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Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals Series Editor: Walter Leal Filho
Walter Leal Filho · Anabela Marisa Azul Luciana Brandli · Pinar Gökçin Özuyar Tony Wall Editors
Sustainable Cities and Communities
Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals Series Editor Walter Leal Filho
The problems related to the process of industrialization such as biodiversity depletion, climate change, and a worsening of health and living conditions, especially but not only in developing countries, intensify. Therefore, there is also an increasing need to search for integrated solutions to make development more sustainable. The current model of economic growth used by many countries is heavily based on the exploitation of natural resources, which is not viable. Evidence shows that a more careful, that is, a more sustainable, approach to the use of our limited resources is needed. The United Nations has acknowledged the problem, and among other measures, it produced a set of documents at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2012. In 2015, the UN General Assembly approved the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.” On January 1, 2016, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the Agenda officially came into force. These goals cover the three dimensions of sustainable development: economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental protection. There are to date no comprehensive publications addressing the SDGs in an integrated way. Therefore, the Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals is being published. It encompasses 17 volumes, each devoted to one of the 17 SDGs. More information about this series at https://www.springer.com/series/15893
Walter Leal Filho • Anabela Marisa Azul Luciana Brandli • Pinar Gökçin Özuyar Tony Wall Editors
Sustainable Cities and Communities With 100 figures and 62 Tables
Editors Walter Leal Filho European School of Sustainability Science and Research Hamburg University of Applied Sciences Hamburg, Germany Luciana Brandli Faculty of Engineering and Architecture Passo Fundo University Passo Fundo, Brazil
Anabela Marisa Azul Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology Institute for Interdisciplinary Research University of Coimbra Coimbra, Portugal Pinar Gökçin Özuyar Istinye University Istanbul, Turkey
Tony Wall University of Chester Chester, UK
ISSN 2523-7403 ISSN 2523-7411 (electronic) ISBN 978-3-319-95716-6 ISBN 978-3-319-95717-3 (eBook) ISBN 978-3-319-95718-0 (print and electronic bundle) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95717-3 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Series Preface
The United Nations General Assembly agreed and approved in September 2015 the document “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, which contains a set of measures aiming to balance economic progress and protection of the environment, while at the same time remain aware of the need to address the many disparities still seen between industrialized and developing countries. The Agenda document consists of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These Goals build on the successes of the Millennium Development Goals, while including new areas such as climate change, economic inequality, innovation, sustainable consumption, peace and justice, among other priorities. The goals are interconnected – often the key to success on one will involve tackling issues more commonly associated with another. The 17 SDGs are: SDG 1, placing an emphasis on ending all forms of extreme poverty. SDG 2, which aims to end hunger and achieve food security with improved nutrition SDG 3, focusing on ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all SDG 4, touches on one of the most important areas, namely inclusive and quality education SDG 5, focusing on gender equality SDG 6, which emphasizes the need for clean water and sanitation SDG 7, advocates the need for affordable and clean energy SDG 8, sustaining inclusive and sustainable economic growth with productive and decent working conditions for all SDG 9, which intends to foster industry, innovation, and infrastructure SDG 10, being about reducing inequalities among countries SDG 11, an attempt to ensure that human settlements and cities are inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable SDG 12, with a focus on sustainable consumption and production patterns SDG 13, with an emphasis on the need for climate action SDG 14, raises the need to preserve life below water, especially rivers and oceans SDG 15, draws attention about the need for a greater care about life on land
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Series Preface
SDG 16, which advocates peace, justice, and strong institutions SDG 17, a cross-SDGs effort to foster the partnership for the goals and their delivery The SDGs and their specific objectives are very complex. The mandate of the Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals is, therefore, to clarify and explain a wide range of terms associated with each SDG. It does so by gathering and presenting inputs provided by experts from across all areas of knowledge and from round the world, who explain each term and their implications, drawing also from the latest literature. With 17 volumes and involving in excess of 1,500 authors and contributors, the Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals is the largest editorial project on sustainable development ever undertaken. We hope that this publication will be helpful in fostering a broader understanding of the SDGs, and that this process may inspire and support a wide range of initiatives aimed at their implementation, thus realizing the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”. Hamburg University of Applied Sciences Germany
Walter Leal Filho
Volume Preface
At present, over half of the world’s population lives in cities of various sizes. The UN estimates that by 2050, around two-thirds of all humanity will be located in urban areas and peri-urban settlements. This state of affairs suggests that the quest to pursue sustainable development needs to take into account the need to make cities more livable. This, in turn, means that there is a need to transform the way cities are built and managed. Most cities around the world, especially those surrounding major urban centers, are characterized by a rapid growth. Indeed, such a growth has, in some cases, taken place in such a speed, that a boom in the so-called mega cities, that is, cities whose population exceed 10 million people, has been observed. The rapid growth of such mega cities, particularly across the developing world, means that: (a) Quality of life (b) The availability of green space (c) Provisions for ecosystem services are decreasing. Also, unsuitable living conditions such as slums are increasing, leading to further deterioration of the conditions of urban centers. Therefore, it is important that due emphasis is given toward making cities and human settlements safer and more resilient, on the one hand, and more sustainable, on the other. In addition, there is a perceived need to identify, test, and implement measures which may lead to a better quality of the physical environment and a better balance between urban populations and ecosystems. The SDGs as a whole and SDG11, in particular, provide a new opportunity and offer a new impulse to bring toward making cities and human settlements more sustainable. Consistent with this aim, this volume of the Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals focuses exactly on this aim. The many contributions provided by the authors provide a wide range of views and perspectives on how to make cities more sustainable and clarify many terms and concepts associated with the resilience, safety, and sustainability of cities and urban settlements. With this volume, we hope to be fostering the capacity to work toward more sustainable cities, with due considerations to their vulnerable populations, on the one hand, but to women, young people, and marginalized population groups, on the other.
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Volume Preface
We also hope that the contributions in this volume will provide a timely support toward the implementation of SDG 11 and will foster the global efforts toward making cities better places to live and work. April 2020
Walter Leal Filho Anabela Marisa Azul Luciana Brandli Pinar Gökçin Özuyar Tony Wall
List of Topics
Section Editor: Hari Srinivas Environmental Ethics and Justice for Sustainable Cities Risk Management in Cities Sustainable Urbanization in Africa: The Critical Enablers and Disablers Sustainable, Fair, and Democratic Water Management System Dynamics for Sustainable Urban Planning Urban Ecological Footprints Urbanization and Urban Growth: Sustainable Cities for Safeguarding Our Future Section Editor: Astrid Skjerven Business Continuity Planning Gender-Responsive Public Transport Heritage, Conservation, and Development Housing Affordability: Measurements and Trends Implementation of Green Infrastructure in PostDisaster Recovery New Pervious Concrete Construction Material for Carbon Dioxide Sequestration Non-motorized Transport: Walking and Cycling Participatory Design: Participatory Urban Management Planning Small Cities Toward Being Inclusive, Safe, Resilient, and Sustainable: The Case of a City in Rio Grande Do Sul, Brazil Public Transportation for Children Squatter Settlements and Slums and Sustainable Development Strategies for the Promotion of Affordable Rural Housing
Sustainable and Resilient Cities: A Discourse on the Water Nexus Urban Heritage Conservation and Development Urban Planning, Urban Design, and the Creation of Public Goods Section Editor: Erin A. Hopkins Building Lifecycle Sustainability Analysis Energy Conservation Green Economy and the Transition to Sustainable Development Indicators and Practices of Urban Biodiversity and Sustainability Public and Green Spaces in the Context of Sustainable Development Reducing Informal Settlements Renewable Energy and the Sustainable Development Goals Resilient and Green Building Design/ Construction Social Innovation: An Instrument to Achieve the Sustainable Development of Communities Stormwater Management: An Overview Strategies for Inclusive Urban Renewal Sustainable Urban Planning and Making Sustainable Cities Urban-Rural Nexus and the Dynamics of Sustainability Section Editor: Samuel Borges Barbosa Built Environment Education for Sustainability and Climate Change Preparation Challenges of Informal Urbanization ix
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Food Security Globalization and Cities Housing Policies and Sustainable Development Informal Settlement Upgrading Strategies: The Zimbabwean Experience Models for Financing Mass Housing Spaces of the Commons Technological Innovation for Creating Sustainable Cities and Communities Urban Air Pollution and Environmental Health Urban Lifestyles and Consumption Patterns Urban Metabolism: A Tool to Accelerate the Transition to a Circular Economy Urban Production and Consumption
List of Topics
Sustainable Urban Governance: Power of Partnerships, Planning Process, Public Partnerships, and Performance Parameters Urban Demographics and Sustainable Development Urban Farming and Its Role in Enhancing the Sustainability of Cities Urban Mitigation and Adaptation for Climate Change Urban Pollution and Emission Reduction Urban Solid Waste Regularly Collected and Well Managed Urban Water and Sanitation Section Editor: Olga Kuznetsova
Section Editor: Luciana Londero Brandli Circular Economy and Urban Mining: Resource Efficiency in the Construction Sector for Sustainable Cities Climate Change and Ecotourism in the Context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Compact City as a Model Achieving Sustainable Development Contribution for Affordable and Accessible Infrastructure for Sustainable Cities Disaster Risk Management Strategies: Building the Resilient Human Settlements Ecological Footprint: Pragmatic Approach to Understanding and Building Sustainable Cities Green Cities Inclusive City, Perspectives, Challenges, and Pathways Informal Economy: An Urban Context Focus Liveable City: Toward Economic, Social, Cultural, and Environmental Well-Being Low Carbon City: Strategies and Case Studies Low-Income Housing Tax Credits Mapping Social and Spatial Practices in Human Settlements Resilience in the Context of Climate Change Smart City Development: ICT Innovation for Urban Sustainability Spatial Resilience in Planning: Meanings, Challenges, and Perspectives for Urban Transition
Fostering Rural Urban Relationships to Enhance More Resilient and Just Communities Healthy Cities and Sustainable Innovation Informal Settlements, Slums, and Sites and Services Mixed Income Housing (MIH) Opportunities for All: Inclusive and Equitable Sustainable Development Sharing Economy: Risks and Opportunities in a Framework of SDGs Shop Local, Local Materials, and Local Budgets Sustainable Municipal Management: Implementing Logic Model Concepts and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) Urban Regeneration and Sustainable Housing Renewal Trends Section Editor: Elisa Conticelli Access to Basic Services: From Public Benefit Practice to a Sustainable Development Approach Changing Spatialities of Employment: Geographies of Industry and Services Communicative Turn in Spatial Planning and Strategy Early Warning Systems and Geospatial Tools: Managing Disasters for Urban Sustainability Education for All: Education for a More Inclusive Society Levels of Government for Sustainable Development
List of Topics
Planning the Development of Urban and Rural Areas: An Integrative Approach Rainwater Management, Sustainable Urban Growth, and Climate Change Rethinking Empowerment: Seeking Justice, Not Just Sustainability
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Spatial Planning and Sustainable Cities and Communities Sustainability Assessment Using Governance Indicators Transition Town-Communities and Sustainability Urban Mobility and Transportation
About the Editors
Walter Leal Filho (B.Sc., Ph.D., D.Sc., D.Phil., D.L., D.Litt., D.Ed.) is Professor and Director of the European School of Sustainability Science and Research, whose Headquarters are at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences in Germany. He also holds the Chair of Environment and Technology at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. He is founding editor of the International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education and heads the Inter-University Sustainable Development Research Programme (IUSDRP), the world´s largest network of universities engaged on sustainable development research. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the World Sustainable Development series with Springer. Prof. Walter Leal serves on the editorial board of various journals. He has in excess of 400 publications to his credit, among which are groundbreaking books such as Universities as Living Labs for Sustainable Development: Supporting the Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, Social Responsibility and Sustainability, and Handbook of Sustainability Science and Research. He has nearly 30 years of field experience in project management and has a particular interest in the connections between sustainability, climate change adaptation, and human behavior.
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About the Editors
Anabela Marisa Azul is a Researcher at the Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology (CNC) and Institute for Interdisciplinary Research of the University of Coimbra (III-UC, Portugal). She graduated in Biology at the UC, where she completed her Ph.D. degree in Biology, specialization in Ecology, with a collaboration of LudwigMaximilians-Universität München (LMU, München, Germany). She became an Associate Researcher (Ciência 2009) at the Centre for Functional Ecology (CFE-UC), where she remained until 2014. Here, she developed a holistic approach for advancing translational research that combined the sustainable development with innovation in food production and public scientific awareness (from early childhood). She currently is interested in functional attributes of fungi in the domain of metabolism, aging, and disease and approaches for knowledge coproduction in metabolism and sustainability research. She has coauthored over 40 scientific publications and book chapters, four books for children, two comics, and an animation. Luciana Brandli Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the University of Passo Fundo, Brazil, working in the Ph.D. Program in Civil and Environmental Engineering. Her current research interests include sustainability in higher education and green campus, management of urban infrastructure and sustainable cities, and the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development. She supervises a number of master’s and doctoral students on engineering, environment, and sustainability issues and has in excess of 300 publications, including books, book chapters, and papers in refereed journals. Pinar Gökçin Özuyar is a member of Faculty of Economics, Administrative and Social Sciences at Istinye University, Istanbul, Turkey. She received her B.S. degree in Environmental Engineering from Istanbul Technical University in 1992 and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Bogazici University Institute of Environmental Sciences, Istanbul, Turkey. Her Ph.D. thesis was based on the “Thermodynamic Analysis of Treatment Plants for Producing Energy from Solid Waste,” which she conducted in Germany with a joint scholarship
About the Editors
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from Forschungszentrum Jülich and TUBITAK (Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey). Defining herself as a pracademic, she has more than 25 years of experience not only in academia but also in private sector working on environment and sector-specific activities in Turkey and Dubai (UAE). She has extensive expertise specifically in environmental auditing according to World Bank standards, which is required for international financing especially during company M&As and greenfield projects. Working over the years in projects involving different stakeholder groups with different priorities, she has the proven capacity for establishing a dialogue between such stakeholder groups. Although coming from a technical background, her academic work focuses on involving sustainable development into the strategies of corporations including higher academic institutions. Currently, she teaches and leads funded research on sustainability/sustainable development especially focusing on industrial ecology and regional development.
Tony Wall is Founder and Head of the International Centre for Thriving, a global-scale collaboration between business, arts, health, and education to deliver sustainable transformation for the common good. He is passionate about thriving and has published 200þ works, including articles in quartile 1 journals such as The International Journal of Human Resource Management and Vocations and Learning, as well as global policy reports for the European Mentoring & Coaching Council in Brussels. Overall, his leadership and international impact in these areas have attracted numerous accolades including the prestigious Advance-HE National Teaching Fellowship and three Santander International Research Excellence Awards.
About the Section Editors
Samuel Borges Barbosa Federal University of Viçosa Rio Paranaíba, Brazil
Luciana Londero Brandli University of Passo Fundo Passo Fundo, RS, Brazil
Elisa Conticelli Department of Architecture Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna Bologna, Italy
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About the Section Editors
Erin A. Hopkins Department of Apparel Housing and Resource Management Virginia Tech Blacksburg, VA, USA
Olga Kuznetsova Business School Manchester Metropolitan University Manchester, UK
Astrid Skjerven OsloMet -Oslo Metropolitan University Oslo, Norway
Hari Srinivas School of Policy Studies Kwansei Gakuin University Kobe, Japan
Contributors
Ismaila Rimi Abubakar College of Architecture and Planning, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University (formerly, University of Dammam), Dammam, Saudi Arabia Carla D. Aceves-Avila University Center of Economic and Management Sciences, University of Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Mexico Y. Aina Department of Geomatics Engineering Technology, Yanbu Industrial College, Yanbu, Saudi Arabia Yusuf A. Aina Department of Geomatics Engineering Technology, Yanbu Industrial College, Yanbu, Saudi Arabia Munawwar Alam Commonwealth Local Government Forum, London, UK Violeta Yoalli Alvarado Arriaga Graduate Program in Energy and Environment, Metropolitan Autonomous University-Iztapalapa, Mexico City, Mexico Valeria Andreoni Business School, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK Maria-Beatrice Andreucci Department of Planning, Design, Technology of Architecture, “Sapienza” University of Rome, Rome, Italy Jia Cong Ang Singapore, Singapore Francesco Paolo Appio School of Management, Léonard de Vinci Pôle Universitaire, Paris, France Simonetta Armondi Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy Desalegn Yayeh Ayal Center for Food Security Studies, College of Development Studies, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia A. Balogun Geospatial Analysis and Modelling (GAM) Research Group, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UTP, Seri Iskandar, Perak, Malaysia Edison Barbieri Instituto de Pesca – APTA-SAA, Governo do Estado de São Paulo, Barra Funda, Brazil xix
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Contributors
Nelson Barros UFP Energy, Environment and Health Research Unit, 3ERL – Energy, Environment and Environmental and Public Health Research Lab, University Fernando Pessoa, Porto, Portugal Elena Battaglini Urban and Regional Economics Research Unit, Giuseppe Di Vittorio Foundation, Rome, Italy Monjia Belizaire Simply Sustainability PLLC, Washington, DC, USA Ana Paula Bender Positivo University, Curitiba, Brazil Nuno Ventura Santos Bento Commission for the Regional Coordination and Development of Lisbon and Tagus River Region, Lisboa, Portugal Issa Ibrahim Berchin Research Center for Energy Efficiency and Sustainability (Greens), Universidade do Sul de Santa Catarina (Unisul), Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil Mariano Jorge Beret Rodríguez Center for Research and Higher Studies in Social Anthropology, Guadalajara, Mexico Gerardo Bernache Pérez Center for Research and Higher Studies in Social Anthropology, Guadalajara, Mexico Matt Biggar Connected to Place, San Francisco, CA, USA Patricia Bilotta Graduate Program in Environmental Management, Positivo University, Curitiba, Brazil José Luis Borau Jordán Built Environment Accessibility Department, ONCE Foundation, Madrid, Spain Nana Bortsie-Aryee Global GreenTag Pty Ltd., Brisbane, QLD, Australia Jana Brauweiler University of Applied Sciences, Zittau/Görlitz, Germany Grazia Brunetta Responsible Risk Resilience Centre - R3C, Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy Yakubu Aliyu Bununu Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria Yanjun Cai Urban Climate Resilience in Southeast Asia Partnership, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada Ombretta Caldarice Responsible Risk Resilience Centre - R3C, Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy Franz Calderon Universitaria Colombia
Agustiniana,
Uniagustiniana,
Bogotá,
Gabriela Carpejani Centre for Sustainable Development/Research Centre on Energy Efficiency and Sustainability (Greens), University of Southern Santa Catarina (UNISUL), Florianopolis, SC, Brazil
Contributors
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Francisco A. Comín Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología-CSIC, Zaragoza & Jaca, Huesca, Spain Elisa Conticelli Department of Architecture, School of Engineering and Architecture, Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy Leila Dal Moro University of Passo Fundo, Passo Fundo, Brazil Luise Tainá Dalla Libera Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, University of Passo Fundo, Passo Fundo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil Zelal Darwish Ministry of Culture, Engineering Department, Master of Design and Planning of Urban and Natural Landscape, Damascus, Syria Arunima Kishore Das School of Humanities and Communication Arts, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia José Baltazar Salgueirinho Osório de Andrade Guerra Centre for Sustainable Development/Research Centre on Energy Efficiency and Sustainability (Greens), University of Southern Santa Catarina (UNISUL), Florianopolis, SC, Brazil Cambridge Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance (C-EENRG), Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Rafael Gustavo de Lima Centre for Sustainable Development/Research Center on Energy Efficiency and Sustainability (Greens), Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, SC, Brazil Evailton Arantes de Oliveira University Fernando Pessoa (UFP), Porto, Portugal Manoela de Oliveira Veras Centre for Sustainable Development/Research Center on Energy Efficiency and Sustainability (Greens), Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, SC, Brazil Luíza Luchi de Paulo Gewehr Center for Sustainable Development/ Research Centre on Energy Efficiency and Sustainability (Greens), University of Southern Santa Catarina (UNISUL), Florianópolis, SC, Brazil Mark Deakin School of Engineering and the Built Environment, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh, UK André Borchardt Deggau Centre for Sustainable Development/Research Centre on Energy Efficiency and Sustainability (Greens), University of Southern Santa Catarina (UNISUL), Florianopolis, SC, Brazil Gustavo Di Cesare Giannella Centre for Engineering, Modelling and Applied Social Sciences, Post Graduate Programme in World Political Economy, Federal University of ABC, São Bernardo do Campo, SP, Brazil Arnaud Diemer Jean Monnet Excellence Center on Sustainability (ERASME), University of Clermont-Ferrand (UCA), Clermont-Ferrand, France University Clermont-Auvergne, CERDI, Clermont-Ferrand, France
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Maria Alzira Pimenta Dinis UFP Energy, Environment and Health Research Unit (FP-ENAS), University Fernando Pessoa (UFP), Porto, Portugal Peter Elias Department of Geography, University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria Roberto Falanga Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal Maria Pia Ferraz UFP Energy, Environment and Health Research Unit, Porto, Portugal Health Sciences Faculty, University Fernando Pessoa, Porto, Portugal Giulia Fini Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy Leonardo Freire de Mello Centre for Engineering, Modelling and Applied Social Sciences, Territorial Planning Department, Federal University of ABC, São Bernardo do Campo, SP, Brazil Francisco Freitas Centro de Estudos Sociais, Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal Cle-Anne Gabriel UQ Business School, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Mateo Carlos Galindo Pérez Instituto de Geografía, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad de México, Ciudad de México, Mexico Svetlana Globa Siberian Federal University, Krasnojarsk, Russia Loek Groot Utrecht School of Economics, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands Rema Haddad Damascus University, High Institute of Regional Planning, Damascus, Syria Christian Hoffmann Institute for Regional Development, Eurac Research, Bolzano, Italy Erin A. Hopkins Department of Apparel, Housing and Resource Management, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA Irina N. Ilina Faculty of Urban and Regional Development, HSE University, Institute for Regional Studies and Urban Planning, Moscow, Russia Usha Iyer-Raniga RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia One Planet Network Sustainable Buildings and Construction Programme, UN Environment, Paris, France Nirupa Jain Manda Institute of Technology, Knowledge Creators, Rishabh Dev Educational Society, Bikaner, Rajasthan, India Trilok Kumar Jain Ecosystem for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Suresh Gyan Vihar University, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India
Contributors
Contributors
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Arpan Johari AW Design, Architecture and Urbanism, Ahmedabad, India Yohannes E. Kachenje Ardhi University, Institute of Human Settlement Studies, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Miho Kamei Strategic and Quantitative Analysis Centre, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, Hayama, Japan Hirokazu Kato Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Education and Research Center for Sustainable Co-Development (SusCoDe), Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan Martina M. Keitsch Department of Design, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway Marjan Khaleghi Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Education and Research Center for Sustainable Co-Development (SusCoDe), Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan Tehmina Khan School of Accounting, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia Nupur Prothi Khanna Beyond Built Pvt. Ltd, Delhi, India Hock Lye Koh Jeffrey Sachs Center on Sustainable Development, Sunway University, Bandar Sunway, Selangor, Malaysia Ryo Kohsaka Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan Laércio Stolfo Maculan IMED School of Architecture and Urbanism, Passo Fundo, Brazil Shamiso H. Mafuku Department of Rural and Urban Planning, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe Rui Leandro Maia UFP Energy, Environment and Health Research Unit, 3ERL – Energy, Environment and Environmental and Public Health Research Lab, University Fernando Pessoa, Porto, Portugal Fortune Mangara Department of Urban and Regional Planning, North West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa M. Martínez-Bravo Business and Economics Department, University of Almeria, Almería, Spain J. Martínez-del-Río Business and Economics Department, University of Almeria, Almería, Spain Abraham R. Matamanda Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa Evanisa Fátima Reginato Quevedo Melo Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, University of Passo Fundo, Passo Fundo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
