ENERGY AND URBAN SYSTEMS Using ecological analysis methods to understand urban systems a new paradigm Environmental concerns have become of paramount importance. Certain global problems may soon be irreversible (e.g., deforestation, extinction, soil loss, climate change). These are systemic problems that cannot be understood in isolation but rather are interconnected and interdependent. Solutions may be simple but will require a radical shift in our perceptions, our thinking, and our values. Humans unwittingly express and incorporate their paradigmatic priorities – their societal organizing principles – in their built environment Medieval cities dominated by churches 19th and early 20 century American cities dominated by institutions of governance 21st century cities dominated by business http://forestry.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2015/07/ufheader.jpg http://www.livablecities.org/sites/default/files/article/Copenhagen.jpg A new paradigm that includes ecological principles and livability? Urban Ecosystems Socio-ecological-economic systems Three issues: 1)understanding a city as a system 2)understanding specific environmental impacts of cities 3)understanding a city as a sense of space (human niche) A. City as system Inputs: air, water, food, fuels, raw materials, people Outputs: waste heat, finished goods, ideas, wastewater, solid wastes, air pollutants “Systems theory is, strictly speaking, not a theory of systems, but of system-environment distinctions.” 1) City as system: Inputs: air, water, food, fuels, raw materials, people Outputs: waste heat, finished goods, ideas, wastewater, solid wastes, air pollutants …build and maintain order and organization by taking in high quality energy, using it, and passing degraded energy outside of the system. System (human or natural) High quality Energy Input Low quality Energy output (heat) Thermodynamically, Open Systems B. Impacts on Environment Loss of habitat Impervious surface increase Alter biogeochemical cycles Water - increases runoff & flooding (faster & higher peak) Nitrogen - air pollution (smog) Phosphorus - water pollution (runoff, wastewater) Sulfur - air pollution (acid rain) Carbon - GHG emissions Microclimate changes Transportation requirements 3) Built Environment - We define our space (landscape): Space defines us DCP_6692.JPG IMG_0736.JPG IMG_1123.JPG Places of quality and character need a successful definition of space Quality of life = quality of (public) spaces What are the key features of cities? Do we feel comfortable, safe? Is it convenient? Is it efficient? Does it provide the homes, jobs, services and ability to access them that we need? IMG_1953.JPG http://www.manhattanstyle.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/greenwichvillage.jpg Due to continued disinvestment since the 1950s, most American cities* today fail to provide this sense of place or to function as places to live, work, and play. They were allowed to fail by public and private choices and instead they are mostly seen as places to visit (for work or entertainment). *With some notable exceptions (NYC, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, Portland, Washington DC, Baltimore?) How did it get to be that way? Response to what? Consequences of what? Late 1800s early 1900s - fossil fuel age brought on: 1)New transportation methods 2)New industries “It’s a simple rule: How we get around determines how we live. But it’s a rule we still haven’t grasped. Transportation determines the form of our places.” p. xi. How Cities Work: suburbs sprawl and the road not taken. Alex Marshall. 2000. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Indiana_population_map.png http://ourfamilyroots.freeservers.com/ohio.map.by.counties.gif Movement by foot or horse results in close-quarter, high-density towns. County seat not more than one day by horse Contrast with states that were surveyed after the auto Transportation matters http://www.geography.vt.edu/worldlandscapes/readings2/preread/s196.JPG https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/images/thumb/8/8e/Canals_in_the_United_States.png/400px-Canals_in_ the_United_States.png Access to water http://www.mdarchives.state.md.us/ecp/10/214/images/00200001.gif Transportation matters http://www.ci.newton.ma.us/Jackson/research/Planning_with_History_Newton_MA_1_files/1908_streetcar_ map.jpg Rise of train and streetcar extended the distances Garden City (Ebenezer Howard 1898): decentralize, disperse into smaller populations built mainly in suburban settings or at the fringe of cities. Transportation matters http://therattler.org/MPj04009500000%5B1%5D.jpg