User:Ehodgkins/Green urbanism

Principles of Green Urbanism
The three main contemporary planners who have contributed to Green Urbanism Thought are Steffen Lehmann, Timothy Beatley, and Peter Newman. Each has their own principles that define green urbanism, and what quality an urban space needs to attain to be green urbanist. All of these principles are based on the understanding that urbanization is a key driver of carbon emissions, resource depletion and environmental degradation. These are zero fossil-fuel energy use, zero waste and zero emissions especially aimed for low-to-no-carbon emissions.

Lehmann’s 15 Principles of Green Urbanism
Lehmann uses a strategic case study of the seaport city of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia to build his definition of Green Urbanism. According to Lehmann, there are 15 such principles of green urbanism that are practical and holistic, including all the aspects needed to achieve sustainable development and encouraging best practice models (Lehmann, 2010). The principles are as follows:


 * 1) Climate and Context: Based on climatic condition prior to selected city, every sustainable design project needs to maintain a complexity within biodiversity, eco-system or neighborhood layout. Enhance the opportunities offered by topographies and natural settings and use of the buildings’ envelope to filter temperature, humidity, light, wind and noise.
 * 2) Renewable Energy for Zero CO2 Emissions: Transform city districts into local power stations of renewable energy sources including solar PV, solar thermal, wind on-and-off-shore, biomass, geothermal power, mini-hydro energy and other new technologies. Some most promising technologies are in building – integrated PV, urban wind turbines, micro CHP and solar cooling.
 * 3) Zero Waste City: Waste prevention is better than the treatment or cleaning-up after waste is formed. So cities should adopt zero-waste urban planning in line with the manufacturing of metals, glass, plastics, paper into new products and better understanding of nutrient flows is needed to control global nitrogen cycle.
 * 4) Water: Cities can be used as a water catchment area by educating the inhabitants in water efficiency, promoting rainwater collection and using waste water recycling and storm water harvesting techniques. In terms of food yielding level, less water needed and drought resistant crops can be developed.
 * 5) Landscape, Gardens and Biodiversity:Introduce inner-city gardens, urban farming/agriculture and green roofs to maximise the resilience of the eco-system through urban landscape thus to mitigate UHI effect. Plants can be used for air-purification and narrowing of roads for urban cooling. Moreover, preserving green space, gardens and farmland, maintaining a green belt around the city is necessity to absorb CO2.
 * 6) Sustainable transport and good public space. Compact and poly-centric cities: An integration of non-motorised transport, such as, cycling or walking and bi-cycle or pedestrian-friendly environment with safe bicycle ways, eco-mobility concepts and smart infrastructure that is electric vehicles, integrated transport system of bus transit, railway and bike stations, improved public space networks and connectivity and a focus on transport-oriented development (Green TODs).
 * 7) Local and sustainable materials with less embodied energy: City construction by using regional, local materials with less embodied energy and applying pre-fabricated modular systems.
 * 8) Density and retrofitting of existing districts: The city is with retrofitted districts, urban infill, and densification/intensification strategies for existing neighbourhoods.
 * 9) Green buildings and districts, using passive design principles: The city, here, applies deep green building design strategies and offers solar access for all new buildings.
 * 10) Liveability, Healthy Communities and Mixed-Use Programmes: The prime concern of the city is for affordable housing, mixed-use programmes and a healthy community.
 * 11) Local food and short supply chains: High food security and urban agriculture by introducing ‘eat local’ and ‘slow food’ initiatives.
 * 12) Cultural heritage, identity and sense of place: A sustainable city with high air quality, no pollution for good health, fosters resilient communities having public space networks and modern community facilities.
 * 13) Urban governance, leadership and best practices: The city applies best practice for good urban governance through combined management and governance approaches and sustainable procurement methods, such as environmental budgeting.
 * 14) Education, research and knowledge: The city with education includes technical training and up-skilling, research, exchange of experiences and knowledge dissemination for all in sustainable urban development.
 * 15) Strategies for cities in developing countries: Particular sustainability strategies are needed for cities in developing countries, such as, training local people to empower communities, creating new jobs and diversifying new job structures to harmonize the impacts of rapid urbanisation and globalisation.