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Md Aslam Mia School of Management, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Pulau Pinang, Malaysia Jessica Andrade Michel University of Passo Fundo – PPGENG, Passo Fundo, RS, Brazil Manoranjan Mohanty The University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji Luca Mora The Business School, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh, UK Fernando Morgado The Centre for Environmental and Marine, Studies (CESAM) and Department of Biology, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal Claudiu Eduard Nedelciu Jean Monnet Excellence Center on Sustainability (ERASME), University of Clermont-Ferrand (UCA), Clermont-Ferrand, France Earth Science Institute, University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland Samara da Silva Neiva Center for Sustainable Development/Research Centre on Energy Efficiency and Sustainability (Greens), University of Southern Santa Catarina (UNISUL), Florianópolis, SC, Brazil Verna Nel Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa Gisela Marta Oliveira UFP Energy, Environment and Health Research Unit, Porto, Portugal Claudia Y. Ortega-Montoya School of Humanities and Education, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Torreon, Mexico Filippo Paganelli School of Engineering and Architecture, Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering – Branch: Transport, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy Marian Palánquex Valles Built Environment Accessibility Department, ONCE Foundation, Madrid, Spain Emanuelle Parenti Center for Sustainable Development/Research Centre on Energy Efficiency and Sustainability (Greens), University of Southern Santa Catarina (UNISUL), Florianópolis, SC, Brazil Kathleen Parrott Department of Apparel, Housing and Resource Management, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA Tatiana Cotta Gonçalves Pereira Department of Legal Sciences, Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, Seropédica, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Luciene Pimentel da Silva Postgraduate Program in Environmental Sciences, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Postgraduate Program in Urban Management, Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná, Curitiba, Brazil
Contributors
Contributors
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Evgenij E. Pliseckij Faculty of Urban and Regional Development, HSE University, Institute for Regional Studies and Urban Planning, Moscow, Russia Sivapuram V. R. K. Prabhakar Natural Resources and Ecosystem Services, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, Hayama, Japan Stefania Proli Department of Architecture, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy Elisa Ravazzoli Institute for Regional Development, Eurac Research, Bolzano, Italy Michele Rocha Reolão University of Passo Fundo – PPGENG, Passo Fundo, RS, Brazil Jairo Agustín Reyes Plata Escuela Nacional de Estudios Superiores, Unidad León, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, León, Guanajuato, Mexico Krishna Roka Department of Sociology, Winona State University, Winona, MN, USA Joana Salgueiro The Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies (CESAM) and Department of Biology, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal Teresa Laginha Sanches Commission for the Regional Coordination and Development of Lisbon and Tagus River Region, Lisboa, Portugal Carlos Sánchez Martín Built Environment Accessibility Department, ONCE Foundation, Madrid, Spain Wellyngton Silva de Amorim Research Center for Energy Efficiency and Sustainability (Greens), Universidade do Sul de Santa Catarina (Unisul), Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil Ruy de Castro Sobrosa Neto Center for Sustainable Development/Research Centre on Energy Efficiency and Sustainability (Greens), University of Southern Santa Catarina (UNISUL), Florianópolis, SC, Brazil Fabiola S. Sosa-Rodriguez Department of Economics, Area of Growth and Environment, Metropolitan Autonomous University-Azcapotzalco, Mexico City, Mexico Fábio Teodoro de Souza Postgraduate Program in Urban Management, Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná, Curitiba, Brazil Janet Speake Department of Geography and Environmental Science, Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool, UK Svetlana Stanišić Singidunum University, Belgrade, Serbia Andreja Stojić Institute of Physics Belgrade, National Institute of the Republic of Serbia, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
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Henning Strubelt Institute of Logistics and Material Handling Systems, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Magdeburg, Germany Akhilesh Surjan Humanitarian, Emergency and Disaster Management Studies, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, NT, Australia Julia Swart Utrecht School of Economics, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands Felipe Omar Tapia Silva Department of Hydrobiology, Metropolitan Autonomous University-Iztapalapa, Mexico City, Mexico Ai Tashiro Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan David Teh College of Business, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia Su Yean Teh School of Mathematical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia Juan C. Tejeda-Gonzalez School of Civil Engineering, University of Colima, Coquimatlan, Mexico Claudia Trillo University of Salford, Salford, UK Yuta Uchiyama Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan Noriko Umikawa Liberal Studies Course, Nagoya Gakuin University, Nagoya, Japan Diana E. Valero Centre for Mountain Studies, University of the Highlands and Islands, Perth, Scotland Diogo Guedes Vidal UFP Energy, Environment and Health Research Unit, 3ERL – Energy, Environment and Environmental and Public Health Research Lab, University Fernando Pessoa, Porto, Portugal CNPq Research Group “Dynamics of Neuro-musculo-Skeletal System”, BAHIANA – School of Medicine and Public Health, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil Markus Will University of Applied Sciences, Zittau/Görlitz, Germany Ely Caetano Xavier Junior Department of Legal Sciences, Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, Seropédica, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil S. Yekeen Geospatial Analysis and Modelling (GAM) Research Group, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UTP, Seri Iskandar, Perak, Malaysia Shasha Zhao Middlesex University London, Business School, The Burroughs, London, UK Ema Izati Zull School of Management, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Pulau Pinang, Malaysia
Contributors
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Access ▶ Sharing Economy: Risks and Opportunities in a Framework of SDGs
Access to Basic Services: From Public Benefit Practice to a Sustainable Development Approach
social, and territorial cohesion and as a consequence sustainable development. Access to basic services is based on the principles of universal access to goods and essential services as well as fundamental rights. Therefore, the state is obliged to regulate and assure the provision of quality services in the interest of promoting and reaching social well-being and the social protection of its population.
The Concept of Access to Basic Services Jairo Agustín Reyes Plata1 and Mateo Carlos Galindo Pérez2 1 Escuela Nacional de Estudios Superiores, Unidad León, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, León, Guanajuato, Mexico 2 Instituto de Geografía, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad de México, Ciudad de México, Mexico
Definition Access to basic services entails the right to housing, education, energy, and health, among other benefits of public interest which are essential to satisfy human needs and to guarantee a worthy life. Basic services ensure social justice and contribute to the equal treatment of all citizens. Such is the importance of access to basic services that it constitutes a key aspect to promote economic,
Access to basic services is a composite concept due to the two nouns it includes: (1) access and (2) services with the latter being complemented by an adjective, basic. Given this structure, a revision of each concept will ensue in order to subsequently synthesize the ideas. In its beginnings, access was not properly recognized as a concept but as an idea or a general expression which led to its inaccurate use and, consequently, to the term being utilized as a synonym of accessibility and availability. Another constant characteristic of the use of the term access was its immediate link to health services, which aids in explaining why the majority of contributions to the concept derive mainly from the health-care field. Aday and Andersen (1974) point out that imprecision in the use of the term access can be explained partly due to a lack of operational measuring. These authors laid some of the foundations
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of the concept by proposing that access (to medical care) had to count on a framework which would include the following aspects: (1) the elements that define policy [among these, financing and organization], (2) system characteristics [e.g., resource, volume, and distribution], (3) population characteristics which influence the use of the service [income], (4) the manner in which the service is used [type, place, purpose, frequency], and (5) consumer satisfaction starting from the quantity and quality of the service provided. From this framework, a study which aided in refining and consolidating the definition was Penchansky and Thomas (1981) whom after reviewing Aday and Andersen’s (1974) proposal defined access as the degree of adjustment between clients and a system (in this case health). Moreover, they contend that access compiles a combination of specific dimensions that characterize the relation between user and system: (1) availability, (2) accessibility, (3) accommodation, (4) affordability, and (5) acceptability. Each one of these dimensions contains intrinsic characteristics. For example, availability characterizes the relation that is established between the volume of resources and existing services and the volume and type of client necessities. Accessibility refers to the link between supply location and user location according to the availability of transportation means, the separation distance, and the time and cost of displacement (trip). Accommodation refers to the correlation between the ways in which services are organized to cater to users (the system and schedule of the operation and/or the ease of reaching it is included). Affordability is the relation that is established according to the price of the services and the income of the user. Acceptability is reached when compatibility of the characteristics of the service and the characteristics of the user is reached (Penchansky and Thomas 1981). This combination of dimensions aided in building a conceptual base and a methodology to define and estimate access and in this way to begin to apply terminology such as equity and equality in access. Now, to address the concept of basic services, the first thing that needs to be specified is the type of existing services and which of these are
Access to Basic Services
considered basic and why. To do so, it is necessary to review the terminology since social services became public, and subsequently urban, to finally emerge as basic services. Firstly, services refer to a combination of satisfiers which are provided to the population in order to achieve their well-being without caring for their concentration or territorial dispersal. Starting from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations 1948) and concretely on article 25, it signals that “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services.” Necessary social services can be understood as those satisfiers provided by the government or the private sector to reach and enjoy an adequate standard of living and to promote more equitable societies. Education, food subsidies, health care, security, job training, civil registry, and subsidized housing were included among social services. As can be seen, social services include satisfiers from different areas. With the advance of the industrial society, social services were transformed into public services. Given this public connotation (for everyone, for every person), contrary to that which is private, public services were conceived as indispensable to the good functioning of cities, and the only actor with the capacity to equip and guarantee the functioning of these types of services was the government in its different levels (federal, state, and municipal). Within the services that were considered public, the supply of energy, health, education, and security were included. Subsequently, the growth of cities conditioned the denomination from public services to urban services. The urban/rural difference leads to a question: Are services solely urban, or are there rural services? The answer to this disjunctive has to do with the administrative model of the services. If what is sought after is that with the equipment of public services, rural communities move to an urban model; the reason why the denomination of urban services was chosen will be understood later in this article.
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Access to Basic Services: From Public Benefit Practice to a Sustainable Development Approach, Table 1 List of urban services Services Basic
Drinking water supply Evacuation of liquid residues Evacuation of solid residues Supply of electric/gas energy
Basic complementary
Direct
Communication and transportation (land, maritime, air, and electronic/ digital) Supply and commerce
Indirect
Health and social assistance Educational and cultural Recreational and sports Public administration Ideologic
Required basic support material (equipment/ infrastructure) Pumping stations and substations; duct networks-canals; wells Sewer network (drainage); sewage treatment plant Recollection system; recycled residue separation plants; landfill Generating stations; distribution network (cabling, ducts) Stations and boarding places; roadways; means of transportation; signals receiving-distributing antennas Places for the reception and trade of perishable and nonperishable products Medical units of different hierarchies Facilities for different levels and educational, artistic, and cultural activities Facilities to do physical, ludic, leisure, and relaxation activities Attention centers (offices) and executive, legislative, and judicial actions Places for religious or cult purposes
Own production
To overcome the dilemma of the urban rural dichotomy and for health reasons, some of the urban services were considered obligatory which gave rise to the term basic services. Drinking water availability, residue recollection and disposal (liquid and solid), as well as the mobility matter were among the basic services included. These were considered essential for the functioning of any human settlement independent of its rural or urban category. Broadly speaking, the provision of basic services aims to guarantee that a home includes the conditions for minimum and dignified habitability. Given this condition, basic services are oriented toward a person. Table 1 presents a classification of urban services. It has been mentioned that basic services are conceived at a home scale. A second category of services could be denominated as basic complements which in turn can be classified into direct and indirect. Direct are those that are given to a city to meet the daily necessities of people. Indirect
complementary services seek to satisfy necessities but not daily and also on a city scale. Current typologies such as the one designed by the UN-Habitat for a better urban future program (UN – Habitat 2018) refer to urban basic services as the following: (1) water and sanitation, (2) urban residue management, (3) urban mobility, and (4) urban energy. This program points out that in order to improve urban basic services, policy and institutional frameworks need to be strengthened to reach equitable access, especially for the poor. As can be seen, mobility was not considered a basic service that had to be addressed immediately given the daily needs of the people to mobilize in the city. New classifications incorporated it within urban basic services. After the aforementioned separated revision, it is time to join access and basic services in order to obtain a conceptual category that includes various dimensions. Starting from the previous contents, the first to highlight from access to basic services is that in the concept there is an implicit condition
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of production/generation of satisfiers and its collective distribution under the equity criteria. Given this condition, for the European Union (Social Platform 2018), access to essential services (or basic) and its benefits must be regulated under the following principles: quality, accessibility, and affordability. In this sense, the European Commission utilizes the term Services of General Interest to refer to “the basic services that are essential to the lives of the majority of the general public and where the state has an obligation to ensure public standards” (European Commission 2011). From this perspective, access to services constitutes a key pillar to promote social, economic, and territorial cohesion and sustainable development. The importance of having access to basic services to sustainable development was made apparent in 1987. The World Commission on Environment and Development, in its report Our Common Future, expressed that sustainable development was a type of development which “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (United Nations 1987). A central aspect of this declaration alluded to a satisfaction of basic necessities as a condition to end poverty and, with it, provide the opportunity for the equitable development of everyone. From the perspective of the World Commission, access to essential services had to be assured for social justice and environmental protection reasons. Deficiency in the provision of services was a consequence of environmental deterioration of planetary systems as well as an indispensable factor for environmental improvement and conservation. Since then, different agendas for sustainable development have addressed basic services. In 2015, member countries from the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Its objectives are to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure the prosperity of men and women of all ages and conditions. The 2030 Agenda includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets (United Nations 2018a). Seven of these SDGs implicitly and explicitly address access to basic services:
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Goal 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere. Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages. Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and quality education for all. Goal 6: Ensure access to water and sanitation for all. Goal 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all. Goal 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization, and foster innovation. Goal 11: Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. In 2016, the New Urban Agenda is defined within the framework of the United Nations’ Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III), which took place in Quito, Ecuador. This instrument lays out a new perspective on urbanization and development starting from the existence of an interdependence between both processes. According to the agenda, respect for human dignity constitutes a fundamental principle that demands that access to essential services be guaranteed to fight social exclusion and poverty (United Nations 2016a).
Access to Drinking Water and Sanitation From the group of basic services, two are vital: drinking water and its counterpart drainage. No basic services are as fundamental for living as drinking water and waste disposal. A population conglomerate cannot obtain drinking water by itself and they can neither eliminate that liquid nor solid waste. These two components are essential both for city life (habitat, recreation, education, health) and also to keep active the economic cycle active. Drinking water and drainage are key services to guarantee the fight against social exclusion and extreme poverty. The growth of cities (area and population) increase the demand of both drinking water and sewage. This increased demand resulted in the exclusion of most of the population in the cities from basic services. The exclusion from
Access to Basic Services
basic services can be absolute or relative. Absolute exclusion occurrs when people live in areas which are not covered by the equipment or infrastructure that supply or distribute services. In this case, localization in the city is the explicative variable for understanding the lack of access to basic services. On the other hand, relative exclusion is explained based on economic or institutional conditions; for instance, low income impedes paying for services; or the informality condition prevents from reaching the service (Pírez 2000). The World Health Organization estimated that 884 million people in 2015 do not have access to safe drinking water and 2.6 billion people lack access to basic sanitation, 40% of the world’s population (WHO 2018). Additionally, 1.1 billion practice open defecation. In 2015, it was expected to reduce to 2.4 billion people who still do not use an improved sanitation facility (WHO 2012). Such is the importance of access to these basic services that water and sanitation have reached the category of human rights. The United Nations Department of Economics and Social Affairs (United Nations, OHCHR, UN-HABITAT, WHO 2010) recognizes the following specific dimensions that characterize the human right to water: Sufficient. The water supply for every individual and household must be adequate and permanent. These utilizations customarily incorporate drinking, individual sanitation, washing of garments, sustenance planning, individual and family unit cleanliness. As per the World Health Organization (WHO), between 50 and 100 l of water for every individual every day are expected to guarantee that the most fundamental needs are met, and few wellbeing concerns emerge. Safe. The water required for individual and domestic use must be guaranteed to be free from smaller scale life forms, concoction substances and radiological dangers that pose a risk to a man’s wellbeing. The World Health Organization (WHO) Guidelines for drinkingwater quality provide a reason for the advancement of national models that, if appropriately
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executed, will guarantee the security of drinking-water. Acceptable. Water ought to be of a worthy shading, scent and taste for home or residential use. All water offices and administrations must be culturally appropriate and delicate to gender, lifecycle and privacy requirements. Physically accessible. Access to water and sanitation service must be guaranteed to everybody. Both goods have to be physically close to the household, educational institution, workplace or health institution. As indicated by WHO, the water source must be within 1,000 m from home and accumulation time ought not to exceed 30 min. Affordable. Water must be moderate for all. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) recommends that water expenses ought not to exceed 3% of family pay. The increasing concentration of population in cities and metropolitan areas in the world requires prior attention to access to drinking water and sanitation. The Commission on Sustainable Development pointed out (2004) that “safe drinking water and adequate sanitation are crucial for poverty reduction, crucial for sustainable development and crucial for achieving any and every one of the Millennium Development Goals.”
Access to Energy In 2000, the world population without electricity was 1.7 billion. This figure reduced to 1.1 billion in 2016, a year that, for the first time, demonstrated a positive tendency due to a decrease in the number of people who lacked electricity (United Nations 2018b). Major progress in electrification occurred in the regions of Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa where 95% of the world population without access to this service is located. In Asia, 870 million have been able to access electricity since 2000 reaching 89% of the population with this service in 2017 (United Nations 2018b). However, outcomes have been mixed. Access to services is unequal. Policies have benefited the rich more than the poor (Wang and Francisco 2010).
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In the world, 2.8 billion people still utilize wood, dung, coal, and charcoal for cooking and heating. The dependency on this kind of energy causes more than four million premature deaths a year due to indoor air pollution. Additionally, the energy sector contributes for around 60% of total global greenhouse gas emissions. From this perspective, access to energy must consider not only the access to this service but also the reduction of negative effects on the environment. Undoubtedly, dealing with access to energy for all is essential for developmental issues today (UN-Habitat 2009; United Nations 2018b). From the industry to daily life, it is a key aspect for jobs, security, food production, or climate change. However, the cost of energy has constantly increased in several countries where the energy sector (oil, natural gas, and electricity) is already privatized or in the process of being privatized. Additionally, the elimination of state subsidies has compromised the access to energy (as a basic service). The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals, specifically Goal 7 (SDG 7): Affordable and Clean Energy, mentions that energy is central to nearly every major challenge and opportunity (United Nations 2018a). Two key pillars of SDG 7 include fostering renewable energy and improving energy efficiency. Renewable energy implies the generation of energy from natural resources (e.g., wind, water, solar, biomass, and geothermal) that are virtually replenished on a human time scale. Access to alternative energies (e.g., wind and solar energies) can be fostered by programs to supply houses with the proper technology and infrastructure (aerogenerators, biodigesters, and solar cells) in order to contribute to sustainability, through the reduction of wastes and the generation of clean energy. This may reduce the dependency on environmentally high impact energies such as the kerosene, charcoal, or wood materials, and consequently, it may help to meet other global goals, including poverty eradication, gender equality, adaptation to climate change, and sustainable cities. Global energy demand continues growing every year; meanwhile the overall share of
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renewable energy has increased only modestly. This rise was 5.4% for modern renewables in the 2005–2015 period. The heating and cooling sector consumed renewable energy the most (48%). It included thermal applications for climate control, heat for industrial use, agricultural drying, etc. The second place was for transportation (32%), followed by electricity consumption (20%) (REN 21 2018). The Human Development Report (UNDP 2016) indicated that more than 80% of world energy supply was made up of fossil fuels in 2015. That percentage decreased to 55% in 2015 which represented an increase in the use of renewable energies. Apparently, an increase in electrical energy supply coincided with a technological change regarding energy. In this sense, the Renewables 2018 Global Status Report by the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN 21 2018) points out that an estimated 18.2% of global total energy consumption came from renewable resources in 2016. Modern renewables (not including traditional biomass) represented 10.4% (1.7% wind/solar/biomass/geothermal/ocean power, 0.9% biofuels for transport, 3.7% hydropower, and 4.1% biomass/solar/geothermal heat). An estimated 7.8% of the total final energy consumption came from traditional biomass. This energy source continues being important in many developing countries where it is used for cooking and heating. Still, 79.5% of energy consumption was of fossil fuel in origin. The new annual investment in renewable power and fuels in 2017 were 279.8 billion USD. Compared to 2016, it had an increase of 2.11%. Nearly all of the investment was in solar photovoltaic (PV) installations; increasing the capacity to nearly double that of wind power and more than the net additions of coal, gas, and nuclear combined. Growth in renewable energy has been possible thanks to subnational governments who are becoming leaders in renewable energy and energy efficiency initiatives. Additionally, the cost of renewable technologies has fallen rapidly, increasing the energy capacity installations. In this sense, developing and emerging economies
Access to Basic Services
accounted for 63% of total renewable energy investment in 2017. China accounted for 45% of global investment. Latin American countries also held steady or tended to increase. In contrast, European countries have decreased in global investment since 2010 (REN 21 2018). With respect to energy efficiency, it is a key aspect to foster economic growth and improve the environment and well-being. Energy efficacy implies that the same or more energy services are delivered for the same or less energy input. That can be achieved by reducing energy losses that occur during the conversion, transmission, distribution, and final use of energy. For example, implementing energy-efficient technologies can offer benefits to reduce energy costs, improve energy security, reduce local air pollution, or mitigate climate change. Energy efficiency can support renewable energy performance and vice versa. According to REN 21 (2018), it can be in two ways: (i) the reduction of energy consumption through efficacy improvements means that the quantity of renewables can meet a larger share of energy use, and (ii) renewable energy production reduces the use of primary energy and conversion losses. Despite these synergies, energy efficiency and renewable energy are not considered yet as a part of unified energy policy to ensure access energy for all. Not all of the countries have been successful in reducing energy consumption. According to Sustainable Energy for All (United Nations and The World Bank 2018), primary energy intensity improved 2.1% a year in the 2012–2014 period. Twenty countries concentrate 75% of global total primary energy supply (TPES). From these, China, the United States, India, and Russia account for nearly 50% of global TPES. Twentytwo percent is attributed to China. In contrast, the United Kingdom, Nigeria, China, Italy, Australia, Russia, and Mexico have reduced their intensity by more than 2% annually in the same period.