http://www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/environment/assets/denver_copenhagen_suburbs.jpg http://www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/environment/assets/denver_suburbs.jpg http://www.torontoist.com/attachments/toronto_karen/2007_03_21Suburbs.jpg From 1950 onward almost all investment went to roads which cover the landscape Transportation matters 2) Response to industrialization was ZONING, end result is elimination of mixed-use. Mixed use Separation of uses Mall of America Typical strip mall Bedroom community THE RESULT: SPRAWL Sprawl is low-density development beyond the edge of service and employment, which separates where people live from where they shop, work, recreate, and educate - thus requiring cars to move between zones. Leads to auto dependency Auto dependent societies: 1) Cost – to individual, to society (cost of services) 2) Safety – traffic deaths and injuries 3) Environment – burning of fossil fuels, removing habitat, changing hydrology 4) Psychological cost – isolation, anti-social behavior, young and the elderly not participating, ugliness of the built environment Cost to individual Cost to society Federal State County Local taxes For roads and services: police, fire, mail, water, trash removal SPRAWL costs more than higher density Safety In 2010, 32,885 deaths from car crashes. Leading cause of death for U.S. teens, about 2,700 teens aged 16–19 were killed (~7 per day) and almost 282,000 were treated and released from emergency departments for injuries suffered in motor-vehicle crashes. More than 2.3 million adult drivers and passengers were treated in emergency departments as the result of being injured in motor vehicle crashes in 2009. The economic impact is also notable: the lifetime costs of crash-related deaths and injuries among drivers and passengers were $70 billion in 2005. AUG4_USA aug5_thanks jama-olympics and asthma article1 OLIMPIC smith_jump 23% drop in Auto Traffic 28% drop Ozone 42% drop in Asthma attacks Indirect Costs as well Drive less = better health Environmental Impacts of sprawl Traffic congestion Longer commutes Loss of habitat: farmland, open fields, forests & wetlands Increased use of gasoline Increased GHG emissions Worsening air and water pollution Change in land use leads to changed hydrology (increased flooding) Google maps SOCIAL COSTS OF AUTOS [I’m] afraid Americans misunderstand the crises of the suburbs…Suburban moms and dads wonder why their fifteen-year-old children seem so alienated. These kids are physically disconnected from the civic life of their towns. They have no access to the civic equipment. They have to be chauffeured absolutely everywhere - to football practice, to piano lessons, to their friends house, to the library, and of course, to the mall. All they live for is the day that they can obtain a driver’s license and use their environment. Except then, of course, another slight problem arises: they need several thousand dollars to buy a used car and pay for insurance. Kunstler, James Howard. 1998. Home from Nowhere: Remaking Our Everyday World for the Twenty-First Century; Kunstler, James Howard. 1993. Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape Building nowhere places, that no one cares about or invests in 1994 James Howard Kuntsler Geographies of nowhere It’s not just about the means of transportation: ...the problem with the electric car, is that it does absolutely nothing to address the disastrous social problems caused by urban sprawl. There is every reason to believe it will only make things worse by perpetuating the delusion that we can continue to live vast distances from the places where we sleep, work, shop, and play – or that we should want to continue. Certain sectors benefit greatly from the current situation: Auto industry, Oil companies, suppliers (tires, etc.) Road construction Housing construction, real estate, financing Reinforced as Freedom of Choice and “American Dream” Creating places is almost wholly a product of public, political, and taxpayer-financed decisions. Not individual choice. http://fubini.swarthmore.edu/~ENVS2/S2008/trhodes1/gif/urban-sprawl-florida.jpg For the current American way of life is founded not just on motor transportation but on the religion of the motorcar, and the sacrifices people are prepared to make for this religion. Perhaps the only thing that could bring Americans to their senses would be a clear demonstration of the fact that their highway program will, eventually, wipe out the very freedom that the private motorcar promises to retain for them... In using the car to flee from the metropolis the motorist finds that he has merely transferred congestion to the highway... When he reaches his destination, in