Beatley's Vision of Green Urbanism
Beatley remarked that the vision of green urbanism includes programs, policies and creative design ideas for urban renewal and environment sustainability. Lehmann added the phrase also provides a proactive vision of what might be our zero-carbon, fossil fuel free future: overlapping mixed-use activities, living and working building typologies explored on the urban scale, infrastructures systems for renewable energies, public transport and individual energy-efficient building designs. According to Beatley, cities that exemplify green urbanism are:


 * Cities must be conscious of their ecological effects on surrounding communities and their own natural resources. They must strive to reduce their cannon footprint and waste production.
 * Cities should be designed to work with nature to help cleanse the city’s air and water. Green urbanist cities should have plenty of sunlight, and greenspaces (e.g. rooftop gardens and parks)
 * Cities should strive to create circler, not linear, waste flow. Breaking away from the current extraction and discard cycle.
 * Cities must be self-sufficient by growing food, producing power, and cleaning drinking water.
 * Cities should try to be more sustainable by prioritizing walking, biking, and public transit. All of which decreases the carbon emissions of the city.
 * Cities should focus on its quality of life by creating livable conditions for all residents. Thus looking at the city from a neighborhood level to provide acceptable housing for all. 1

Newman's Seven Archetypal Cities
Peter Newman describes his principles of Green Urbanism through seven archetypal cities that each represent a different aspect of Green Urbanism. Newman believes that Green Urbanism can be used to create a more sustainable society that can fight against the ecological impacts of climate change. He discusses the importance of renewable energy, a circular economy, and sustainable infrastructure. These are Newman's seven Archetypal Cities:
 * 1) The Renewable City: Is a city powered by renewable energy. Urban planning should be utilized to support wind power and solar energy, by creating rooftop solar paneling and off coast wind farms.
 * 2) The Carbon-Neutral City: Is a city that strives to reduce carbon emissions, increase renewable energy, and offset remaining carbon emissions. Cities can decrease their carbon emissions by building energy efficient buildings, increasing the efficiency of public transportation, and lining roads with trees and greenery.
 * 3) The Distributed City: Is a city that spreads energy and water production throughout different areas of the city. Thus decentralizing energy and water systems with smaller systems of production, like rooftop solar panels and water recycling systems.
 * 4) The Biophilic City: Using the principles of Green Infrastructure to bring ecological features and green areas into the city in order to combat carbon emissions. Creating more green space and trees to trap air pollutants and urban agriculture to decrease a city’s carbon footprint.
 * 5) Eco-Efficient City: A city that strives to reduce their carbon footprint by reducing waste and decreasing its consumption. By using a circular economy to create a circular flow of waste, a city can reduce the amount of waste that eventually ends up in landfills or polluting surrounding nature and waterways.
 * 6) Placed-Based City: It is a that prioritizes creating a local economy that is committed to the community, thus creating local jobs that then decrease the amount of carbon emissions used for commuting. The city then priorities localizing production of energy, food, and materials to create a strong place-based city.
 * 7) The Sustainable Transport City: Is a city that creates a sustainable transportation system, by offering walkable transit-options that focus on using renewable energy. The city should strive to create a high-density urban form that makes walking, biking, and public transportation a more efficient option.

Singapore - City in a Garden
Singapore has shown the world how green urbanism can be achieved in a densely populated city. Singapore is a city state that has an area of ​​728.6 km2 with a population of 5.6 million making it the 2nd most densely populated country in the world. The city is renowned for its ability to bring nature and greenery to an urban environment. Singapore's current city motto is “Singapore – City in a Garden" which was changed from “Singapore – Garden City" highlighting that the city's first priority is its greenery. The city has an extensive 180km park system that has paths and walkways interweaving throughout green spaces and gardens around the city. The city has bolstered its green urban structure through its Skyrise Greenery initiative which subsides the building of roof and vertical gardens. Renewable energy has been growing throughout the city with 203 MWp in 2018 to 350 MWp in 2020, and the city wants to increase its capacity to over 1 GWp. The city also has an exemplary recycling system with almost all of construction waste being recycled, and extracting from the waste stream so very little eventually ends up in landfills. The Majority of rain and storm water is collected and used throughout the city. Singapore also has an esteemed public transit system with most public transit is faster than traffic down main corridors.