Access to Housing Access to housing constitutes an issue of human rights that is recognized in International Human
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Rights Law (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 25 (1)) as part of the right to an adequate standard of living (UNHCR 2014). It is seen as one of the most basic human needs (as a basic service) and a precondition for the enjoyment of several human rights, among them, the right to work, health, or education. Adequate housing has implications for human dignity and quality of life and basic freedoms of privacy and movement. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR 2014), adequacy of housing includes security of tenure; availability of services, materials, facilities, and infrastructure; affordability; habitability; accessibility; locations; and cultural adequacy. To begin with, security of tenure means to guarantee legal protection against force evictions, harassments, and other threats. Availability of services, materials, facilities, and infrastructure points out the provision of adequate sanitation; energy for cooking, heating, and lighting; or safe drinking water. The term affordability considers whether housing does not impose a threat or compromises the occupants’ right to enjoy other human rights. Habitability guarantees physical safety, adequate space, and protection against natural threats or structural hazards. Accessibility means that housing covers needs of disadvantaged or marginalized groups. Location is related to the housing placement and be adequate to support employment opportunities or the access to social facilities. Adequate housing enables the access to other essential facilities for health, security, and nutrition. Finally, housing is culturally adequate if the expression of cultural identity is considered. Access to adequate housing does not necessarily require from the government to provide housing for the entire population. Rather, it demands that the state establishes the proper measures to prevent homelessness, prohibit forced evictions, or address discrimination (UNHCR 2014). It may require government intervention to establish laws, policies, or actions to guarantee housing for all, especially for vulnerable and marginalized groups. On the other hand, access to housing does not prohibit the development or modernization
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projects where people can be displaced. A need for redevelopment in growing cities sometimes may demand from public planning agencies to acquire land for public use. In this case, interventions must attempt to minimize the scale of eviction and maximize the benefits for all. Several international conferences, declarations, or plans of action offer guidelines and principles related to the access to adequate housing. Some of them are the Vancouver Declaration on Human Settlements (1976), Agenda 21 (1992), the Istanbul Declaration on Human Settlements (1996), the Habitat Agenda (1996), the Millennium Declaration and Millennium Development Goals (2000), and the New Urban Agenda (2016). The New Urban Agenda’s (United Nations 2016a) principle 14 (a) establishes that the provision of adequate and affordable housing is a key aspect to end poverty. To achieve this, national, subnational, and local governments must foster housing policies that support the progressive realization of the right to have an adequate housing, including the provision of adequate, affordable, accessible, resource-efficient, safe, resilient, wellconnected, and well-located housing. In this sense, principle 46 mentions that access to housing contributes to a sustainable and inclusive urban prosperity and opportunities for all, including recognizing that housing enhances capital formation, income, employment generation, and savings and can contribute to driving sustainable and inclusive economic transformation at the national, subnational, and local levels. United Nations’ (2016a) estimates signalled that at least two billion more people would require housing in rural and urban areas in 2030. The world report Habitat III (United Nations 2016b) reported that 800 million people lacked adequate conditions for housing in 2016. Compared to 1995, the number of people who lived in slums had increased to 130 million. The proportion of slum dwellers is greater in Africa (61.7%), followed by Asia (30%), Latin America (24%), and the Arab states (13.3%). An influential factor in the increase of housing demands is migration to cities. The urban world population has multiplied fivefold since 1950,
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from 746 million to 3.9 billion in 2014. This increase will continue in the next years. It is estimated that an additional 1.18 billion people will live in cities in 2030. According to estimates from the United Nations, at least 2 billion more people will require housing in rural and urban areas in 2030 (United Nations 2016b). Notwithstanding, the number of people who can acquire a decent house is limited. It is estimated that 330 million households are currently financially stretched by housing costs. This figure could increase to 440 million in 2025 (King et al. 2017). This situation affects developed as well as developing countries. For example, in the United States, 20% of the population spends more than 50% of their income on costs related to housing (UN-Habitat 2018a). Additionally, a key factor to provide appropriate housing is the strengthening of the spatial relationship of housing with the rest of the urban fabric and the surrounding functional areas. From this perspective, adequate housing is part of a social construction process of the city. Urban planning and design can support appropriate measures in cities and human settlements which in time facilitate access to housing and other facilities and public services, in both urban and rural areas.
Worldwide Differences in the Distribution of Basic Services, Housing, and Energy Geographical, political, and administrative conditions have produced a heterogeneous distribution in the quantity and quality of services among and within countries, both in rural and urban areas. Regional differences are often evident when giving financial support with distinct effects in development results (Parienté 2017). Population growth is another fact related to basic service access. In 1990, the world population had reached 5 billion. This figure reached 7.3 billion people in 2015, and it is estimated to reach 9.7 billion by 2050 (United Nations 2018a). The latter implies an enormous pressure in the provision of urban services.
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For example, it is common to observe in some parts of the world, particularly in developing countries, a contrast between demand and availability of a service. The installation of an electricity source does not guarantee full access to electrical energy since this service needs to be available at the right time, at an accessible cost, and appropriate technology is needed for its optimal harnessing. Housing or urban equipment that includes electrical installations could, in fact, lack a real access to the service if the correct conditions for it do not exist. Moreover, the ecological interdependence between the elements that make up basic services is stronger every day. Scarcity of natural resources and environmental challenges which humanity faces have placed their own limitations (UN-Habitat 2014). This is due to two aspects. The first concerns the abundance of an essential natural asset for the functioning of the service which, under determined circumstances, can be limited in this availability. The second concerns service operation or logistics in the distribution of the service and management of environmental consequences which the service includes. The aforementioned can be illustrated with the following instance. Water supply and wastewater management require energy. Nowadays, the biggest energy sources come from fossil fuels, and optimizing such services implies managing demand, finding energy alternatives, and reducing waste. Solving these aspects could depend on energy conservation and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The world panorama on the distribution of basic services shows an unequal access to drinking water, housing, and energy, among other services which are fundamental for physical and financial security, economic productivity, community health, and social well-being (UNDP 2016). The answer to satisfy the demand of basic services goes further than the respective sectors. It supposes changes in urban development policy of local and national governments who would have to assume a more decided role to guarantee access to all basic services in order to achieve sustainable development.
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Cross-References ▶ Challenges of Informal Urbanization ▶ Contribution for Affordable and Accessible Infrastructure for Sustainable Cities ▶ Housing Affordability: Measurements and Trends ▶ Housing Policies and Sustainable Development ▶ Inclusive City, Perspectives, Challenges, and Pathways ▶ Informal Settlements, Slums, and Sites and Services ▶ Models for Financing Mass Housing ▶ Opportunities for All: Inclusive and Equitable Sustainable Development ▶ Strategies for the Promotion of Affordable Rural Housing
References Aday LA, Andersen R (1974) A framework for the study of access to medical care. Health Serv Res 9(3):208–220 Commission on Sustainable Development (2004) Safe water, sanitation fundamental for poverty reduction, Commission on Sustainable Development told. https://www.un.org/press/en/2004/envdev772.doc.htm. Accessed 5 Jul 2018 European Commission (2011) A quality framework for services of general interest in Europe. http://ec.europa. eu/archives/commission_2010-2014/president/news/ speeches-statements/pdf/20111220_1_en.pdf. Accessed 5 Jul 2018 King R, Orloff M, Virsilas T, Pande T (2017) Confronting the urban housing crisis in the global south: adequate, secure, and affordable housing. Working Paper. World Resources Institute, Washington, DC. www.citiesforall. org. Accessed 5 Jul 2018 Parienté W (2017) Urbanization in the Sub-Haran Africa and the challenges of access to basic services. J Demogr Econ 83(1):31–39. https://doi.org/10.1017/dem.2017.3 Penchansky R, Thomas W (1981) The concept of access. Definition and relationship to consumer satisfaction. Med Care XIX(2):127–140 Pírez P (2000) Urban services and equity in Latin-America. A panorama with base at some cases. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, United Nations. https://repositorio.cepal.org/bitstream/ handle/11362/5709/1/S00090784_es.pdf. Accessed 20 Nov 2018 Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN 21) (2018) The renewables 2018 global status report. http://www.ren21.net/wp-content/uploads/
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10 2018/06/17-8652_GSR2018_FullReport_web_final_.pdf. Accessed 21 Sept 2018 Social Platform (2018) Building social Europe. A comprehensive implementation plan for an effective European pillar of social rights, Adopted by Social Platform’s Steering Group, 22 February 2018. http://www. socialplatform.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Build ing-Social-Europe-A-comprehensive-implementationplan-for-an-effective-EPSR.pdf. Accessed 6 Jul 2018 United Nations (1948) La Declaración Universal de los Derechos Humanos. http://www.un.org/es/universaldeclaration-human-rights/. Accessed 15 Jun 2018 United Nations (1987) Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: our common future. http://www.un-documents.net/our-common-future.pdf. Accessed 2 Jul 2018 United Nations (2016a) The new urban agenda. http:// habitat3.org/wp-content/uploads/NUA-English-WithIndex-1.pdf. Accessed 13 Jul 2018 United Nations (2016b) Habitat III policy paper 10-housing policies. http://habitat3.org/wp-content/uploads/PU10HABITAT-III-POLICY-PAPER.pdf. Accessed 10 Jul 2018 United Nations (2018a) Sustainable development goals. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainabledevelopment-goals/. Accessed 1 Jul 2018 United Nations (2018b) Affordable and clean energy: why it matters. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/ wp-content/uploads/2016/08/7_Why-it-Matters_Goal7_CleanEnergy_2p.pdf Accessed 17 Sept 2018 United Nations and The World Bank (2018) Sustainable energy for all. Energy efficiency. https://www.seforall. org/energy-efficiency. Accessed 22 Sept 2018 United Nations Development Program (UNDP) (2016) Human development report 2016. http://www.un.org/ millenniumgoals/2015_MDG_Report/pdf/MDG%20 2015%20rev%20(July%201).pdf. Accessed 15 Jul 2018 United Nations -Habitat (UN-Habitat) (2009) Fact sheet no.21, the human right to adequate housing. https:// www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/FS21_rev_1_ Housing_en.pdf. Accessed 17 Sept 2018 United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UNHabitat) (2014) Seventh session of the world urban forum. Urban equity in development-cities for life. 7 Report March 2015. https://unhabitat.org/books/ world-urban-forum-7-report-march-2015-2/. Accessed 5 Jul 2018 United Nations, OHCHR, UN-HABITAT, WHO (2010) The right to water, fact sheet no. 35. https://www.refworld. org/docid/4ca45fed2.html. Accessed 18 Jul 2018 United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) (2014) Global strategy for settlement and shelter. A UNHCR strategy 2014–2018. http://www.unhcr.org/protection/livelihoo ds/530f13aa9/global-strategy-settlement-shelter.html. Accessed 27 Sept 2018 United Nations-Habitat (UN-Habitat) (2018) Urban basic services. https://unhabitat.org/expertise/4-urban-basicservices/. Accessed 15 Jun 2018
Accessibility United Nations-Habitat (UN-Habitat) (2018a) Global urban observatory. https://unhabitat.org/urban-knowl edge/guo/. Accessed 3 Jul 2018 Wan G, Francisco R (2010) Why is access to basic services not inclusive?. In: J Zhuang (ed.) Poverty, inequality, and inclusive growth in Asia: measurement, policy issues, and country studies. Anthem Press, pp 199–227. https://doi. org/10.7135/UPO9780857288066.008 World Health Organization (2012) Water sanitation hygiene. https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/monitoring/ jmp2012/fast_facts/en/. Accessed 31 Jan 2019 World Health Organization (2018) Drinking-water. http:// www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/drinkingwater. Accessed 18 Jul 2018
Accessibility ▶ Contribution for Affordable and Accessible Infrastructure for Sustainable Cities
Accessible Cities ▶ Contribution for Affordable and Accessible Infrastructure for Sustainable Cities
Accessible Infrastructure ▶ Contribution for Affordable and Accessible Infrastructure for Sustainable Cities
Active Transportation ▶ Non-motorized Cycling
Adaptation ▶ Green Cities
Transport:
Walking
and
Affordable Infrastructure
Adverse Conditions
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▶ Urban Regeneration and Sustainable Housing Renewal Trends
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▶ Business Continuity Planning
Affordable Infrastructure Affordable Houses
▶ Contribution for Affordable and Accessible Infrastructure for Sustainable Cities
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Introduction
▶ Informal Economy: An Urban Context Focus
The usage of LCA began in the United States in the late 1960s with Coca Cola being one of the early adopters by examining the effects the materials, energy, and environmental effects throughout the package manufacturing practice (Hunt et al. 1996). Reducing solid waste was the main point of focus of LCAs until the mid-1970s when energy took the main stage due to the energy crisis. In 1987, the idea of considering the future environmental impacts as a whole on future generations gained attention when the United Nations issued the Brundtland Report. In this report, sustainable development was defined as development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development 1987, p. 15). This definition is significant for many reasons, but one fundamental significance is that it takes into account the limited resources of the Planet. In 2015, a historic agenda was adopted by the United Nations titled “Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” which includes 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) (The Sustainable Development Agenda n.d.). While all are a most worthy cause, the SDG most relevant to building lifecycle sustainability analysis is SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities. In today’s age, concerns about climate change and global warming have increased
Boundless ▶ Inclusive City, Perspectives, Challenges, and Pathways
Building Lifecycle Sustainability Analysis Erin A. Hopkins Department of Apparel, Housing and Resource Management, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA
Definition According to ISO (the International Organization for Standardization), life-cycle analysis (LCA) is a “compilation and evaluation of the inputs, outputs and the potential environmental impacts of a product system throughout its life cycle” (ISO 2006). The life cycle is defined as “consecutive and interlinked stages of a product system, from raw material acquisition or generation from natural resources to final disposal” (ISO 2006).
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 W. Leal Filho et al. (eds.), Sustainable Cities and Communities, Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95717-3
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warranting an inclusion of these environmental topics in LCA. With residential and commercial buildings accounting for approximately 39% of the United States’ total energy consumption, implementation of LCA within the built environment context represents a huge opportunity to address and lessen these concerns (U.S. Energy Information Administration 2018). There are four phases of an LCA consisting of goal and scope definition, inventory analysis, impact assessment, and interpretation (Bayer et al. 2010). The goal and scope definition step includes defining the products and/or services which will be assessed, what impact categories will be used, and what data needs to be collected in order to reach the defined goals and answer the proposed questions. In the inventory analysis phase, the materials and activities of each step of the process are inventoried and quantified based on emissions. The third phase, impact assessment, takes these emissions and converts them into impacts on humans and terrestrial eco-systems. Impacts include global warming potential, acidification potential, eutrophication potential, fossil fuel depletion, smog formation potential, ozone depletion potential, ecological toxicity, and water use. Interpretation, the fourth step, evaluates the impacts based on the proposed questions in the first step and helps make environmentally friendly decisions. It is important to note that this is an iterative process with the fourth phase potentially prompting design changes which makes the LCA analysis likely to repeat itself. Additionally, LCA environmental modeling software tools have been developed which can help evaluate environmental impacts of a project based on the building products, building assembly, and combined systems and assemblies (Bayer et al. 2010). This entry begins with a definition and introduction of LCA. Next, LCA is applied to the built environment and the barriers encountered in implementation of LCA initiatives in the built environment are discussed. Several case studies addressing how LCA can be applied to the built environment are reviewed next. This is followed by a summary of LCA variability and limitations as well as how LCA is being incorporated into green building
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trends. The entry concludes with the argument that the LCA framework encourages an integrated approach in determining environmental impacts throughout the full building lifecycle.
Application of LCA to the Built Environment LCA incorporation into the built environment landscape is imperative so that environmental sustainability can be addressed. LCA allows evaluation of the building from an environmental impact perspective from womb to tomb. When applying the life cycle definition to the built environment, LCA would include raw material procurement, manufacturing, construction, operation, and decommissioning of a building (Singh 2017). Other terms which are sometimes used in place of LCA are “life-cycle assessment,” “cradle-tograve analysis”, “womb-to-tomb analysis,” and “eco-balance analysis.” Implementing LCA into the built environment context can take into account environmental impacts to include toxic emissions, energy use, resource depletion, habitat destruction, and global warming potential (AIA 2018). The American Institute for Architects, with over 90,000 members, published a guide in 2010 to assist architects in applying LCA to their practice during the design process. One goal of utilizing LCA during the design phase is to provide scientific justification for decisions made when designing and constructing a green building (Bayer et al. 2010). Not only is LCA applicable to designers, this type of analysis is also applicable to builders, operators, and corporate real estate users. Perhaps the most notable program intervention which addresses LCA within the built environment is green building features. Green building features attempt to mitigate climate change and global warming through low-hanging fruit features such as switching to LED light bulbs to costlier features such as adding a photovoltaic array to a building. To assist in implementation of green features, various eco-labels have been established to standardize this process throughout the building lifecycle and among various sectors.
Building Lifecycle Sustainability Analysis
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), arguably the most popular third-party green building certification in the United States, offers eco-labels for buildings based on a number of designated points. Different levels of LEED certification are achieved based on these points with certified requiring the least amount of points and platinum requiring the most amount of points. LEED certification programs are tailored to various building sectors with commercial, neighborhood development, homes, and cities and communities offering a customized checklist to address the nuances of each particular sector. Furthermore, LEED offers certification for the building design and construction phase including demolition and major renovations as well as the operations and maintenance phase of a building including demolition and more minor renovations. The categories of focus for the LEED eco-label include location and transportation, sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality, innovation, and regional priority. ENERGY STAR is another popular eco-label for buildings in the United States which focuses strictly on the energy component during the operations phase of a building lifecycle. For this certification, the building is benchmarked against similar buildings and given a score between 1 and 100. In order to receive an ENERGY STAR certification, the building must receive a score of 75 or higher which represents that the building performs better than at least 75% of similar buildings. ENERGY STAR certification can also be found on appliances such as refrigerators and dishwashers. The National Green Building Standard (NGBS), the only residential green building certification approved as an American National Standard by the American National Standards Institute, is another eco-label targeted towards single-family, multifamily, and land development (Home Innovation 2018). Categories for this standard include site design, resource efficiency, water efficiency, energy efficiency, indoor environmental quality, and building operation and maintenance. The NGBS can also be found on products such as siding, insulation, windows, and doors.
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Internationally, Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) is an established UK green building certification focusing on energy, health and wellbeing, innovation, land use, materials, management, pollution, transport, waste, and water (BREEAM 2018). This certification takes into account the building lifecycle from design, construction, operation, and refurbishment phases. Green Star, established by the Green Building Council of Australia, offers four rating tools to achieve certification (Green Building Council Australia 2015). These include Green Star – Communities, Green Star – Design & As Built, Green Star – Interiors, and Green Star – Performance. These various tools address precinct planning and development, building design and construction, fit out design and construction, and building operations and maintenance, respectively. This is not meant to be an all exhaustive list of green building certifications but to illustrate the fact that ecolabels are gaining in popularity around the globe.