a distant suburb, he finds that the countryside he sought has disappeared; beyond him, thanks to the motorway, lies only another suburb, just as dull as his own. Mumsford pp. 106-107 Response to Sprawl Planning options Urban growth boundaries Smart Growth Baltimore County: Urban Rural Demarcation Line (URDL) Design options Neo-traditional planning Traditional neighborhood development (TND) Transit Oriented Development (TOD) New Urbanism “New” Urbanism Principles Take advantage of compact building design Create housing opportunities and choices Create walkable communities Foster distinctive, attractive communities with strong sense of place Preserve open space, farmland, natural beauty, and critical environmental areas Strengthen and direct development toward existing communities Provide a variety of transportation choices Make development decisions predictable, fair, and cost-effective Encourage community and stakeholder collaboration in development decisions. PlaceMaking Ü“Livable communities” ÜMixed uses, higher density, friendly to pedestrians and cyclists ÜCivic places, green spaces ÜProximity to mass transit Uses of sidewalks: contact The sum of casual public contact at a local level – most of it fortuitous, most of it associated with errands, all of it metered by the person concerned and not thrust upon him by anyone – is a feeling for the public identity of people, a web of public respect and trust, and a resource in time of personal and neighborhood need. p. 73 http://farm1.static.flickr.com/92/227735603_1c2445cced_o.jpg http://laist.com/attachments/la_zach/cars-vs-bus-vs-bikes.jpg “To walk or take transit is a public act which makes the street a safer. To drive is a private act which turns the street into a utility.” The process is cyclical. Scale of human versus the auto to serve automotive scale, commercial buildings that are designed to be legible from roadways assume a radically different shape. The human eye can distinguish about 3 features per second. A pedestrian steadily walking along a 100-foot (30-meter) length of department store can perceive about 68 features; a driver passing the same frontage at 30 mph (13 m/s) can perceive about 6-7 features. Auto-scale buildings tend to be smooth, shallow, simplified, with bigger letters and fewer words. Narrow streets http://circle3concepts.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Stroget_copenhagen_4.jpg An active, bustling downtown cannot be purchased. For crowds to walk sidewalks from store to store in the traditional way, a downtown must draw people to it from multiple sources, not just from a few single-note city projects or even a football stadium. And this can only happen if downtown is an actual center of something, particularly retail. Via the Portland model, a center city can be repressurized, the energy of a region turned inward until the downtown streets begin to fill up again. Community Transformation Examples All images and text courtesy Steve Price, Urban Advantage C:\bfath\courses\biol105_SP03\photos\sanpablo1.jpg C:\bfath\courses\biol105_SP03\photos\sanpablo2.jpg C:\bfath\courses\biol105_SP03\photos\sanpablo3.jpg C:\bfath\courses\biol105_SP03\photos\sanpablo4.jpg C:\bfath\courses\biol105_SP03\photos\kendall1.jpg C:\bfath\courses\biol105_SP03\photos\kendall2.jpg C:\bfath\courses\biol105_SP03\photos\kendall3.jpg C:\bfath\courses\biol105_SP03\photos\kendall4.jpg C:\bfath\courses\biol105_SP03\photos\hercules1.jpg C:\bfath\courses\biol105_SP03\photos\hercules2.jpg C:\bfath\courses\biol105_SP03\photos\hercules3.jpg C:\bfath\courses\biol105_SP03\photos\hercules4.jpg C:\bfath\courses\biol105_SP03\photos\colfax1.jpg C:\bfath\courses\biol105_SP03\photos\colfax2.jpg C:\bfath\courses\biol105_SP03\photos\colfax3.jpg C:\bfath\courses\biol105_SP03\photos\colfax4.jpg C:\bfath\courses\biol105_SP03\photos\14thst1.jpg C:\bfath\courses\biol105_SP03\photos\14thst2.jpg C:\bfath\courses\biol105_SP03\photos\14thst3.jpg A good transportation system minimizes unnecessary transportation; and it offers change of speed and mode to fit a diversity of human purposes. p. 57. Marshall 2000 http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photo_StoryLevel/071204/071204_walkable_hmed_730a.hmed ium.jpg Cities themselves are dependent on the countryside for inputs and outputs but have a lower per capita impact than rural areas. We are now in a renaissance for urbanity, so expect good things with continued effort Still time to exchange this … slide69-small For this. mdl 184 DSCN0060 DSCN2677 New Urbanism www.cnu.org Smart Growth http://www.op.state.md.us/smartgrowth/ http://www.smartgrowth.org/ Sprawl http://www.sierraclub.org/sprawl/ www.carfree.com www.kunstler.com