but must rely heavily on external sources such as food from farms, timbers from forests, minerals from mines, water from watersheds. Cities are big consuming clusters of materials and energy. Although city dwellers occupy only about 2% of the Earth’s land area, they consume about 75% of the Earth’s resources (Miller 2004).

The amount of waste outputs is even greater than the materials inputs because materials combine with air or water in the process of being used. Current urban systems are typical examples of the degenerative throughput pattern characterized by linear flows (Lyle 1994). Ultimately, while resources are being depleted, sinks become overloaded with huge wastes far beyond their capacity to assimilate. This one-way throughput system, like most man-made processes but unlike nature’s cycle flows, results in the twin consequences of resource depletion and environmental degradation.

Under population and housing demand pressures, unplanned and uncontrolled “urbanization” spontaneously occurs. In many of the cases, it is merely urban sprawl or urban spreading into suburban areas, where it does not properly and fully function as genuine urbanization, lacking of public services, causing loss of landscape, loss of farmlands. Sometimes, it is characterized by low density development, which is not energy efficient in general, particularly in terms of transportation. And in other times, it is characterized by too high density. Where physical (hard) and social (soft) infrastructure developments do not keep pace with urban expansion and become overloaded, where cities can not manage the excess unskilled labors, urbanization can create more slums, shantytowns, unemployment, poverty, urban segregation.

On the other hand, man-made concrete buildings and asphalt roads absorb more heat, altering microclimate and natural hydrological cycle, limiting rainwater infiltration which can result in more urban flooding. The lack of nature in urban environment, lack of space and stressful city life can cause negative impact to human psychology. Sometimes, the hidden social problems related to industrialization and urbanization can be quite serious as the linkages within communities and between tradition and culture have broken down. Social alienation, lack of public life, isolation, ultimately results in increased crime and fear (Goldsmith 2000).

Since our economies and societies depend so much on fossil fuel, particularly oil, in the context of peak oil[3] and climate change, many urban issues such as energy consumption, green house gas emission, urban flooding, transportation… become more complex and inextricable. Particularly, cities which stretch over flood plains or coast lines, are getting more vulnerable to natural disasters as sea level rising.

So, nowadays, cities are facing many challenges on the path towards sustainability, given that sustainability is an honor goal to pursuit, characterized by livability in a comprehensive view. Urban development patterns can not be sustainable if in themselves there are potential risks of breakdown and collapse due to any ecological imbalance, inequitable distribution or social injustice. Unsustainable urban development, by default, means that it can not go far and continue in the long run.

“The fate of our cities is the fate of the Earth” (Callenbach 1992). Unfortunately, most of our urban development patterns nowadays are not sustainable. Hence, for our future to be possible, we need creative visions of urban sustainability which must be very different with current reality.

Although urbanization causes many problems, urban densities also have in themselves great potential for socio-economic innovation and opportunities, for compact and energy-efficient development. Moreover, the dark sides of urbanization do not always have to manifest, but rather they are often exacerbated by bad planning and governance[4], low public environmental and social awareness. Since awareness involves creating a shared understanding of sustainability and a common sense of purpose among teams, institutions and organizations, it is essential that everyone, especially those participates in the planning process, has a common understanding of what sustainability is and why our current system is not sustainable (Baxter et al. 2009). Therefore, building a holistic guiding framework for urban sustainability, which can be used in urban governance, decision-making, capacity building, education and public awareness raising is a critical key for a sustainable future.

What makes a livable and sustainable city?

(excerpt from my thesis - to be continued)

[1] Chair of the Rio Summit, 1992, quoted in “Urban Sustainability in New Zealand: An Information Resource for Urban Practitioners”

[2] The Sustainability Survey uses research-driven, expert insights to explore solutions to the biggest sustainability challenges, through ongoing engagement with more than 700 thought leaders from across 70+ countries and a variety of sectors (SustainAbility, GlobalScan 2011)

[3] The label for the problem of energy resource depletion, the day that oil production reaches a maximum and will subsequently begin to decline.

[4] Findings from the international Sustainability Survey (SustainAbility, GlobalScan 2011) suggest that, poor city management, plus corruption are the greatest barriers to addressing urban issues.