Barriers to LCA Implementation in the Built Environment While these green building certifications take into account and attempt to mitigate environmental impacts, their aim is not to measure environmental impacts throughout the full building lifecycle. This is why an LCA is critical in holistically measuring environmental impacts within the built environment. However, many perceived and actual barriers prevent a fully integrated application of LCA when assessing the built environment. One fundamental barrier encompasses the lack of data both from an environmental impact perspective as well as from a building systems and components perspective (Junnila and Horvath 2003; Scheuer et al. 2003). Without data on important environmental impacts such as ozone depletion and biodiversity as well as building systems material tradeoffs, a comprehensive and accurate LCA is nearly impossible. Information asymmetry continues with the architecture, engineering, and construction community with the majority of stakeholders in this community
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familiar with sustainability but very few with expertise with LCA (Olinzock et al. 2015). Not only is lack of data a significant impediment, but the time, effort, and cost to collect the data to run an LCA poses a major obstacle (Cooper and Fava 2006; Olinzock et al. 2015). When factoring the complexity of this type of analysis coupled with the lack of a streamlined LCA approach for the building sector makes LCA a difficult sell in many cases (Olinzock et al. 2015; (Bribián et al. 2009; Cooper and Fava 2006). This implementation is further complicated by the lack of benchmarks which can be used for comparison as well as poor linkages with green building certifications (Bayer et al. 2010; Bribián et al. 2009). When considering the full building lifecycle, there is a variability of building stakeholders throughout the building lifecycle. These include the architect, engineer, contractor, developer, building owner, occupant, and property manager among others which can create fragmentation when the full building lifecycle is considered. There can be a lack of cooperation between these stakeholders and a deficiency of financial incentives to consider the full building lifecycle versus the here and now (Bayer et al. 2010; Bribián et al. 2009). It has been noted in the research a lack of interest and demand for LCA, but this may be due to the aforementioned barriers, and it is suggested that LCA practitioners marshal the business benefits through client education (Cooper and Fava 2006; Olinzock et al. 2015).
LCA Studies A review of several case studies addressing how LCA can be applied to the built environment can be helpful in assisting entities considering application of LCA in their building decisions or where to focus their environmental reduction efforts. They also shed light on questions of quantification throughout the building lifecycle. For example, Huijbregts et al. (2003) compare two types of insulation throughout the building lifecycle of a single-family dwelling unit and find significant differences among these two types of insulation
Building Lifecycle Sustainability Analysis
in regards to global warming, ozone depletion, and eutrophication. This is after quantifying model uncertainty. Asif et al. (2007) perform a LCA on various construction materials for a semidetached house and find that concrete accounts for 65% of the embodied energy and, along with mortar, accounts for 99% of the CO2 from the construction of this home. Ramesh et al. (2013) analyze a multifamily building and find that the largest source of energy (89%) during the lifecycle of a building is attributable to the operating energy of the building. This is confirmed by Wang et al. (2011) who also find that the majority of lifecycle energy is found in the operating phase within a university building context. Embodied energy, which is the energy used to produce the building, is the second largest contributor of energy throughout the building lifecycle at 11%. To reduce energy consumption throughout the building lifecycle, aerated concrete blocks for the walls and roof were found to decrease building lifecycle energy by approximately 10%. Furthermore, adding photovoltaic (PV) panels reduced energy consumption by 37%. While these results are promising for mitigating environmental impact through reduced energy consumption, the cost to implement these energy-saving measures need to be considered as the financial bottom line guides many decisions by owners in the private real estate sector. This financial bottom line can be analyzed by reviewing any upfront green premium there is to install more environmentally friendly features with the associated down-the-line savings during the operations phase of the building. This type of analysis discourages use of a strictly upfront costs lens and instead provides a full building lifecycle lens that can help decision makers measure both future and day to day performance (Epstein and Roy 2003). When reviewing the financial upfront green premium to the associated down-the-line energy savings, Hopkins (2015) finds that results are mixed with some buildings making the financial case for these features while other buildings not making the financial cut. Kats et al. (2003) analyzes the upfront green premium along with building operational savings and discovers that the upfront green premium cost is warranted by
Building Lifecycle Sustainability Analysis
strictly the energy savings of building operations. Kats (2006) finds further positive financial results of green buildings in another study where an upfront green premium of $3 per square foot is found but a $12 per square foot savings in energy, water, health costs, and improved teacher retention justifies green building features from a financial perspective. Additionally, Kats et al. (2010) discover a $5 per square foot net present value (NPV) in buildings when down-the-line energy and water savings are included along with the upfront cost in the building life-cycle analysis.
LCA Variability and Limitations As seen from the small sampling of studies reviewed above as well as from the literature review performed by Onat et al. (2014), there is considerable variability among LCA analysis. Even when performing a LCA among the housing sector and not accounting for any building sector variability, LCAs are conducted within different parts of the building lifecycle, focus on different materials, and report on diverse outcomes whether that be energy savings, ozone depletion, financial savings, or some other measure. As seen above, different LCA studies take into account different environmental impacts making comparison across LCAs difficult. Also, LCAs may be predicated on estimated values of items such as energy and materials usage so these estimates may not be accurate (Junnila and Horvath 2003). Questions on quantification throughout the building lifecycle also arise. But, by necessity, the LCA analysis will be limited in scope and certain items may not be included in the system analysis such as furniture and manufacturing of construction equipment (Junnila and Horvath 2003). LCA may not be appropriate in all situations. For example, if the building has been acquired during the operations and maintenance phase, LCA may not be the most appropriate analysis as the building has already been designed and constructed. An environmental audit or environmental impact assessment may be more beneficial in this case. Additionally, LCA requires complete data when performing the analysis. This data
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availability is limited when attempting to complete the life-cycle inventory although a database continues to be created by NREL, a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy. LCA is an evaluation tool for decision-making based on environmental impacts. While LCA is an extremely valuable tool to account for environmental impacts throughout the building lifecycle, it typically does not address the economic or social aspects (ISO 2006). Therefore, LCA should be incorporated when completing a cost-benefit analysis where benefits including both direct and indirect positive outcomes are compared to the costs including the direct and indirect inputs required to produce the program intervention (Rossi et al. 2003). A cost-benefit analysis is “an analytical procedure for determining the economic efficiency of a program, expressed as the relationship between costs and outcomes, usually measured in monetary terms” (Rossi et al. 2003, p. 424).
Green Building Trends and LCA While many organizations in the built environment claim sustainability as a goal, the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) accounting framework is gaining in popularity to allow these organizations to measure their sustainability performance towards these goals. TBL looks at performance from the three perspectives of people, profit, and planet. This trend is away from the traditional sole focus of profit and instead incorporates harder to quantify measures of people and planet as well (Slaper and Hall 2011). TBL also assists decision makers who need to consider sustainability holistically versus strictly from an environmental impact perspective which a LCA does (Onat et al. 2014). Regarding profit, this is typically measured in a monetary measure such as dollars while social capital and environmental health can be difficult to quantify using the same monetary measurement since many object to putting a monetary value or find it difficult to arrive at an accurate price for something such as lost wetlands (Slaper and Hall 2011). A benchmark framework is one way to
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address these issues but another issue arises of how to weight the three dimensions of people, profit, and planet based on various viewpoints of stakeholders (Slaper and Hall 2011). Therefore, the TBL framework remains flexible allowing various entities to develop this framework based on their needs (Slaper and Hall 2011). Examples of environmental components in this TBL framework include target goals such as number of green certified buildings, reduction in energy, water, and waste, number of individuals who ride public transportation, and increase in air quality. This TBL framework can be incorporated throughout the various building lifecycle phases and complements the LCA quite nicely. However, Kloepffer (2008) acknowledges that the definition of sustainability includes not only environmental but also economic and social spheres. Because of this, it is suggested that a life-cycle costing (LCC) and social life cycle assessment (SLCA) also be utilized in concert with the LCA to address all three spheres of sustainability. The integration of all of these analyses is a newer concept coined life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA). Onat et al. (2014) actually integrate the TBL analysis into the LCSA framework when analyzing buildings in the United States at a national level. The economic sphere of sustainability is represented by indicators such as GDP, the social sphere indicators represented by measurements such as government tax, and the environmental pillar indicators represented by a measurement such as greenhouse gas emissions. When analyzing electricity from these spheres, it represents the most positive component for economic indicators during the use phase in the residential sector while also representing the leader of environmental impacts throughout all building lifecycle phases. Regarding the social sphere, electricity is a positive factor to government taxes which the authors state would help to support national health and education programs. Additionally, the use phase of the building lifecycle is the main driver of sustainability categories. Supply chain factors, which take into account the raw materials and work in process to achieve the final good, are also stressed for inclusion in an LCSA by Onat et al. (2014) when evaluating
Building Lifecycle Sustainability Analysis
policies to reduce environmental impacts as the use of raw materials such as fossil fuels can cause negative environmental impacts. This includes the indirect and direct impacts of a TBL approach. This helps in accurately estimating the social, economic, and environmental impacts of buildings versus underestimation when not including the full supply chain and indirect impacts. Kucukvar and Tatari (2013) utilize a TBL framework to assess the sustainability of the United States construction industry and also stress inclusion of supply chain components so that sustainability indicators are not underestimated. This is because the results of this study reveal that the construction suppliers have a larger sustainable impact in comparison to the on-site activity. Onat et al. (2014) mention that the trade-offs between these spheres should be optimized based on the priorities of decision makers. However, the argument remains that environmental priorities may justify a greater weight over economic and social priorities due to the very definition of sustainability. According to the Brundtland Report, the definition of sustainable development is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (International Institute for Sustainable Development n.d.). Future generations may not exist to even collect government taxes or make a profit is the Planet is not protected. Eco-labels such as LEED, which are growing in popularity as a signal of commitment to environmental sustainability, support the LCA framework. For example, Kucukvar and Tatari (2013) find that truck transportation ranks among the top three contributors within the supply sector regarding total energy footprint. LEED supports a decrease in this energy footprint by offering a credit for using regional materials which decreases truck transportation distance and hence lowers the energy footprint. Furthermore, it is also important to note that LEED version 4 Building Design and Construction, the most current version of this certification, is the first version to include a credit for building life-cycle impact reduction with three points offered for whole building lifecycle assessment (Singh 2017).
Building Lifecycle Sustainability Analysis
As the phases of the building lifecycle progress, there is typically a disconnect between the building design phase, the construction phase, and the operations phase (Bonandrini et al. 2005). One fundamental reason for this is a difference in team members during these phases. One intervention to prevent this disconnect and loss of knowledge between building phases is creation of a building information system from building inception (Bonandrini et al. 2005). Building information modeling (BIM), a 3D design and modeling software growing in popularity, is a tool to bridge this gap (Green 2016). By creating models of the building structure from project inception to building demolition, it allows for full building lifecycle consideration as well a platform that various stakeholders can access worldwide (Green 2016). Furthermore, BIM is designed to be flexible and workable so that various questions and problems can be addressed during the design phase (Green 2016). This includes sustainable design issues and questions. For example, Azhar et al. (2009) discover that BIM can handle sustainable design components such as energy usage, daylighting, and carbon emissions.
Conclusions The theme of the high environmental impacts of electricity consumption throughout this entry is evident. When taking into account all three spheres of sustainability, energy efficiency throughout the building lifecycle can increase sustainability holistically by reducing environmental impacts, saving money from an economic perspective, and providing better health and safety for society by decreasing pollution. Another common theme is that the operations phase is the most impactful for sustainability. Therefore, the operations phase needs to be emphasized since it has the most impact. However, the majority of green building certifications attained to date focus on the building design and construction phase. While a sustainably minded building design can help the building operate more efficiently and BIM is a promising tool to consider the full building lifecycle, there are also operational measures
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such as purchasing, waste management, and green cleaning policies that are important to consider during the operations phase. LEED offers a certification focused on operations and maintenance, but it is not as popular as the building design and construction certification at this point. The Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM) recently developed a Certified Sustainable Property (CSP) for existing buildings which focuses on sustainably managing the building which is gaining traction. LCA is an important tool that takes into account the environmental impacts of the built environment throughout the full building lifecycle. As the population needs the built environment to live, work, and play, green building can provide a way to build in a more environmentally responsible manner. With the world population continuing to grow on Earth, fostering and creating a more environmentally sustainable built environment becomes ever more important. While LCA has been adapted in some cases to a LCSA to incorporate all three spheres of sustainability, it is argued that the environmental sphere must be a priority as the Earth must be protected in order to focus on the other two spheres. However, it may be difficult to change priorities of various decision makers from a strictly profit-based perspective. This is where education of the business benefits of LCA are paramount. LCA barriers such as complexity and lack of a streamlined process for the building sector prevent an increase in industry adoption. By addressing the aforementioned barriers regarding LCA, the building sector can increase utilization of LCA to more comprehensively address environmental impacts and in turn further mitigate environmental impacts of the built environment. LEED and ENERGY STAR certifications for greener buildings may be more attractive for industry to embrace as there is a checklist which is used to attain this certification. While these types of certifications do help in mitigating environmental effects of the built environment, it is imperative to persuade organizations to consider the full building lifecycle versus strictly the portion of the lifecycle which may they may directly be a participant. This requires an integrated
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approach which must orchestrated among all stakeholders. LCA encourages this integration by providing a framework to account for a building’s environmental impacts from cradle to grave.
Cross-References ▶ Circular Economy and Urban Mining: Resource Efficiency in the Construction Sector for Sustainable Cities ▶ Ecological Footprint: Pragmatic Approach to Understanding and Building Sustainable Cities ▶ Energy Conservation ▶ Low Carbon City: Strategies and Case Studies ▶ Urban Pollution and Emission Reduction
References AIA (2018) Building life cycle assessment in practice. Retrieved from https://www.aia.org/resources/7961building-life-cycle-assessment-in-practice Asif M, Muneer T, Kelley R (2007) Life cycle assessment: a case study of a dwelling home in Scotland. Build Environ 42(3):1391–1394 Azhar S, Brown J, Farooqui R (2009) BIM-based sustainability analysis: an evaluation of building performance analysis software. In: Proceedings of the 45th ASC annual conference, vol 1, no 4, pp 90–93 Bayer C, Gamble M, Gentry R, Joshi S (2010) AIA guide to building life cycle assessment in practice. The American Institute of Architects, Washington, DC Bonandrini S, Cruz C, Nicolle C (2005) Building lifecycle management. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Product Lifecycle Management, Lyon, France, vol 1113 BREEAM (2018) How BREEAM certification works. Retrieved from https://www.breeam.com/discover/ how-breeam-certification-works/ on October 13, 2018 Bribián IZ, Usón AA, Scarpellini S (2009) Life cycle assessment in buildings: state-of-the-art and simplified LCA methodology as a complement for building certification. Build Environ 44(12):2510–2520 Cooper JS, Fava JA (2006) Life-cycle assessment practitioner survey: summary of results. J Ind Ecol 10 (4):12–14 Epstein MJ, Roy MJ (2003) Making the business case for sustainability. J Corp Citizsh 2003(9):79–96 Green E (2016, February 3) BIM 101: what is building information modeling? Retrived from https://www.engi neering.com/BIM/ArticleID/11436/BIM-101-What-isBuilding-Information-Modeling.aspx on October 13, 2018
Building Lifecycle Sustainability Analysis Green Building Council Australia (2015) The what and why of certification. Retrieved from https://new.gbca. org.au/green-star/ on October 13, 2018 Home Innovation (2018) Certification: green homes and products. Retrieved from http://www.homeinnovation. com/green on August 27, 2018 Hopkins EA (2015) LEED certification of campus buildings: a cost-benefit analysis. J Sustain Real Estate 7 (1):99–111 Huijbregts MA, Gilijamse W, Ragas AM, Reijnders L (2003) Evaluating uncertainty in environmental lifecycle assessment. A case study comparing two insulation options for a Dutch one-family dwelling. Environ Sci Technol 37(11):2600–2608 Hunt RG, Franklin WE, Hunt RG (1996) LCA – how it came about. Int J Life Cycle Assess 1(1):4–7 International Institute for Sustainable Development (n. d.) Sustainable development. Retrieved from https:// www.iisd.org/topic/sustainable-development. Accessed 28 Sept 2018 ISO (2006) ISO 14040:2006: environmental management – life cycle assessment – principles and framework. https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:37456:en. Accessed 21 July 2018 Junnila S, Horvath A (2003) Life-cycle environmental effects of an office building. J Infrastruct Syst 9 (4):157–166 Kats G (2006) Greening America’s Schools. American Federation of Teachers, et al. Capital E Kats G, Alevantis L, Berman A, Mills E, Perlman J (2003) The costs and financial benefits of green buildings. A report to California’s sustainable building task force, 134 Kats G, Braman J, James M (2010) Greening our built world: costs, benefits, and strategies. Retrieved from http://ehis.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.shu.edu/eds/detail? vid=2&sid=64bcb6e3-ab1e-4c17-a162-0b3f359e6e 54%40sessionmgr112&hid=116&bdata=JnNpdGU9Z WRzLWxpdmU%3d#db=cat00917a&AN=setoncat. 729437. Accessed 13 Apr 2013 Kloepffer W (2008) Life cycle sustainability assessment of products. Int J Life Cycle Assess 13(2):89 Kucukvar M, Tatari O (2013) Towards a triple bottom-line sustainability assessment of the US construction industry. Int J Life Cycle Assess 18(5):958–972 Olinzock MA, Landis AE, Saunders CL, Collinge WO, Jones AK, Schaefer LA, Bilec MM (2015) Life cycle assessment use in the North American building community: summary of findings from a 2011/2012 survey. Int J Life Cycle Assess 20(3):318–331 Onat NC, Kucukvar M, Tatari O (2014) Integrating triple bottom line input–output analysis into life cycle sustainability assessment framework: the case for US buildings. Int J Life Cycle Assess 19(8):1488–1505 Ramesh T, Prakash R, Shukla KK (2013) Life cycle energy analysis of a multifamily residential house: a case study in Indian context. Open J Energy Efficiency 2(01):34 Rossi PH, Lipsey MW, Freeman HE (2003) Evaluation: a systematic approach. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA
Built Environment Education for Sustainability and Climate Change Preparation Scheuer C, Keoleian GA, Reppe P (2003) Life cycle energy and environmental performance of a new university building: modeling challenges and design implications. Energy Build 35(10):1049–1064 Singh RK (2017) Whole building life cycle assessment through LEED v4. http://www.gbci.org/whole-buildinglife-cycle-assessment-through-leed-v4. Accessed 21 July 2018 Slaper TF, Hall TJ (2011) The triple bottom line: what is it and how does it work. Indiana Bus Rev 86(1):4–8 The Sustainable Development Agenda (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/ development-agenda/ on October 13, 2018 U.S. Energy Information Administration (2018) Frequently asked questions. Retrieved from https://www. eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=86&t=1 on August 27, 2018 United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) Our common future (Brundtland report). Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK Wang E, Shen Z, Barryman C (2011) A building LCA case study using Autodesk Ecotect and BIM model
Built Environment Education for Sustainability and Climate Change Preparation Usha Iyer-Raniga RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia One Planet Network Sustainable Buildings and Construction Programme, UN Environment, Paris, France
Synonyms Ecological sustainable design; Environmental sustainable design; Green; Renewable
Definition There are many definitions of sustainability and there have been debates in recent years as to which one is the most comprehensive definition. The Brundtland definition of sustainability is used here as a working definition. However, for the built environment, a range of complex issues need to be considered as our understanding grows. Taking only a mitigative approach to the
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built environment when considering sustainability outcomes is insufficient. Problems of climate change and with it, adaptation, resilience, and related issues have to be considered going forward.
B Introduction The built environment is characterized by a range of different disciplines collaborating with each other resulting in a building or piece of infrastructure as a product. It includes materials that make buildings and infrastructure, the different types of buildings and their functions, and how users of the built environment live, work, and play in these spaces, particularly in urban areas. As international pressures on climate change and sustainability mount, the stakeholders of the built environment including users are under increasing demand to “walk the talk.” This puts a focus back on education and skills to ascertain if current and future professionals working in built environment have the needed theoretical underpinnings and practical knowledge to seek solutions to the complex climate change and related environmental problems facing us today. Sustainability and climate change need to be considered in tandem when considering the built environment. Rather than focus on climate change adaptation and mitigation separately as different concepts, in this chapter, they are considered interchangeably as both need to be considered in tandem when considering the future for the built environment. Climate change, adaptation, mitigation, resilience, disaster management, and sustainability from a triple bottom line (TBL) perspective are deemed to be part of the same set of complex issues facing us the built environment today. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (UN 2015) consider economic, environmental, and social dimensions of sustainability including peace, justice, health, no poverty, climate change, well-being, and resource use as part of the 17 goals and 169 targets need to support the development of a healthy and robust planet in the near future. This chapter commences with an overview of the current state of play of challenges globally
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from sustainability and climate change perspectives. This is followed by a literature review to determine the state of play with sustainability literacy in built environment programs, resulting gaps, and implications for higher educational institutions to prepare graduates to work in a carbon constrained world in the future. These sections are followed by the discussions and conclusions.
The Built Environment and Sustainability This section commences with key definitions to understand terms used in the chapter and relationships of these to one another, and particularly with respect to the design, construction, and operation of the built environment. The term sustainability refers to the Brundtland definition “. . .meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED 1987). Changes in climate, perceived or real are part of issues associate with built environment climate change. Adaptation refers to the process of “managing and responding to perceived [and actual, author emphasis] climate change risks in order to minimize their impacts” (ASBEC 2012, p. 11). Mitigation is the reduction or elimination of any activity that reduces carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions to prevent global warming, which now scientists are increasingly linking to climate change. Resilience is defined as (Australian SoE 2016) “the capacity of the environment to retain or recover the same structure and functions after experiencing shocks or disturbances. Resilience for the built environment, therefore, means its ability to recover its functions, amenities and livability following shocks. It depends on how vulnerable built assets and community services are to disturbance, and how well management planning and processes can cope with shocks.” Disasters affecting the built environment may be natural disasters such as earthquakes or may arise as a result of anthropogenic activities such as mudslides and flooding resulting from erosion.
In this chapter, all these terms are considered to be part of sustainability as they are interrelated. Built environments are typically characterized by an interdisciplinary field of study concerned with the design, construction, operation, and management of human made surroundings (Butt et al. 2015). The construction industry consumes more than 40% of the world’s resources, requires 40% of global energy, emits 30% of greenhouse gas emissions, and uses 25% of the global water supply (UNEP 2016). Energy efficiency investments in the building sector have increased steadily by 12% in 2016 and the building and construction industry sector employs 10% of the global workforce (Global Alliance for Building and Construction and UNEP 2016). Examining how the built environment is shaping currently and in the future provides an insight into understanding how the built environment will be developed so as to be able to offer skills to a labor force that is different from the past century. This is not to say that the labor market associated with built environment professions has not evolved over time, but unless we are able to understand how the built environment of the future is going to be shaped, it is difficult to plan for the future. There are a number of key points to be considered. First, globally, the built environment is becoming more urbanized, where majority of the population is expected to reside. Second, this urbanization is anticipated to take place in the emerging economies of the world, predominantly, Asia Pacific, Africa, and Latin America. All the elements that make up a city including various types of building including housing, infrastructure, and water will become key instruments shaping these cities. Cities in the emerging markets will contribute to nearly half of global growth to 2025 and will house one billion new consumers. By 2025, cities will need infrastructure; ports, water, and buildings to cater for its growing population (Dobbs et al. 2012). Needless to state most of this is required in the emerging markets in the world. Water use is expected to rise by 80 billion cubic meters, along with attendant waste water treatments. Container capacity of ports is also expected to increase by 2.5 times
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based on current figures, exceeding to US $200 billion with 85% of this taking place in emerging markets in the world. Building stock will need to increase, with roughly 85% more additional floor space resulting in a growth of 44,000 square kilometers for residential and commercial spaces in urban areas. An investment of nearly US $80 trillion in buildings has been estimated (Dobbs et al. 2012). Based on current trend, 20 megacities are expected to be part of the new emerging cities, including Shanghai, Sao Paulo, Istanbul, and Lagos. The megacities are spread across 57 countries globally. Latin America with Brazil and Colombia will lead the pack, with China and India leading in Asia, and in Africa, Angola, Ghana, and Nigeria will be the front runners alongside cities such as Turkey and Doha in the Middle East. Third is decoupling economic growth with climate change and sustainability and the acknowledgment that climate change and sustainability requires different skill sets resulting in a new labor market, as a response to policies and programs on adaptation and mitigation measures for the built environment. A question arises as to whether we currently have the skills required to meet the demands of this new labor market. This is explored further in the forthcoming sections of this chapter. Popularly held beliefs regarding the role of the environment in increasing growth are being questioned. A World Bank (2012, p. 1) report states that greening growth is “necessary, efficient, and affordable” and it is political will, behavior, and lack of financing instruments that are barriers to green growth. In relation to green jobs, various models for predicting jobs growth in the sector abound (World Bank 2012); however, the sorts of skill sets required to transition to a green economy also need to be considered and may in fact impede green growth (99). Skills are needed in expanding industries such as renewable energy, plumbing, and electrical skills, in solar hot water and photo voltaic panel installation and maintenance, and in the move from use of typical fossil fuel to renewable energy sources. Skills in green construction, energy efficiency, retrofitting, renewable energy, resource efficiency,
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and the like have already been identified as impeding the transition to green growth, particularly in developing countries. Many developing countries need to increase their skillsets in technical and tertiary education (101). The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the peak body for renewable energy, has offered solutions that enhance economic growth, while providing the incentive to decarbonize economies worldwide. They predict that not only can jobs in the renewable sector stimulate economic growth, it also opens new prospects for employment and contributes to a sustained future where climate change and sustainability underpins human life and welfare on the planet. This follows the paradigm of decoupling economic growth with green jobs. Doubling the share of renewables increases direct and indirect employment in the renewable energy sector, mostly bioenergy, hydropower and solar to almost 25 million by 2030 (IRENA 2016). The next section examines how built environment programs in higher education institutions have tackled current global challenges.
Higher Education Institutions and Sustainability Integration Higher educational institutions are at the forefront of knowledge production and transmission. Higher educational institutions are responsible for enabling the knowledge society and increasingly, higher educational providers are forced to provide meaningful education for students to be able to transition easily into working life. There is a recognition that current approaches to solving our problems of climate change and sustainability require us to take different and perhaps more innovative approaches. The link between higher education, technical, critical thinking, behavioral skills, and productivity has been shown to be positively related. Increased innovation is also linked to higher education and research (World Bank 2015, p. 1). In this report by the World Bank (2015, p. 2), five disconnects resulting in barriers to better performance and productivity between higher
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education and the real world have been identified. While the focus of the research presented is East Asia, it is equally applicable to other emerging economies globally, including Latin America and Africa. These barriers are gaps between higher education institutions and skillsets that employers are looking for; weak links between higher education institutions and companies as far as research and technology are concerned; separation between research and teaching responsibilities in higher educational institutions; segregation between the higher educational institutions themselves, between themselves and training providers; and finally, lack of linkages between schools, particularly secondary schools, and higher educational institutions. The report calls for reform in three areas: adequate financing framework for higher education that provides benefits to the real world, making the higher educational institutions more accountable while also giving them autonomy, and better guidance and leadership in these institutions enabling a coherent engagement with all actors outside higher education but critical to higher education performance, such as engagement with relevant government departments and organizations involved in research and skills development. Learning in the built environment disciplines is not just about acquisition or reproduction of “taught” knowledge, it is about creation of new ideas and innovations, particularly in the design led disciplines. Strategies and frameworks need to be developed in the design led areas so that models of activities focus on problem solving resulting in attendant learning outcomes. Generally, higher education providers may be considered to be social structures responsible for advancing knowledge through education and research. Education today is different both in terms of pedagogy and content from the past. As institutions, higher education today has some unique characteristics. First is the rise in professions over the past century that has impacted higher education. Modern day professions have deep seated roots in the liberal phase of capitalism and while the underpinning labor for a profession was organized to be autonomous, it also functions as a form of
control, particularly in the modern world (Larson 2012). Professions represent a form of “branding,” they keep people “in” as they also keep people “out” (Xing et al. 2009; Larson 2015), and therefore, they are governed by a set of standards and codes. Freidson (2001) describes professions as the result of particular social, economic, and political contexts and further describes them as incorporating specialist knowledge and skill, recognized and controlled division of labor, set of qualifications leading to a privileged market position, training programs associated with the higher education controlled by professions, and a set of ideas that emphasizes altruism and quality rather than economic return and efficiency. Second is the shift from discipline based to problem-based knowledge. James (2012) suggests that there has been a shift from discipline based to problem-based knowledge, from traditional disciplinary to interdisciplinary studies and from contemporary knowledge to life-long learning skills and towards ensuring there is continuous learning in the work place. This is more so in the case of the built environment, where Witt et al. (2013, p. 116) note “there remains the problem of align, the widening gap between higher education outcomes and market needs and the criticism, mostly from industry and the political establishment.” There is a need, therefore, to address the current mismatch between graduate skills and labor market requirements and prepare better for a world that is challenged by increasing concerns of climate change and sustainability. This is particularly true for the built environment, where building codes are increasingly becoming more stringent with respect to energy efficiency (where such codes exist) and a plethora of “green” rating tools abound, particularly in the developed world, with the developing world following in these footsteps. Third is the widening gap between the alignment in skills of graduates from higher educational institutions and industry needs. In a survey undertaken by Witt et al. (2013) across UK, Estonia, and Lithuania, it was found that there were perceptions of mismatch between skill
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demand and skill supply and there were distinctions between supply side and demand side, and a diversity of skills demanded by employers. When considering life-long learning, a number of different findings were presented. It varied from a recognition of a need for life-long learning, availability of current continuing education as necessary but not always of good quality or having a systematic approach. While life-long learning was becoming easier for some built environment disciplines such as quantity surveying, increased confidence and knowledge were necessary for others. Some students expressed satisfaction with teaching and learning in the built environment disciplines considered in the survey, and opportunities for further developing study programs in these disciplines in higher education institutions were also recognized. Lack of time and funds were identified as barriers to training. Fourth is the nature of sustainability itself. Simply integrating sustainability (integrating is a good start, though) and climate change considerations in a singular discipline is not enough to tackle real world problems. Using the example of attempting both mitigative and adaptive efforts for the built environment as a learning experience from the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy in the USA in 2012, Weisz et al. (2015) reiterate the need to consider a transdisciplinary approach to responses to climate change. In a design approach for reducing storm surges, the authors developed an innovative “blue dunes” concept but recognize its limitations as the “current team of collaborators and partners is merely a proxy for generations to come, each of whom must in turn bear the burden of a new environmental order defined by an ever-changing climate” (854), demonstrating thereby that a multidisciplinary approach is the key to ensuring human life is sustained on this planet. Du Plessis (2012) presents the concept of a regenerative paradigm where life can continue to evolve on the planet thus focusing on holistic living systems view but where the human-nature relationship is in a co-creative partnership with nature. Not only does this redefine the design process, but it also challenges “what constitutes
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design and who is qualified as designer” (18). The function of the architect in such a scenario moves from that of a planner/designer to that of a facilitator. The next section examines how some built environment programs have tried to incorporate sustainability literacy in various higher educational institutions.
Sustainability Literacy in Built Environment Programs: Some Global Examples Authors have argued for sustainability education to be a fundamental building block in higher education (Dalton and Iyer-Raniga 2017; IyerRaniga and Andamon 2014, 2016). Likewise, Opoku and Egbu (2018) argue that sustainability literacy in higher education is essential for students of all disciplines but focus on postgraduate programs in their research. They contend that graduates need to be armed with the ability to think and understand learning experiences that can help make decisions in a complex environment. Understanding and applying sustainability knowledge is a key component of graduate attributes as it has currency in the job market and supports employers to meet their own organizational goals. Built environment educators, therefore, need to be able to cover the content of the curricula and support the delivery of the content through appropriate pedagogical advances. In examining sustainability literacy for an MSc program in Quantity Surveying at a London Southbank University, Opoku and Egbu (2018) focus on postgraduate learning outcomes. A content analysis undertaken in their research shows that of the three areas of sustainability from a TBL perspective, the environmental thrust is the strongest with an equal attribution for the social and economic pillars of sustainability. A mixed methods approach using an online survey and semistructured interviews was used in this study. The findings of the research showed that a very small number of students felt that sustainability was always delivered throughout the program. While almost 75% of students
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acknowledged the importance of sustainability knowledge in the current market, a very small number of students (only 2%) were most satisfied with the extent of sustainability integration in the program. In terms of satisfaction with the integration of sustainability literacy in the program, it was clear that most students were unhappy with its integration in the Masters’ program. Some students complained that it was not embedded in the course or badly embedded, and some students preferred a separate course on sustainability. Guy (2010) argues that to be successful with sustainable design as a fundamental outcome of architecture programs, it is essential to account for a number of different ways environmental problems are identified, defined, translated, valued, and embodied in the built form. Using the example of energy efficiency, he argues that there is a need to fundamentally revise the focus and scope of the debate of sustainable architecture. He posits that appropriateness of the socio-technical systems should drive design outcomes. Only such approaches can support complex problems of our times. Rather than a mono dimensional implementation plan of sustainable design, there lies an opportunity to encourage greater reflectivity in the education of environmental solutions with respect to our built forms. Continuing in the same vein with reference to architectural design, other authors state that the focus of sustainable design practice should be on practical strategies for closing the gaps between theory and practice, practical investigation of available solutions including negotiating conflicting issues and setting out clear visions at the start of the project and understanding the theoretical underpinnings to support practice (Farmer and Guy 2010). This is similar to the “blue dunes” concept by Weisz et al. (2015) presented in the previous section. Farmer and Guy (2010) support an argument to open a “landscape of possibilities” as an open-ended approach for addressing environmental problems. Further, they also argue that the environmental visions of architectural designs are shaped by sociotechnical understanding and are therefore
co-evolving with the environmental values and design discourses. Using the example of disaster resilience in Cuba, Lizarralde et al. (2015) show that theoretical approaches to building resilience for complex systems like the built environment need to be revisited. While vulnerability to disasters is useful for understanding and supporting preparedness for disasters, ultimately, it is the capacity of the system or its resilience to bounce back from a disaster that eventually determines its survival. Resilience can also be seen as the prevention and reaction to disasters. But resilience cannot be achieved through local responses alone, it requires national and local engagement. It also requires institutional engagement and development of interorganizational relationships for effective action across all levels of society. Using the examples of universities themselves as examples of “walking the talk,” Kuntz et al. (2012) use the study of their own university, an area of research that is still in its infancy. Their study shows the importance of good design to support community approaches rather than individual approaches to study and work. Likewise, a study by Kok et al. (2015) showed a positive relationship between perceived quality of cleanliness, classrooms, classroom conditions, front office, and information and communications technology with study success showing that quality of spaces and services has a positive relationship with a learning institution. Architects working in industry have similarly demonstrated that the value of architectural design is critical and particularly for educational buildings, curriculum needs to be become the basis of the business plan where buildings designed embody the outcome of the design process as part of the business plan. Thus, buildings become and can be used as a teaching aid (Anson and Sandow 2009). By using their own buildings, educational institutions can support monitoring of the building, while ensuring there is accountability of their actions. Students operating the buildings can understand the physics of their own environment, thus learning itself becomes more deeply embedded for the students.
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Higher education programs at the undergraduate levels in universities generally focus on ensuring that the programs meet technical capabilities for students over and above the softer skills and certainly, sustainability underpinnings. The technical capabilities are demonstrated by individual programs showing how they have met in the form of learning outcomes. The softer skills are imparted usually through group work and through collaborative projects, often in industry and with industry mentors. In a set of case studies undertaken by MacLaren et al. (2017), the authors set out to understand how collaborative interdisciplinary education in built environment disciplines may be encouraged and supported in higher educational institutions in the UK. They found that the key to success for theoretical and practical shifts was in taking students out of the academic frameworks staff and students operate in, as the existing frameworks are often restrictive. To succeed “interprofessional, intercultural collaboration requires improvisation, both in mind-set and in design technique, and requires a willingness to operate with uncertainty while embracing risk and risking failure” (199). While not much has been written about interior design, Lee (2014) shows that in this discipline too, importance of sustainability in the curriculum has been debated. While sustainability education has been incorporated, most of the focus has been on the environmental pillar of sustainability, less so on the social and economic dimensions. Through the use of case studies, this research shows that integrated design is critical for sustainable design solutions, supplemented with instructional frameworks to students as appropriate. Lee concludes that “contributing to social sustainability is a new way of looking at design education” (174). Hamza and Greenwood’s (2009) research in the UK present the importance of higher education in preparing future generations capable of dealing with and integrating energy consciousness amongst built environment practitioners in the design phase. In another example using disaster resilience Malalgodaa et al. (2014) highlight the difficulties in preparing students for
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a career in this niche area. Academics need to be able to respond to labor market issues quickly for not just disaster resilience, but any other type of situation where industry requires upskilling or reskilling. Higher education institutions are not very good at responding to the development of such skill sets as the formal and bureaucratic nature of higher education institutions do not support life-long learning for academics. With reference to urban design which shapes the built environment of a city, Hack (2015) presents the importance of academic programs for creating more grounded knowledge and theories about urban design. He advocates the importance of transdisciplinary knowledge for supporting better planning outcomes and supports closer links between academia and practice. Focusing on the planning discipline, despite growing evidence of the direct and indirect effects of the built environment on public health, planners who shape the built environment and public health professionals who protect the health of the public rarely interact. There is typically very little interaction between city councils or state government authorities and planners. One way the authors of the research argue (Botchwey et al. 2009) is to develop interdisciplinary courses in planning and public health. It is not difficult to do this; air, water, physical activity, social capital, mental health, and histories of the two disciplines may easily be set up. A model curriculum has been provided by the authors of this study. It is clear in terms of content, academia does not present a strong focus on sustainability literacy in the curriculum for various built environment programs. Where it may exist is one-off and reflects the fragmented nature of not just the profession itself but the way higher educational institutions approach sustainability literacy. The next section examines academic-industry considerations.
Academic-Industry Considerations for Sustainability This section presents examples specific to built environment and also considers examples
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focusing on general graduate attributes for improving employment opportunities, such as internships. A variety of professional development programs abound to support industry professionals. Most professional memberships offer a plethora of continuing educational programs, often, with a caveat of meeting certain professional development points or hours to maintain continued memberships. Some of the professional institutions recognize other peak professional bodies’ continuing education programs because they may not offer in that specialist area or provide flexibility to their members to encourage ongoing education. Ongoing education of professionals is required, reflecting changes in policies, legislative or regulatory changes or just ensuring currency of knowledge and information. Professional bodies need to consider sustainability knowledge and skills for professional membership. Higher education providers need to work with professional bodies to ensure that sustainability literacy is embedded in higher education competence for professional programs, but universities should also respond to this as essential graduate attributes. Pinnegar et al. (2008) postulate that with pressures of decarbonization upon us, there is an urgent need to ensure that the built environment professions develop new and different work practices and skills. Cities as the engines for built environment also need to adapt; they need new institutional and governance structures, chief among this is innovation and adaptation of new sustainability goals and outcomes. Finch et al. (2016) have shown that employability of graduates can be effectively framed in the context of strategic management theory. The authors argue that by using the Dynamic Capability (DC) framework, graduates can take specific steps to enhance their own competitive advantage in the labor market. Four individual resources are required according to them, taking into account their own DC: intellectual, personality, meta-kill, and jobspecific. Graduates need to reflect on their intrinsic and learned resources to create a systematic competitive advantage that brings results. Thus, graduates being armed with purely technical knowledge are insufficient.
Industry has also supported the need to bring “green” design, construction, and operation mainstream. In an article, Beyond Fad, Behnisch (2009) argues that the damage to the environment is a reality with grave consequences. Economic facts in the face of an economy that is severely affected by limited financial resources make a more convincing business case. He says that architects, designers and engineers need to strengthen and not lessen efforts to convince clients to build truly sustainable buildings that are flexible to support future generations. Tight fiscal budgets also provide opportunities for clients, owners, and building occupiers to support behavioral practices that support thermal comfort in indoor spaces where less or little energy is being used. Similarly, Witt et al. (2013) present a conceptual framework for the current mismatch between the skills requirements of the industry and the competence of graduates in the built environment sector. Their study of development of the framework and its testing calls for a closer representation of the education-industry context and for further research in this area. In the Australian context, research by Hurlimann et al. (2018) shows that the construction industry has limited potential to act on climate change adaptation and mitigation given its place in the supply chain. As design, build and operation typically involve different stakeholders; the motive, timelines, and profit margins are not consistent across the various stakeholders. Despite international and limited national pressures, the construction industry is not really motivated to put climate change front and center, with industry leading design, build, and operation considering climate change and sustainability outcomes. In another study focusing on Australia, Poon and Brownlow (2016) examined the impact of practical experience and factors related to study style on employment of built environment graduates. The disciplines considered were architecture, construction, real estate, urban planning, and regional studies. While practical experience had a positive relationship with employment, it did not matter which university students graduated from. Those graduates that
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worked full time and studied part time in the final years of their program had higher chances of getting full time jobs post-graduation. Tucker et al.’s (2018) study on including indigenous knowledge in built environment shows minimal inclusion in built environment programs across Australia. Indigenous knowledge is part of a number of SDGs particularly on reduced inequalities (SDG 10) and peace, justice, and strong institutions (SDG 16). Beyond electives and self-selected study over thesis projects, there is little presence of indigenous teaching in Australian universities’ built environment programs. This lack has also been acknowledged by peak industry professional bodies in architecture, planning, and landscape architecture. The solution lies in supporting indigenous education through participation of indigenous teaching, research, and service programs. Some of the best examples of indigenous engagement may be found in communities where successful examples of practice exist. The value of internships for professional careers in the built environment sector from the perspective of industry practitioner was studied by Lian et al. (2018) focusing on Singapore. Using mixed methods approach, consisting of questionnaire surveys, in-depth interviews, and focus group discussions on stakeholders such as architects, civil engineers, facility managers, project managers, and quantity surveyors, the study showed that some professions value internships, while others do so to a lesser extent. The study could not ascertain conclusively that internships are absolutely necessary to increase undergraduate employability prospects. Civil engineers, quantity surveyors, and project managers valued internships over architects and facility managers. These professionals that valued internships also felt that internships were important for employment of graduates and were open to employing them. Kestle and Potangaroa’s paper (2014), Are we listening, are we learning?, highlights the fact that we are not very good at learning from “lessons learned.” We are good at vision 2020 in hindsight, to plan and write up lessons learned, but not closing the feedback loop from what we have
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learnt to put into practice. Haapio’s paper (2012) on sustainable urban communities examines the use of assessment tools which need to be taught to professionals so as to present desired outcomes. In a study featuring largely developing and emerging economies, Ishengoma and Vaaland (2016) set out to identify the most important university-industry linkage activities for enhancing employability from among student, teachers, and industry. The authors found that such university industry-linkages raise the employability of students, in particular student internships in companies, joint industry-student projects, and support the role of industry in modernizing university curricula. The next two sections present the discussions, followed by conclusions.
Discussions The preceding sections have shown that while the built environment is a key player in resource use, emissions, and jobs growth, the professions serving the built environment have not embraced opportunities for change and prepared themselves for a future decarbonized world. As stated, the world is becoming more urbanized and the bulk of the world’s population is going to reside in the megacities of the developing world. Planning and designing, building, and operating these megacities in a sustainable manner are needed urgently. It has been shown that potential for green jobs is growing and these jobs need to respond to a new labor market focusing on new challenges. Higher educational institutions have typically not responded to these new labor demands or have not responded well to these labor demands. While universities continue to engage with research specialists who are often experts in a narrow field (and often with little or no industry experience), government and industry are seeking collaborative practice where specialist knowledge may be practically applied and often commercially viable. There is clearly a gap here. Numerous examples have been presented to demonstrate that sustainability and climate
B
30
Built Environment Education for Sustainability and Climate Change Preparation
change literacy in built environment programs, practical experiences for students to ease transition to employment in the form of internships and the like, and actually learning from real life examples of disasters, or responses to disasters continues to validate the mismatch between what industry wants, what governments and other international agreements call for, and what higher education institutions currently provide. Despite this, the reverse is also true albeit small in number. There are some examples to show that university industry-linkages raise the employability of students and industry may be used to support in bringing university curricula on par with current needs of the industry and assist in dealing with challenges. The focus of sustainability literacy has to be in the undergraduate programs of the built environment professions. Focusing at the Masters level only where most universities have currently focused their efforts does not assist the industry, because by then, the “horse has bolted.” Most university graduates end up in the work force and only a small proportion go back to the university for higher education to qualify for a Masters’ degree and even less number are interested in a PhD. If teaching sustainability literacy is the focus of postgraduate programs only, a small proportion of students benefit with sustainability knowledge. By incorporating sustainability literacy as part of undergraduate programs, students will be armed with key theoretical underpinnings, providing opportunities for practical applications in the work place. With Masters’ qualifications, students often opt for course work rather than a research degree. The exception of course are those students who are seeking to establish themselves as consultants in a niche area (who often have several years of industry experience themselves), who may either undertake Masters’ research or further advance this into doctoral research, or even convert into doctoral research when they are undertaking their Masters’ degree. The “massification” of higher education is shifting the landscape somewhat. With the exception of students from developing countries studying in developed countries seeking to build their capacities to be more competitive in
the market in their home countries or seeking to settle overseas, the market for higher education in built environment at least in Australia is limited compared to other disciplines such as the sciences, engineering, and humanities. To keep up with demands of global changes in the profession, knowledge of sustainability issues, climate change, disaster management, and associated issues also require universities to become agile and flexible. The bureaucratic nature of university governance and parallel demands of accreditation of professional programs by specific built environment peak professional bodies do not support long term vision and outcomes for society. The traditional one-off student engagement with industry that is common in built environment programs and a comparatively large thrust of traditional face-to-face mode of teaching and learning, engagement in traditional monodisciplinary approaches to research and lack of collaboration with other higher educational institutions, industries, professional bodies, and communities are major challenges for these institutions to operate effective lifelong learning and become adaptable to the needs to the community and the changing nature of our built environment. Governance itself does not act as a barrier for leadership in higher educational institutions as identified by Witt et al. (2013). There is increasing pressure to move to problem-based learning, to multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches, and to ensure that the learning outcomes of graduates are able to cater to an alignment with industry requirements. In most countries, industry aspirations for future professional practice and higher educational research programs are not aligned.
Conclusions This chapter has shown that there needs to be fundamental changes made in our current approach to built environment education, and the changes need to be made now. Firstly, higher educational institutions of built environment programs need to become more responsive and
Built Environment Education for Sustainability and Climate Change Preparation
accommodating of our current global challenges. Teachers themselves need ongoing professional education so that they understand the fundamentals of sustainability, climate change, adaptation, mitigation, resilience, disaster management, and attendant implications on built environment graduates. Higher educational institutions need to start thinking how they will, in turn, support students and staff and use their campuses as living laboratories of showcasing sustainability in practice. This is critical in the emerging markets that also have a younger demographic going to universities, where universities are being set up to cater to the needs of the labor market and particularly where built environment programs are being established. Moreover, these emerging markets are also vulnerable to disasters and are in great need of capacity building. Learning from the experience of the developed world, developing countries may be able to fast track their journey into a decarbonized world. Secondly, integration of sustainability and related knowledge alone is insufficient. Ensuring that students benefit from critical thinking required in the work place requires rethinking how built environment programs are taught and how learning outcomes may be embedded. It also requires engagement beyond the current approaches of a mono disciplinary perspective. Thirdly, built environment professions and the peak bodies of these professions need to put pressure back on universities to ensure that graduates are able to have the requisite skills and knowledge to support transition into the work force as peak professional bodies often accredit various built environment programs. The key advantage for industry is less funds spent on reskilling their work force. Such an outcome requires better engagement between academia and industry and trialing models of engagement that benefit both parties, while also meeting academic requirements and providing appropriate solutions for clients and users of the built environment. Fourthly, as most students of built environment programs join the world of work after completing their degrees, sustainability and climate change knowledge needs to be fostered into the core of the programs, not in the periphery
31
as electives or postgraduate courses. It needs to become essential attributes of students graduating from higher educational institutions.
B Cross-References ▶ Adaptation ▶ Climate Change ▶ Disaster Risk Management Strategies: Building the Resilient Human Settlements ▶ Mitigation ▶ Resilience ▶ Triple Bottom-Line Assessment
References Anson G, Sandow P (2009) Designed for learning? Teacher 200:6–8 Australia State of Environment (SoE) (2016) Built environment. [Online]. https://soe.environment.gov.au/ theme/built-environment/framework/resilience. Accessed Sept 2018 Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council (ASBEC) (2012) Preparing for change: a climate change adaptation framework for the built environment. ASBEC, New South Wales, Australia Behnisch S (2009) Beyond Fad. Contract 50:32 Botchwey ND, Hobson SE, Dannenberg AL, Mumford KG, Contant CK, Mcmillan TE, Jackson RJ, Lopez R, Winkle C (2009) A model curriculum for a course on the built environment and public health: training for an interdisciplinary workforce. Am J Prev Med 36:S63–S71 Butt TE, Camilleri M, Paul P, Jones KG (2015) Obsolescence types and the built environment – definitions and implications. Int J Sustain Dev. https://doi. org/10.1504/IJESD.2015.066896 Dalton T, Iyer-Raniga U (2017) Built environment curricula in the Asia-Pacific region: responding to climate change. ProSPER.Net, Melbourne. ISBN: 978-0-9923914-0-9 Dobbs R, Remes J, Manyika J, Roxburgh C, Smit S, Schaer F (2012) Urban world: cities and the rise of the consuming class. McKinsey Global Institute, New York. [Online] Du Plessis C (2012) Towards a regenerative paradigm for the built environment. Build Res Environ 40:7–22 Farmer G, Guy S (2010) Making morality: sustainable architecture and the pragmatic imagination. Build Res Info 38:366–378 Finch DJ, Peacock M, Levallet N, Foster W (2016) A dynamic capabilities view of employability: exploring the drivers of competitive advantage for university graduates. Education + Training 58:61–81
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Freidson E (2001) Professionalism: the third logic. Wiley, London Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction and UN Environment (2016) Global roadmap: towards low-GHG amd resilient buildings. [Online]. https:// www.globalabc.org/resources/document/75#document. Accessed June 2016 Guy S (2010) Pragmatic ecologies: situating sustainable building. Archit Sci Rev 53:21–28 Haapio A (2012) Towards sustainable urban communities. Environ Impact Assess Rev 32:165–169 Hack G (2015) Designing cities and the academy. J Am Plan Assoc 81:221–229 Hamza N, Greenwood D (2009) Energy conservation regulations: impacts on design and procurement of low energy building. Build Environ 44:929–936 Hurlimann AC, Browne GR, Warren-Myers G, Francis V (2018) Barriers to climate change adaptation in the Australian construction industry – impetus for regulatory reform. Build Environ 137:235–245 IRENA, International Renewable Energy Agency (2016) Renewable energy benefits: measuring the economics. IRENA, Abu Dhabi Ishengoma E, Vaaland TI (2016) Can university-industry linkages stimulate student employability? Education + Training 58:18–44 Iyer-Raniga U, Andamon MM (2014) Embedding sustainability education in a built environment curriculum. In: Tanaka A, Tabucanon M (eds) Transforming higher education and creating sustainable societies. United Nations University – Institute for Advanced Study of Sustainability, Tokyo Iyer-Raniga U, Andamon MM (2016) Transformative learning: innovating sustainability education in built environment. Int J Sustain High Educ 17(1):105–122. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSHE-09-2014-0121 James R (2012) Aligning universities and higher education systems with the challenges of emergent knowledge economies. In: Neubauer DE (ed) The emergent knowledge society and the future of higher education – Asian perspectives. Routledge, London, pp 41–54 Kestle L, Potangaroa R (2014) Are we listening, are we learning? Procedia Econ Finance 18:385–390 Kok H, Mobach M, Omta O (2015) Predictors of study success from a teacher’s perspective of the quality of the built environment. Manag Educ 29:53–62 Kuntz AM, Petrovic JE, Ginocchio L (2012) A changing sense of place: a case study of academic culture and the built environment. High Educ Pol 25:433–451 Larson SM (2012) The rise of professionalism: monopolies of competence and sheltered markets. Transaction Publisher, New Brunswick Larson SM (2015) Practice and education in twenty-first century architecture: a sociologist’s view. https://www. researchgate.net/profile/Magali_Sarfatti_Larson. Accessed 15 Aug 2015 Lee YS (2014) Sustainable design re-examined: integrated approach to knowledge creation for sustainable interior design. iJADE 33:157–274
Lian JK, Foo ZY, Ling FYY (2018) Value of internships for professional careers in the built environment sector in Singapore. Eng Constr Archit Manag 25:77–89 Lizarralde G, Valladares A, Olivera A, Bornstein L, Gould K, Barenstein JD (2015) A systems approach to resilience in the built environment: the case of Cuba. Disasters 39:s76–s95 MacLaren AJW, Wilson M, Simmonds R, HamiltonPryde A, McCarthy J, Milligan A (2017) Educating students for the collaborative workplace: facilitating interdisciplinary learning in construction courses. Int J Constr Educ Res 13:180–202. https://www. tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/15578771.2016.1267 667?needAccess=true Malalgodaa C, Keraminiyagea K, Amaratunga D (2014) Disaster management education through higher education – industry collaboration in the built. Environ Procedia Econ Finance 18:651–658 Opoku A, Egbu C (2018) Students’ perspectives on the relevance of sustainability literacy in a postgraduate built environment program. Int J Constr Educ Res 14:46–58 Pinnegar S, Marceau J, Randolph B (2008) Innovation for a carbon constrained city: challenges for the built environment industry. Innovations 10:303–315 Poon J, Brownlow M (2016) A study of the impacts of variable factors on built environment graduates prospects. Int J Constr Educ Res 12(2):99–121. https://doi. org/10.1080/15578771.2015.1059394 Tucker R, Choy D l, Heyes S, Revell G, Jones D (2018) Re-casting Terra nullius design-blindness: better teaching of indigenous knowledge and protocols in Australian architecture education. Int J Technol Des Educ 28:303–322 UNEP United Nations Environment Programme (2016) Why buildings? [Online]. http://www.unep. org/sbci/AboutSBCI/Background.asp. Accessed 9 Jan 2016 United Nations (UN) (2015) Sustainable development goals. In: Resolution adopted by the general assembly on 25 September 2015 WCED (World Commission on Environment and Devleopment) (1987) Our common future. In: Brundtland GH (ed) Report of the world commission on environment and development. Oxford University Press, Oxford Weisz C, Blumberg A, Keenan J (2015) Design meets science in a changing climate: a case for regional thinking to address urban coastal resilience. Soc Res 82:839–857 Witt E, Lill I, Malalgoda C, Siriwardena M, Thayaparan M, Amaratunga D, Kaklauskas A (2013) Towards a framework for closer university-industry collaboration in educating built environment professionals. Int J Strateg Prop Manag 17:114–132 World Bank (2012) Inclusive green growth: the pathway to sustainable development. World Bank, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.1596/978-0-8213-95 World Bank (2015) Putting higher education to work: skills and research for growth in East Asia in World
Business Continuity Planning Bank East Asia and Pacific Regional Report. The World Bank, Washington, DC Xing Y, Malcolm R, Horner W, El-Haram MA, Bebbington J (2009) A framework model for assessing sustainability impacts of urban development. Account Forum 33:209–224
Business Continuity and Resiliency Planning (BCRP) ▶ Business Continuity Planning
Business Continuity Management (BCM) ▶ Business Continuity Planning
33
to continue delivery of products and services even under the aforementioned adverse conditions within an acceptable time frame. Business continuity planning means to identify critical core processes of the organization, to analyze business impacts, and to find backup processes and response strategies in the event of disruption. For this reason, business continuity management is closely related to risk management, IT security management, facility management as well as to environmental and occupational health management. The business continuity plan (BCP) is a set of documents or documented information that guides an organization to respond to a disruption, to resume, and to recover as soon as possible. The BCP is like a roadmap to follow when unexpected and adverse situations occur and describes the policy, strategies, procedures, and measures to avoid the suspension of a business.
Business Continuity Planning
Introduction
Markus Will and Jana Brauweiler University of Applied Sciences, Zittau/Görlitz, Germany
In a globally networked world, companies, corporations, and other types of organizations but also cities and municipalities rely on the effective functioning of their infrastructures. The interruption of critical and vital processes and infrastructures may represent an existentially threatening risk. Business continuity planning and management is therefore of upmost importance (Hiles 2007; Thiel and Thiel 2010). It strives to mitigate the impact of a disaster and adverse events by ensuring that alternative mission-critical capability is available when disaster strikes (Hiles 2007). Business continuity planning (BCP) seeks to preserve the assets and key facilities, such as head office buildings, production plants, machinery and processes, enterprise resource management, workflow management, supply chains, etc., for instance, in the event of disaster or under other adverse conditions. Business continuity is therefore the capability to achieve its mission, its operations in terms of delivery of products and services, and its customer base and market share (Hiles 2007; Cabinet Office – Government of Japan 2012; ISO 22300:2018; ISO 22301:2019) (Fig. 1).
Synonyms Adverse conditions; Business continuity and resiliency planning (BCRP); Business continuity management (BCM); Crisis management; Disaster; Disaster recovery planning; Disruption; Emergency; Hazards; Incidents
Definitions Business continuity planning supports an organization to continuing its operations after an incident or under adverse conditions, such as a natural disaster, disease pandemics, terrorist attacks, serious accidents, external hacker or other IT attacks, disruption of supply chains, and/or other abrupt and unexpected changes in business environment. Hence, business continuity is the organizational capability
B
34
Business Continuity Planning
Normal Copacity
Capacity and Functioning of operations
Incident
Effect 2: Faster recover, shrotened disruption
With Business Continity Planning
Effect 1: Prevention and mitigation of impacts
Without Business Continity Planning
Time
Business Continuity Planning, Fig. 1 The concept of business continuity planning (own, according to ISO 22301, ONR 49002–3)
BCP is, after all, a crosscutting issue which interrelates with numerous processes and employees of an organization. It is often considered as part of risk management but also relates to other management systems such as environmental and health management systems, quality management systems, IT and information security systems, as well as sourcing and supply chain management or facility management. BCP and BCM relate to strategic issues at the management level and involve the planning as well as the provision of budgets and resources, the implementation of measures as well as training and exercises (Cabinet Office – Government of Japan 2012). In a broad understanding, business continuity has expanded its context from an initially economic one to also include ecological and social issues, i.e., to a holistic, sustainable view of the organization. In achieving the capability to prepare for disruptions to the ability to recover and to continue operations, an organization serves various benefits, for instance (ISO 22301:2019, Clause 0.2): • To improve its capability to remain effective during disruptions and after adverse events • To demonstrate proactive control of risks and to address operational vulnerabilities, i.e., to contribute to organizational resilience
• To reduce legal and financial exposure and reducing direct and indirect cost of disruptions • To make business partners confident in delivery • To consider the expectations of interested parties and stakeholders • To reduce environmental and health impacts in the neighborhood and to protect life, property, and environment Business continuity planning relates in various ways to the Sustainable Development Goals, in particular to SDG 11, which focuses on making cities and human settlements more inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, and adaptive to face challenges. BCP can contribute to SDG 11 in terms of managerial activities related to disaster risk management, i.e., to survive and recover from critical incidents and to guarantee the functioning of critical and vital infrastructures, facilities, and networks, such as water supply, collection and treatment, electricity generation and distribution, hospitals and ambulances, telecommunication, transportation as well as security services (policy and military). Although business continuity planning is specific to an organization, its implementation for sure has serious implications on the
Business Continuity Planning
35
Business Continuity Planning, Table 1 Overview international standard with regard to business continuity planning Norm BCI Good Practice Guidelines (2002, 2010, 2013) NFPA 1600 (2004, 2016) ASIS GDL BC (2005)
Origin UK
Description Business continuity management
USA USA
ASIS SPC.1 (2009)
USA
HB 292 (2006) SS 540 (2008) INS 24001 (2007) BCPDG/BCG (2005) ONR 49002–3
AUS SGP ISR JPN AUT
BSI 100–4 (2008) ISO 22301 (2012, 2019) ISO 22313 (2012, 2019) ISO/PAS 22399 (2007)
GER ./. ./. ./.
ISO/IEC 27031 (2011)
./.
ISO/TS 22317 (2015)
./.
ISO 28000 (2007)
./.
Disaster/emergency management and business continuity programs Business continuity: emergency preparedness, crisis management, and disaster recovery Organizational resilience: security, preparedness, and continuity management systems Business continuity management Business continuity management Security and continuity management systems Business continuity management Risk management for organizations and systems Part 3: guidelines for emergency, crisis, and business continuity management Emergency management Business continuity management system Societal security, business continuity management Societal security, guideline for incident preparedness and operational continuity management Information technology, security techniques, guidelines for information and communication technology readiness for business continuity Societal security, business continuity management systems, guidelines for business impact analysis (BIA) Specification for security management systems for the supply chain
wider community and other third parties. An organization is likely to have external organizations that it depends upon, and there will be others that depend on it. Effective business continuity therefore contributes to a more resilient society (ISO 22313-2019). BCP may also contribute to SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure) and to SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production). Business continuity planning and management nowadays is driven by international standardization and legal frameworks. The Good Practice Guidelines by the Business Continuity Institute (BCI) is referred as the quasi-standard in the past, by establishing specifications, which allowed for comparability of methods, projects, approaches, and results (BCI 2002, 2010, 2013; Mahr 2009; Baumann and von Rössing 2018:195). Since then, numerous national and international standards and guidelines with different degrees of binding force arose (see Table 1). Laws and regulations are mainly superordinate and abstract and hence are in need of interpretation. Standardization and standardization are
therefore indispensable instruments for ensuring the will of the respective legislator or regulator. Even if standards do not have a liability, they can be a valuable instrument to develop a business continuity plan and management. Because the requirements have in principle been the same since 2006, almost all standards are suitable as an instrument for the introduction of BCP and BCM, if there are sound entrepreneurial reasons for doing so (Kirvan 2011). Typically BCP includes the following issues, which will be described in the course of this chapter (see sections “Identification of Relevant Adverse Conditions,” “Risk Assessment (RA) and Business Impact Analysis,” and “Business Continuity Strategies and Measurements”): • Identification of relevant adverse conditions (such as potential disasters, incidents, emergency, and crisis scenarios) • Business impact analysis • Business continuity strategies and measurements • Business continuity management systems
B
36
Business Continuity Planning
Identification of Relevant Adverse Conditions • An organization often suffers disturbances of normal operations. Typically such events can be fixed with the available resources in a short time. Only when a malfunction or adverse event develops into a major loss event with significant impact on the objectives and continuity of operations, an emergency occurs, requiring exceptional measures. With the help of specific methods for risk identification, different sources of risks can be estimated. Examples of such risks are (ONR 49002–3): • Internal loss events: fires, explosions, technical breakdowns, accidents, etc. which lead to material damage and loss of operating functions. • Natural disasters threatening business operations from the outside with storms, floods, avalanches, rock falls, landslides, earthquakes, spring tides, and more. • Environmental incidents and suddenly occurring environmental events with or without previous loss events such as explosion, fire (e.g., natural disasters), gradually emerging environmental pressures, landfills, or contaminated sites. • Accidents with dangerous goods, i.e., when handling dangerous goods within the company or transporting them externally, accidents involving personal injury or death may occur, and damage to property and the environment occurs. • Acts of violence and criminal acts (security) including terrorism (e.g., bomb attacks, kidnappings, and blackmail), malicious damage, and sudden and aggressive outbreaks of violence (amok) in the public or in an organization. • Product recalls due to a product defects or when important specifications are not fulfilled and customers are damaged or the deliveries are rejected. The recalls are particularly delicate if the organization does not know where
•
• •
• • •
• • •
•
the defective products are located or which production batches are faulty. IT system crashes: caused by programming errors, manipulation, etc. The operating system may be affected by errors, damage events (fire), or malicious attacks on the operating system. IT security incidents such as cases of intrusion or misuse of data, loss of data due to inadequate internal data backup, misuse of data due to hacker attacks, or unauthorized disclosure of protected data. Technical faults and malfunctions which lead to temporary or long-term failure of machines or equipment and the loss of operating functions. Supply bottlenecks and interruptions caused by the loss of supplies of raw materials or semi-finished products, the interruption of energy supply, or supply of information. Legal attacks: legal actions, liability cases, or criminal accusations or threats. Health damage for customers caused by a product (e.g., medication, children’s toys) Food poisoning can also occur either inside the organization (e.g., in the canteen) or outside the organization (e.g., catering establishments, food industry). Epidemics and pandemics: infectious diseases, which spread across countries and continents. Loss of key personnel. Organization failures can affect different groups of people, e.g., customers (mistakes), employees (mistakes), and employees (services) or patients (e.g., medical malpractice). Strike and lockout: a strike by your own workforce, strike at suppliers or customers, lockouts, and other measures of industrial action.
The risk identification can be supported by various techniques and methods, including qualitative methods such as brainstorming, the Delphi method, structured prompts or questions, checklists, and evidence-based methods like review of historical data. Many other methods exist to improve the accuracy and completeness in risk identification (see IEC 31010:2019 for an overview).
Business Continuity Planning, Fig. 2 Template for a risk matrix (in accordance with ONR 49001:2014)
37 Probability, likeliness
Business Continuity Planning
5
10
15
20
25
4
8
12
16
20
Risk category A: risks unacceptable, unacceptable, immediate risk mitigaiton measures required
3
6
9
12
15
Risk category B: conditionally justifiable risks, shortterm risk mitigaiton measures required
2
2
6
8
10
Risk category C: Reasonable risks, generally effective prevention measures established
1
2
3
4
5
Potential damage or imapct
Risk Assessment (RA) and Business Impact Analysis Organizations shall determine when a local adverse condition or emergency develops into an organization-wide crisis. In order to derive preventive measures to reduce risks, priorities need to be set that are based on the damage impact that may occur and also on the probability of occurrence. For this purpose, risk assessment procedures and business impact analysis are usually used. Both methods are transferred here to the context of adverse conditions. It is necessary to identify the (most) critical assets, infrastructures, business activities, and processes that are considered essential to their operations (DoHS 2013). The guiding question for the identification could be, for instance: What is fundamentally needed to keep productivity and performance – is IT systems, power or resource supply, or certain production lines? In an early stage, it might be not necessary or possible to cover all business processes but to limit to the most critical ones. Risk Assessment Risk assessment is useful for all identified emergency and crisis scenarios (see section “Identification of Relevant Adverse Conditions”) which have a potential impact on the organization. Risk
assessment related to the estimation of losses based on the concept of “probability.” This takes usually the form of a risk matrix (see Fig. 2), which on the one hand reflects the expected damage and on the other hand the expectation regarding the likeliness of occurrence of the event (Baumann and von Rössing 2018). The expected damage is classified into categories by using simple ordinal scales, for example, from “no damage” or “minor damage” to “very high damage.” The probability or likeliness of occurrence is estimated in the same manner ranging, for instance, between “very unlikely” and “most likely” or “pretty sure.” In order to derive measures, a prioritization is necessary that characterizes the need for action. In the case of operating risks, the assigned values for damage and probability are multiplied and classified into risk priority classes by the help of thresholds. Those thresholds follow the so-called ALARP principle, which stands for the minimization of risk to an acceptable level, which is considered “as low as reasonable practicable.” The ALARP principle takes into account that effort and money must be spent in risk reduction but are limited. Hence the relation between cost and the benefit of risk mitigation may not be disproportionate (HSE 2001, 2019). The guiding principle is an economic one and not to achieve zero risk at all cost. Of course, the thresholds are specific to the organization. Derived risk priority classes could be:
B
38
• Risk class A: risks unacceptable, unacceptable, immediate risk mitigation measures required • Risk class B: conditionally justifiable risks, short-term risk mitigation measures required • Risk class C: reasonable risks, generally effective prevention measures established The whole risk management approach concentrates on the mitigation of risk by taking preventive measures to reduce the causes of risky events. Business continuity management instead focuses on the effects of such events, i.e., the hazard itself, but not on the probability that an event may cause a damage. BCM seeks to ensure the fastest possible recovery and restoration of production capacity, as a follow-up of a critical event. The BCM is concerned with events that have occurred or can occur in the future, and this is quite independent of how likely they were previously thought to be (Lagadec 1982; Reason 1990). According to the Normal Accident Theory (NAT), multiple and unexpected failures are normal in that sense that they are built into complex socio-technological systems and will inevitably occur (Perrow 1984). Hence for BCP, the probability can be neglected, precisely if, for example, the same contingency plan covers both probable and very unlikely events. Indeed it is therefore necessary to consider very carefully whether ignoring a risk that could jeopardize the continued existence of the company is (legally) permissible at all (Baumann and von Rössing 2018). This is the way how a business impact analysis is done, which will be described in the following section. Business Impact Analysis Business impact analysis is about to consider the effects, not the causes. It takes a different perspective, i.e., focused on assets and infrastructures, compared to risk management. For instance, a single disruptive event can be followed by multiple effects. While it is difficult to anticipate the probability of an earthquake, a nuclear plant meltdown, or a hacker attack, the kind and range of consequences can be easier foreseen. Effect categories are used to estimate the damage to specific and crucial, i.e., vital, infrastructures or assets of a
Business Continuity Planning
company. Examples for effect categories related to vital assets are (Barnes 2011): • Loss of facility and infrastructures: offices, factories, warehouses and other physical structures, and tangible assets that can become inaccessible or unusable (due to floods, fires, chemical contamination, loss of power, condemnation by inspectors, etc.). • Loss of information: Equipment, machinery, offices and other infrastcture can always be replaced, while loss of intangible assets such as information and intellectual property, beside others, may be irreversible. With the advent of cloud technology and automated backups, the solutions to protecting information are available to everyone. • Disruption in operations: vital resources needed to carry out operations can be interrupted (for instance, due to labor strikes, supply chain breakdown, mass transit disruption, pandemics, and other events). • Technology disruption caused by hardware malfunction, cyber attack, network failure, and software issues. • Organizational disruptions that prevent organizations from fulfilling their obligations such as legal, regulatory, and intellectual property, bankruptcy, and financial malfeasance. The questions to be tackled in this context are about what is the impact in the event of disruption and how long could the business survive without the functioning of critical activities. The core of the BIA is hence: 1. To analyze the impact over time resulting from the disruption of crucial processes. 2. The time within which the impacts of not resuming activities would become unacceptable to the organization. 3. The prioritized time frame within the activities should be recovered or restored at a specified minimum acceptable capacity. The impact of lost operational functions, loss of customers and market position, the duration of business interruption, and/or lost operating income (e.g.,
Business Continuity Planning
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Business Continuity Planning, Table 2 Criteria for business impact assessments (according to ONR 49002-3)
Level of impact Description Unimportant, Operating function is inconsiderable slightly disturbed or interrupted Small, low, Operating functions modest completely interrupted, but easy to repair, limited additional costs Perceptible Operating functions completely interrupted, but difficult to repair, high additional costs, dissatisfied customers Critical Operational functions completely interrupted, significant loss of productivity, loss of customers Cataclysmic Operational functions completely interrupted, loss of market position
Related effort or cost for restoration and recovery Up to 2 days
Up to 1 week or 100.000 EUR
Up to 1 month or 300.000 EUR
Up to 3 months or 1.000.000 EUR
Up to 1 year or > 1.000.000 EUR
EBIT) should be taken into account. Table 2 shows the levels and interpretation of the risk effects. The crucial issue in BIA is to define thresholds for the maximum acceptability of an interruption of vital activities and processes as well the maximum tolerable time period until recovery (ISO 22301 and ISO 22313 Clause 8.2.2, Baumann and von Rössing 2018). There are some key concepts and indicators, which need some further explanation: • Maximum tolerable period of disruption (MTPD): The MTPD of an certain activity takes into account the duration after which the organization irrevocably suffers damage if the critical processes for the delivery of goods or the provision of services fail (Cornish 2011; Baumann and von Rössing 2018, ISO 22313 Clause 8.2.2, ISO-DTS 22317, Clause 5.3.1.). • Minimum business continuity objective (MBCO): MBCO refers to the minimum level of product or service quality that is acceptable to the
organization to still achieve its business objectives during a disruption. • Recovery time objective (RTO): RTO relates to the capacity and the time within it is planned that an activity or dependency is to be resumed (ISO 22301 Clause 8.2.2). The RTO determines the period during which a process can fail without significantly hampering business activity. To determine it, it is necessary to consider that after an event, there is a response time for those affected and time is needed to mobilize resources and establish the necessary conditions for restarting and recovery (e.g., commissioning of alternative sites). In addition, there is the need to ensure and confirm the functionality and suitability of the restart environment (Baumann and von Rössing 2018; Barnes 2011:175). The RTO is therefore not a constant value, but can change. For example, the RTO maybe reduced with growing experience and expertise or by enhancing the degree of preparedness with support of regular exercises. It seems appropriate in particular for organizations with complex recovery processes to set multiple RTOs for a range of acceptable capacities (ISO 22313 Clause 8.2.2). • Recovery point objective (RPO): RPO refers to the point to which information or other inputs used by an activity must be restored to enable the activity to operate on resumption. This indicator mainly related to IT security issues (Fig. 3). The results of the BIA should be documented in a BIA which refers as a statement of the operational requirements. It should provide sufficient evidence that should then refer as background document for the development of proper strategies after acceptance by the top management. The BIA is hence a working document rather than a strategy, which may include statements such as: Acceptance of the findings of the BIA should lead to evaluation of the current ability of the firm to meet the stated operational requirements following a disaster and implementation of appropriate measures to close any gaps that might be identified. (cited from Barnes 2007:148 in Hiles 2007)
B
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Business Continuity Planning
Normal Capacity
Incident
Capacity and Functioning of operations
Maximum Tolerable Period of Disruoption (MTPD)
Recovery Point Objective(RPO) Minimum Business Continuity Objective (MBCO)
Recovery Time Objective (RTO)
Time
Business Continuity Planning, Fig. 3 Illustration of the key concepts for recovery (own, according to ISO 22301, ONR 49002–3)
Or If the [decision-making body/higher authority] chooses not to accept the findings of the BIA or to implement an appropriate programme of work in response to those findings then it must specifically accept the risks associated with such inaction. Such risks include [here follows an illustrative list of the impacts of inaction that may reasonably be extrapolated from the data that has been gathered and analysed]. (cited from Barnes 2007:148 in Hiles 2007)
The BIA should be reviewed by the top management and updated annually or follow major changes in the organization such as introduction of new or modified processes, launch of new products, and a restructuring of the organization.
Business Continuity Strategies and Measurements The organization should now identify and select appropriate business continuity strategies based on the results from the BIA and the RA and focus on the most critical process with the highest potential impact. Usually the business continuity strategies should compromise one or more
solutions (ISO 22301 Clause 8.3), which allow to limit the duration of the interruption of the operational functions, while ensuring the quality of the performance and keeping the necessary costs as low as possible. Figures 1 and 2 illustrate how the performance drops after an incident or loss event. The aim is to reduce the time of disruption by suitable and prepared measures. In the minimum case, this results in emergency plans in order to be able to react instantly to malfunctions of the operation and to guarantee an orderly emergency operation (Baumann and von Rössing 2018). After this direct response, other measures are needed for recovery such as (see ONR 49002–3 Clause 7.1, 7.2, Cabinet Office – Government of Japan 2012 Clause 4.2.): • Capacity reserves for production facilities and alternatives for operational are best suited to achieving the goals of continuous improvement. They are, however, associated with high costs and are therefore hardly practicable in many cases. Redundant processes and capacities which are not used may only justify themselves in areas in which the effects of a loss of operational functions have catastrophic consequences
Business Continuity Planning
•
•
•
•
for the organizations (and whose probability of occurrence cannot be neglected). Examples for this category of measures are external backup data centers to avoid information blackouts, redundant and independent feeds of data, energy and material supply, collaboration with other companies or mutual aid agreements, double sourcing of critical materials and components, different alternative transport modes, replacement of vending machines by man power, securing the availability of man power by personnel leasing, satellite offices, and teleworking options. Other measures for recovery also include key personnel substitution arrangements, knowledge management and identification of important know-how carriers, alternative infrastructure and access routes, as well as data backups. Substitution strategy of core functions, for instance, in headquarters, including management, finance and accounting department, personnel department, public relations department, and a system of deputies. Stockpiling and inventory management can reduce interruption of operational functions. It is necessary to distinguish between the procurement of operational resources and the delivery of services to customers. Stocks of raw materials, semi-finished products, and energy may compensate for the interruption of supply and demand. Inventories of finished products that should be physically separated from production so that they may not be directly affected to the same local, concentrated loss event but allow to deliver within the scope of the of the warehouse stock. Substitute procurement and acquisition: The rapid replacement procurement of raw materials, goods, and information or the restoration of operational functions can be planned and prepared in many cases. Contractual agreements with suppliers or partners with the same interests can be reviewed and implemented. Fund procurement to sustain cash flow to pay salaries to workforce and to pay suppliers. This includes insurance, mutual aid, derivatives, reservation for bank’s disaster loans, and post-disaster loans.
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• Ensuring responses to legal regulations, including examination of emergency deregulation measures and requests to central and local government organizations.
B Many possible solutions for recovery and business continuity exist, but it is necessary to prioritize and combine them. Also, consistency of BCP/BCM measures with activities of government organizations and social infrastructure operators and regional disaster management plans needs to be ensured. The organization shall hence maintain a plan or process to enable timely warning, communication, and execution of recovery measures. This can be achieved by appropriate response structure or business continuity plans, which include details about necessary actions to be taken by a team of responsible persons within predetermined time frames. Such a plan typically addresses the following issues (von Rössing 2005): • Roles and responsibilities • Cataloguing of planning documents and additional materials • Flow diagrams and other supporting graphical representations, which can be used to explain the steps to be followed in each individual plans • Description of the tasks and requirements of the people involved • A time frame for accomplishing the tasks and fulfilling the requirements • Forms, protocols, checklists, contact lists, and alarm paths • Cross-references and relationships between planning documents • Validity and scope of the individual plans • Project management and control mechanisms
Business Continuity Management Systems A business continuity management system, or BCMS for short, is a management system that combines interrelated methods, procedures, and policies to ensure that critical processes and activities of an organization keep running in the event
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of damage or emergencies. It goes hence well beyond the business continuity plan itself. For instance, a management system typically follows the PDCA cycle (plan-do-check-act) and continuously develops and improves. The PDCA cycle is applied constantly in most of the international norms and standards and includes (ISO 22313): • Plan: Establishing a business continuity policy, objectives, controls, processes, and procedures relevant to improving business continuity in order to align with the organization’s overall policies and objectives. This obviously is based on a comprehensive identification of critical processes, possible risks, and a business impact analysis which also derives specific recovery objectives. • Do: Implementation and operation business continuity policy and plans, controls, processes, and procedures. • Check: Monitoring and reviewing the performance against business continuity policy and objectives, reporting of the results to management for review, and determining and authorizing actions for remediation and improvement, for instance, during a critical review after incidents have occurred. It must provide insights of the plans and measures that have been effective and complete or need revision. • Act: Maintaining and improving by taking corrective actions, based on the results of audits, management reviews and revisions of the scope of the BCMS, and business continuity policy and objectives. The PDCA cycle has been integrated into the so-called High-Level Structure, which represents a 10-point structure for all ISO-regulated management systems, including BCMS. Clauses 1–3 of the High-Level Structure are of a general nature and describe the respective standard, existing references, and their terms. Clauses 4–10 contain the content requirements of the respective management system. These include (structured according to High-Level Structure): • Clause 4 Context of the organization: – Review of strategic objectives
Business Continuity Planning
•
•
•
•
•
– Consideration of needs, expectations, and requirements of interested parties and stakeholders – Compliance with applicable legal, regulatory, and other obligations Clause 5 Leadership: – Consideration of management roles and responsibilities – Promotion of a culture of continual improvement – Establishing performance monitoring and reporting Clause 6 Planning: – Identification of critical and vital processes, technologies, and activities – Identification of risks and opportunities – Anticipation of critical incidents – Identification of actions to address and take advantage – Establishment of effective change management Clause 7 Support: – Effective management of necessary BCM resources, including competence management – Improvement of employee awareness – Effective mechanisms for internal and external communications – Documentation and information Clause 8 Operation: – Analysis of unintended consequences of change – Consideration of dependencies on external suppliers and its supply chain – Consideration of vulnerabilities from an impact perspective – Evaluation of risks of disruption and identification of counter measures – Implementation of effective structures and procedures for dealing with disruptions – Reaching awareness of responsibilities to the community and other interested parties Clause 9 Performance evaluation: – Establishing effective mechanisms for monitoring, measuring, and evaluating performance – Involvement of the top management in the monitoring the performance and contributing to the effectiveness (by management review)
Business Continuity Planning
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• Clause 10 Improvement: – Procedures for monitoring performance and improving effectiveness – Continual improvement process Figure 4 illustrates and summarizes the requirements of BCMS according to the HighLevel Structure and the PDCA cycle on the basis of ISO/DIS 22313, a worldwide standard for business continuity management. The described systematics can be easily integrated into other integrated management systems. This also makes sense, as BCM has links to quality, environmental, and occupational health and safety, IT security, and energy management systems.
Take-Away for Practitioners BCP is a proactive approach aimed at maintaining value-adding business processes in a crisis and is predominantly concerned with planning and
testing potentially failing assets that would cause considerable damage to the organization and its stakeholders in the event of a failure. BCM is an approach that obviously relates to risk management but does not focus on the likelihood of causes but on what to do in order to recover from disruption. Nowadays, BCM and BCP are mainly driven by legal regulations and international standards that require organization to enhance organizational resilience in particular with regard to critical infrastructures, IT security, and disaster management. The following brief recommendations can be recommended to ensure an effective business continuity plan and business continuity management: 1. Analyze business processes: You identify the critical business processes, whose failure or malfunction causes considerable damage. Then carry out an a risk management, or Business Impact Analysis (BIA)
PLAN
DO
CHECK
ACT
1 Scope
4 Context of the organization
5 Leadership
6 Planning
7 Support
8 Operation
9 Performance evaluation
10 Improvement
2 Normative references
4.1 Understanding of the organization and its context
5.1 General
6.1 Actions to address risks and opportunities
7.1 Resources
8.1 Operational planning and control
9.1 Monitoring, measurement, analysis and evaluation
10.1 Nonconformity and corrective action
9.2 Internal audit
10.2 Continual improvement
3 Terms and definitions
4.2 Clonsideration of needs, expectations and requirements of interested parties and stakeholders 4.3 Determining the scope of the management system 4.4 Business continuty management system
5.2 Management commitment 5.3 Policy 5.4 Organizational roles, responsibilities and authorities
6.2 Business continity objectives and plans to achieve them
7.2 Competence 7.3 7.3 Awareness
8.1.1 Elements of the business continuity programme
7.4 Communikation
8.1.2 Managing the BCM environment
7.5 Dokumented Information
8.1.3 Managing the business continuity capability 8.1.4 Measuring effectiveness 8.1.5 Outcomes 8.2 Business impact analysis and risk assessment 8.3 Business continuity strategy 8.4 Establish and implement business continuity procedures 8.5 Exercising and testing
Business Continuity Planning, Fig. 4 BCMS based on ISO 22313 according to the HLS
9.3 Management review
B
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2. Define protective goals: You define the business activities and processes that must be continued in the event of malfunctions and determine their priorities. For the goals, the results from the BIA should be used, and recovery objectives should be set (i.e., MTPD, MBCO, RTO, RPO, etc.). 3. Develop measures: You define measures (business continuity plan), which you can use to react to the failure of critical business processes and resources (e.g., electricity, technology/computer science, personnel, production sites) to minimize the severity and duration of a malfunction. 4. Check measures: You check the effectiveness of the defined measures, for example, in the form of exercises.
Cross-References ▶ Disaster Risk Management Strategies: Building the Resilient Human Settlements ▶ Early Warning Systems and Geospatial Tools: Managing Disasters for Urban Sustainability ▶ Risk Management in Cities
References Barnes P (2007) Business impact analysis. In: Hiles A (ed) The definitive handbook of business continuity management, 3rd edn. Wiley, Chichester, pp 145–161 Barnes P (2011) Business impact analysis. In: Hiles A (ed) The definitive handbook of business continuity management, vol 3. Wiley, Chichester, pp S 166–S 182 Bauman S, Rössig v (2018) Business Continuity Management – unverzichtbares Element eines angemessenen Risikomanagements. In: Hunziker S, Meissner JO (eds) Ganzheitliches Chancen- und Risikomanagement. Interdisziplinäre und praxisnahe Konzepte. Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden. Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH 2018 Business Continuity Institute BCI (2002) Good practice guidelines. Business Continuity Institute, Caversham Business Continuity Institute BCI (2010) Good practice guidelines 2010. Business Continuity Institute, Caversham
Business Continuity Planning Business Continuity Institute BCI (2013) Good practice guidelines 2013. Business Continuity Institute, Caversham Cabinet Office – Government of Japan (2012) Business continuity guidelines —strategies and responses for surviving critical incidents, 3rd edn Cornish M (2011) Business continuity management methodology. In: Hiles A (ed) The definitive handbook of business continuity management, vol 3. Wiley, Chichester, pp S 121–S 136 DoHS (2013) Supplemental tool: executing a critical infrastructure risk management approach. Department of Homeland Security National Critical Infrastructure Priorizitation Program (NCIPP) Hiles A (2007) The Definitive handbook of business continuity management, 2nd edn. Chichester, West Sussex, United Kingdom: Wiley HSE (2001) Reducing risks, protecting people, HSE’s decision-making process. HSE Information Services, Norwich HSE (2019) Risk management_ ALARP at a glance. http:// www.hse.gov.uk/risk/theory/alarpglance.htm (201907-28) IEC (2019) IEC/ISO risk management – risk assessment techniques. International Standardization Organization, International Electrotechnical Commission ISO (2018) ISO 22300 – Security and resilience – vocabulary. International Standardization Organization ISO (2019a) ISO/DIS 22301 – Security and resilience – Business continuity management systems – Requirements. International Standardization Organization ISO (2019b) ISO/DIS 22313 – Security and resilience –Business continuity management systems – Guidance. International Standardization Organization Kirvan PF (2011) International standards and legislation in business continuity. In: Hiles A (ed.) The definitive handbook of business continuity management, 3rd Wiley, Chichester, pg. 736–745 Lagadec P (1982) Major technological risk. Pergamon, Oxford Mahr WH (2009) BCM-Standards: ja, aber welche? IT-Security 1(9):36–38 ONR (2014) Risk Management for Organizations and Systems — part 3: guidelines for emergency. In: Crisis and business continuity management — implementation of ISO 31000 Perrow C (1984) Normal accidents: living with high-risk technologies. Princeton University Press Reason J (1990) Human error. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Thiel C, Thiel C (2010) Business Continuity Management für KMU DuD – Datenschutz und Datensicherheit:6/2010 Von Rössing R (2005) Betriebliches Kontinuitätsmanagement. mitp-Verlag, Bonn
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Carbon-Free Transportation Choices
Definition
Catastrophe
Informal urbanization refers to a form of urbanization that is independent from formal framework and that do not comply with formal rules and regulations. It is a quasi-urbanization driven by local economic development and market forces. It refers to informal housing, informal settlements, and informal economy. Informal settlements are areas that are not formally planned but nevertheless occupied illegally by the dwellers. Slums are the most deprived and excluded form of informal settlements characterized by poverty and dilapidated housing often located in the most hazardous urban land (UN-Habitat III 2016).
▶ Disaster Risk Management Strategies: Building the Resilient Human Settlements
Introduction
▶ Non-motorized Cycling
Transport:
Walking
and
Cataclysm ▶ Disaster Risk Management Strategies: Building the Resilient Human Settlements
Challenges of Informal Urbanization Manoranjan Mohanty The University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji
Synonyms Nonformal urbanization
In this entry, the challenges of informal urbanization are discussed critically. At the outset, the concept of informal urbanization is defined, and the meaning, processes, and causes of informal urbanization are discussed. There have been rapid urbanization and unbalanced growth of cities with many physical, social, economic, and environmental consequences. One of the adverse effects of unintended urbanization is marginalization of social groups and growth of informal urbanization. Informal urbanization is a challenge for sustainable urban development. Sustainable
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 W. Leal Filho et al. (eds.), Sustainable Cities and Communities, Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95717-3
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Development Goal 11 focuses on the theme Sustainable Cities and Communities under the heading “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable” (United Nations 2013). Urbanization in cities is characterized by a distinct dualism: formal and informal. While formal urbanization reflects the planned urban framework with building and urban planning regulations, serviced land, and housing provisions, informal urbanization on the other hand emerges as a result of inability of cities to absorb growth within formal urban framework due to absence of serviced land and affordable housing, inadequate urban planning regulations, and exclusion of low-income populations from formal urbanization. Much informal growth takes place outside of formal planning and administrative processes. Informal urbanization refers to informal unregulated spontaneous processes of urbanization especially in the cities of Global South that are resulting effects of marginalization of social groups, poverty, and inequality. Informal urbanization is seen as an alternate path of city construction and takes shape of urbanization in cities when no other options exist. Informal urbanization process includes both poor rural migrants who build their home through gradual processes of informal land occupation and consolidation and developer who subdivides land without complying with urban regulations (Roy 2005). Informal urbanization is driven by local economic development and land and housing market forces. The housing and shelter needs of low-income families which are not being met in formal sector have expanded marginalization and informal settlements. Globally, nearly one billion residents reside in urban informal settlements (World Bank 2015). The majority of cities find it difficult to accomodate their residents within the formal, official and enacted plans governing the use of land and urban space (Acioly 2007).
Urban Informality and Informal Urbanization Urban informality is a key component of contemporary urbanization, and urban expansion is
Challenges of Informal Urbanization
being largely driven by informal urbanization. The term “informality” appeared in the literature in the early 1970s. Economist Hernando De Soto in his book The Other Path argues that informality causes poverty as it is a factor of exclusion from the formal market (De Soto 1989). Dovey and King (2011) noted that informality implies “a lack of formal control over planning, design and construction”. The urban dualism, i.e., formal vs. informal, has a long history. Informality, once associated with poor squatter settlements, is now seen as a generalized mode of metropolitan urbanization (Roy 2005: 147). Two cities coexist within a city, that is, one part of urban population that has access to land, housing, and all the basic amenities and services called formal urbanization, while the other part is deprived of similar amenities and services which is called informal urbanization. Cities thus have both prosperous and impoverished neighborhoods. These cities are variously described as “divided cities” (Fainstein et al. 1992), “dual cities” (Mollenkopf and Castells 1991), “polarized cities”, “fragmented cities”, and “partitioned cities” (Marcuse and van Kempen 2000) (Cited in van Kempen 2007: 15). There is a clear connection between social polarization and social inequality on the one hand and spatial segregation on the other (ibid.). The concept of dual city reflects that the well-to-do live in one part of the city, while the other part of the city is occupied by the poor. The work of Hernandez et al. (2012) provide critical perspectives on phenmenon of urban informality in Latin American cities. Urban informality is a state of exception to the order of formal urbanization, and it possesses challenges of dealing with “unplannable” (Roy 2005). According to Roy (2005), there are two contrasting frames that dominate the current discussion on informality: (a) a category of urbanization as Sir Peter Hall and Ulrich Pfeiffer (2000) call it, “informal hyper-growth” cities. They argue that the urban poor have “built their own city without any reference whatsoever to the whole bureaucratic apparatus of planning and control in the formal city next door”; and (b) informal economy as Hernando de Soto (1989) mentioned “is the people’s spontaneous and
Challenges of Informal Urbanization
creative response to the state’s incapacity to satisfy the basic needs of the impoverished masses.” Both frames conceptualize informality and poverty more generally, as caused by isolation from global capitalism (Roy 2005). According to Roy (2005), informality as “a mode of urbanization” “is not a separate sector but rather a series of transactions that connect different economies and spaces to one another.” This informal space falls outside the realm of urban planning and control. Informality, as David Gouvernuer (2015: 24) says, has to be reconsidered, “not as a problem but as a consequence of historic structural deficiencies in developing societies.” In the Global South, informality is a defining characteristic of urbanization and urban life. Rocco and Bellegooijen (2018) in their handbook on informal urbanization seek a middle ground between two opposing perspectives on the political meaning of urban informality. The first, the emancipatory perspective frames urban informality as a practice that fosters autonomy, entrepreneurship, and social mobility (Rocco and Bellegooijen 2018). The other perspective sees informality predominantly as a result of political exclusion, inequality, and poverty. Rocco and Bellegooijen (2018) ask questions: do we see urban informality as a fertile breeding ground for bottom-up democracy and more political participation? Or is urban informality merely the result of a democratic deficit caused by governing autocratic elites and ineffective bureaucracies? The main causes of growing informal urbanization, besides others, are rural-urban migration, rapid urbanization, inadequate resources, and lack of control and urban planning. Moreover, informal urbanization in the Third World is a symptom of “subsistence urbanization” and emerges as “urbanization from below.” Urban informal urbanization is applied in the case of informal housing, the economy, and service provision (Guibrunet and Broto 2015) and the informal settlement. Informal Housing Informal housing refers to the houses that are built by the occupants without input from planning agencies, sometimes on land that is not legally
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owned and deprived of basic services such as electricity, water, and sewage (Guibrunet and Broto 2015). Growing poverty and inequality pushes people into informal housing. Massive rural-urban influx and lack of serviced land and affordable housing cause informal urbanization. In informal housing, market affordability accrues through the absence of formal planning and regulation (Baross 1990; Dowall 1991 cited in Roy 2005). Informal housing is “bottom-up,” “grassroots,” and “a perhaps unavoidable form of urbanization” in developing countries (Bellegooijen and Rocco 2013: 1795). As cities develop, there occurs dramatic increase in land, and property prices very often pushes poorer city dwellers to informal housing sector. However, Roy and AlSayyad (2004) emphasized that informal housing is no longer the domain of the urban poor, rather it is now a zone of transactions for the middle class and even transnational elites. Informal Economy The informal economy refers to productive activities that are not regulated by the state, which includes subsistence activities as well as more organized informal service provisions such as waste collection or public transport (Guibrunet and Broto 2015). Informal economy is also called “sponge,” “shadow,” “hidden,” “black,” “parallel,” or “underground” economy (or sector) that absorb large rural-urban migrants and provide them employment and livelihood opportunities (Mohanty 2006). The necessity for employment to generate an income that satisfies poor’s needs makes informal urban environment a fertile ground for informal economic activities and many times, illegal activities. Informal Settlements Informal settlements are self-constructed entities within cities and towns, the resulting effect of informal urbanization. There are various scholarly descriptions of informal urbanizations such as “shanty towns” (Beard 1920); “planet of slums” (Davis 2004); “billion squatter population” (Neuwirth 2006); and “dysfunctional urban societies” (UN-Habitat 2006), and these narratives have deep entrenched socio-spatial inequalities
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(Lombard 2014). The importance of the informal sector and informality in processes of urbanization is increasingly widely acknowledged (Bunnel and Harris 2012). The UN-Habitat (2003) defined informal settlements as (i) residential areas where a group of housing units has been constructed on land to which the occupants have no legal claim or which they occupy illegally and (ii) unplanned settlements and areas where housing is not in compliance with current planning and building regulations. Informal settlements thus have a complex continuum of both legality and illegality where squatter settlements formed through land invasion and self-help housing can exist alongside informal subdivisions formed through legal ownership and market transaction but in violation of land use regulations (Roy 2005). The term “informal” may not be equated with “illegal,” “poor,” “inferior,” or “marginal” since increasingly middleclass families find their place to live in nonformal neighborhoods. Growth of informal settlements is spontaneous response to the rapid urbanization. Informal settlements result in undesirable urbanization driven less by economic growth and more by rural-urban migration of the poor and jobless. The growth of urban informal settlements is caused by physical, socioeconomic, cultural, institutional, political, and historical factors. The physical factors concern the nature of the land on which people build unauthorized structures. Example of such lands include marginal or less valuable urban lands that are environmentally vulnerable such as along river valleys, steep slopes, dumping grounds, abandoned or unexploited plots, and in low-lying areas, and wetlands.
Challenges of Informal Urbanization Informality is a widespread phenomenon that poses serious social, economic, cultural, political, and environmental challenges (Huchzermeyer and Karam 2007; Porter 2011; Hernandez et al. 2012). A growing number of people come to cities from rural areas and live at lower-income level in urban standards, and the rural poor through
Challenges of Informal Urbanization
migration is transformed to urban poor. They stay poor as Lipton (1977) said due to an “urban bias” development. Such demographic transformation is reflected in what has been called the urbanization of poverty. The poor have been urbanizing more rapidly than the city population as a whole. The recent pace of urbanization and current forecasts for urban population growth imply more rural-urban influx to cities in the future. Perhaps one of the most insidious effects of urbanization on poverty is the displacement of low-income city dwellers from their communities which is usually done through a process called “gentrification” (Smith 2002; Richmondvale Academy 2016). Gentrification is defined as “the physical, social, economic, and cultural phenomenon whereby working-class or inner-city neighborhoods are converted into more affluent communities, resulting in increased property values and the outflow of poorer residents” (Richmondvale Academy 2016). Gentrification encompasses the beautification of previously undesirable neighborhoods through the construction of new buildings and other amenities, such as supermarkets and restaurants (ibid.). This hikes rents prices and draws out older residents, who are pushed again and again into undesirable areas. Besides other factors, poor urban infrastructure, insufficient housing, and weak city management causes the informal settlements (ibid.). Challenges of Urban Poverty The major effects of urbanization on poverty are the birth of informal settlements in terms of slums and squatters; these are the product of largescale rural-urban influx on the one hand, a weak management of urban affairs, and insufficient and unaffordable housing on the other. Two perspectives on poverty emerge in the context of informal settlements: (1) informal settlements as ladders out of poverty and (2) informal settlements as poverty traps. Informal settlements help to lift rural households out of poverty through providing access to urban jobs. Living in informal settlements in city help people to gain access to economic opportunities and help them coming out of poverty. Living in the city seems to help people in informal settlements to gain access to economic
Challenges of Informal Urbanization
opportunities help coming out of poverty. Informal settlements are perpetual features of the urban landscape that demonstrate low social mobility and structural impediments to progress and thus seen as poverty trap. “Urbanization of poverty” continues in cities as a continuous struggle of a growing number of poor people for land, housing, and livelihoods in a challenging urban environment (Evans 2002). While formal land and housing markets are generally dominated by economic interests of the urban elite poor urban dwellers and sometimes even the middle classes do not have the means to participate in these markets (Ehebrecht 2015). A “culture poverty” continues to exist and the urban poor migrants and squatter dwellers become deeply entranched in politics in cities what Perlman (1976) explains in his work, “the Myth of Marginality”. Challenges of Slums and Squatters The phenomenon of slum formation produced a variety of local settlement types (Acioly 2007). These aquire different names such as “fevelas” in Brazil, “basti” and “Zopaadpatti” in India, “ranchos” in Venezuela, “Katchi abadis” in Pakistan, “bariadas” in Peru and so on. These informal settlements are often referred as “unauthorized settlement,” “unplanned settlement,” “uncontrolled settlement,” or “spontaneous settlements,” a resulting effect of spontaneous informal urbanization. As cities grow, so do informal or spontaneous settlements. Informal settlement is also called an “auto settlement,” “abnormal” and “dysfunctional settlement,” “unjust settlement,” and shack. The terms slum and squatter are used interchangeably; however, they differ. The UN-Habitat (2003) defined slums as contiguous settlements where inhabitants are characterized as having (i) insecure residential status; (ii) inadequate access to safe water; (iii) inadequate access to sanitation and other basic infrastructure and services; (iv) poor housing quality; and (v) overcrowding. On the other hand, squatter settlements can be defined as a low residential area which has developed without legal right to the land or permission from the concerned authorities to build; as a result of their illegal status, infrastructure and services are usually inadequate (UN-Habitat 2003). It
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means slums are areas where people with land ownership live in poor environmental and socioeconomic conditions and are different from squatters which are the settlements where people build houses without any legal title to land (UN-Habitat 2003). Slums in cities are commonly referred as “shanty towns,” a settlement of improvised housing which is commonly known as shanties or shacks and made of plywood, corrugated metal, sheets of plastic, and cardboard boxes. A typical shanty town often lacks adequate infrastructure, including proper sanitation, safe water supply, electricity, streets, or other basic necessities to support human settlements. Such settlements are usually located on the periphery of cities, in public parks, or near railroad tracks, rivers, lagoons, or city trash dump sites. As opposed to slums, squatter settlements are transitional or temporary in nature that lack land tenure. A squatting occupancy is a problem of legal dimension. A squatter settlement is located on land or in buildings that are occupied without the consent of the owner. A squatter settlement can be both a slum and a squatting, i.e., the settlement fulfills the criteria of non-compliance with the law regulating land use and of exhibition of decaying physical conditions. Amis (1984) in astudy in Nairobi found commercialization of unauthorised low-income housing involving landlords and tenants. Some characteristics of squatter settlement include illegality and informality; low residential space; unauthorized housing and temporary dwellings; inappropriate locations; overcrowding; restricted public utilities and urban basic services; poverty and vulnerability and social stress and poor health; and informal economic activities and environmental hazards and degradation. Environmental Challenges Informal urbanization is posing complex environmental, social, economic, and spatial challenges. Air and water pollution, lack of personal hygiene and environmental sanitation, and noise and cultural pollution are among the most visible environmental problems in the informal settlements. Informal urbanization is unsustainable in the long run, and informal settlement is a persistent challenge in achieving sustainable urban development
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and building a healthy city. Informal settlements with poor urban planning and management deficiencies and basic urban service and infrastructure deficits severely affect the city’s livability and environmental quality. Poor people living in slums are often forced to live in environmentally unsafe areas, steep hillsides and floodplains, or polluted sites near solid waste dumps, open drains and sewers, and polluting industries. Informal settlements are located on marginal land that is exposed to the risk of storms, fire, disease, and flooding (Mohanty 2005). Informal settlement dwellers are critically vulnerable or susceptible to various economic as well as environmental risks. Poor environmental conditions in informal settlements lead to poor health, which, in turn, aggravates poverty. City authorities face with a huge challenge of illegal dumping of waste within cities by the slum/squatter dwellers which has much environmental and health implications. Challenges to Urban Planning, Development, and Governance Growth of informal urbanization poses a serious threat to the local and national governments and urban governance. It puts challenges for spatial planning and urban design. Spatial planning and design are failing to deliver sustainable solutions that address the needs of citizens living in informal settlements. The rates of urbanization and demand for housing in informal sector fluctuate rapidly and hard to predict, and this makes planning for urban growth and urban service provisions for informal urbanization a challenge. Another challenge in planning for informal urbanization is that informal settlements are generally undocumented or not captured in official maps. This is because the governments usually see them as temporary or illegal. The number of informal settlements is growing uncontrollably with informal urbanization that put increased service delivery pressure upon resources like housing, water, sanitation, electricity, and health services that the civic authorities are unable to cope with. The “squatter citizens” face numerous challenges in their struggle for survival in cities (Hardoy and Satterthwaite 1989). Improving the lives of informal settlement dwellers is one of the most
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pressing development challenges. The major challenges of managing informal urbanization are due to shortage of land and finance which are the two critical instruments in urban planning and management. Fekade (2000) noted that the rapid growth of informal settlements is largely due to deficits in formal urban land management in cities. Social and Cultural Challenges Social challenges such as drug addiction, alcoholism, prostitutions, and criminal activities are perpetual problems in the informal settlements. High incidence of HIV/AID and prevalence of diseases including communicable diseases in the informal settlements are the perpetual challenges. The informal settlement dwellers are situated far away from the city’s economic opportunities, with no access to basic services such as water supply, sanitation, and electricity, due to illegitimacy. The informal settlements do not have proper infrastructure that supports the provision of clean water and electricity among other urban services and amenities. Informal urbanization and informal settlements are the real threats to achieve urban sustainability. Housing/Shelter Challenges Poor housing and living conditions, poor healthcare options, low standard of living, lack of adequate water supply and sanitation, and poor urban basic services are the challenges of informal settlements. Environmental health issues are some of the most visible issues facing informal settlements (Harpham et al. 1988). Sprawling slums, litter, and polluted waterways are prevalent in most urban slums. The most pressing problem facing the housing sector in the Third World in so far as housing the urban poor is concerned is the shortfall of supply of adequate houses over demand. However, in some instances, construction of permanent dwellings in the informal settlement becomes problematic. Permanent structures in the informal settlement areas become a huge challenge as the areas are not legalized where building plans can be approved and implemented. Civic authorities have no choice but to demolish these buildings that lead to social
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chaos, and the issue very often becomes politicized. In addition, informal settlement dwellers also take illegal water and electricity connections and do not adhere to the city regulations which are a challenge to urban planning.
Informal Settlements Upgrading On the one hand, informal spaces have been perceived as “unplannable”; on the other hand, there has been a series of attempts to improve informal spaces (Roy 2005). There has been marked shift in emphasis from policies that sought to eradicate informal settlements or to relocate them to urban peripheries to urban upgrading strategies providing services on-site. Various urban development strategies have been adopted in the past while handling informal settlements. These strategies range from denial, tolerance, formalization, demolition, eviction, and displacement (Roy 2005). Several governments have also pursued anti-informal urbanization policies. People are evicted from inner-city informal settlements to the peripheries. Forced evictions adopted by several governments in various parts of the world put the rights of informal settlement dwellers at risk and lead to violation of human rights. The challenges are to provide effective protection against forced evictions and to provide access to basic services, public facilities, and inclusive public spaces to the evicted/displaced dwellers. It has been argued that poverty and inequality cannot be simply eradicated through demolition or eviction. Many cities adopt alternatives that formalize these areas through incremental, on-site upgrading. Slum upgrading is however different from urban upgrading. Urban upgrading is broadly defined as physical, social, economic, organizational, and environmental improvements undertaken cooperatively among citizens, community groups, businesses, and local authorities to ensure sustained improvements in the quality of life for residents in cities. Urban upgrading possesses great potential for improving housing quality in informal settlements. Slum upgrading, on the other hand, is an integrated component of urban upgrading. Informal settlement or slum
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upgrading is a process through which informal areas are gradually improved, formalized, and incorporated into the city itself, through extending land and services to the dwellers. It involves providing informal settlement dwellers with the social, economic, institutional, and community services in the cities. These services may include legal (land tenure), physical (infrastructure), social (e.g., education or health), or economic services. The upgrading activities also include the provision of basic services such as housing, streets, footpaths, drainage, clean water, sanitation, and sewage disposal and access to education and healthcare.
Approaches to Informal Settlement Upgrading Various authors analysed approaches and methods of informal settlement upgrading (Pamuk and Cavalleri 1998; Abbott 2002; Amao 2012; Hermanson 2016). Two broad approaches as Amao (2012) noted have been used in urban upgrading of informal settlements: (1) community participation approach and (2) government intervention approach. The rationale behind community participation approach is that the communities know their needs better and should be consulted and carried along in the decisionmaking process (Amao 2012). The participation of the community in improving the quality of their settlement is also an important resource that has to be mobilized for improvement. Abbott (2002) calls for a process of “settlement transformation” in which physical interventions are supported by social and economic programmes that can improve the quality of life of informal settlement dwellers. Land sharing is an approach which has brought about considerable settlement improvement by the initiative of the people themselves (Amao 2012). On the other hand, the two popular approaches used by the public authorities have been settlement upgrading and “sites-and-services” (Amao 2012). Settlement upgrading has been an option where a compromise has been reached by the land owner and on a sharing basis; the squatter has
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been allowed to continue on the land parcel, but with a significant upgrading of the settlement’s infrastructure and services. Where such land compromises or sharing has not been possible, the squatters have been relocated to another location, where varying levels of “sites-and-services” have been provided, with again land lease or ownership (Amao 2012). The common methods that are adopted in informal settlements or slum upgrading include: (a) Self-help housing: Self-help housing (Skinner and Rodell 1983; Mathéy 1992) emerged in the 1970s. John Turner advocated slum improvements free of government intervention to allow their residents to change their living conditions by themselves (Werlin 1999). Self-help housing offers several advantages including mobilization and realization of local social capital, greater ownership and control of the housing process by local residents, greater participation by residents in the design, and potentially the achievement of more valuable housing product as a result equity and/or a more cost-effective construction process (Amao 2012). (b) Relocations: Relocations may affect only a portion of the settlement or the entire settlement and may be temporary or permanent. The relocation of entire settlements, to worse located land relative to livelihood opportunities and other amenities, should be undertaken as a last resort (Amao 2012). (c) In situ slum upgrading: The advantages of in situ upgrading are that these are affordable, flexible, and viable options. In situ or on-site upgrading includes conventional in situ upgrading and nonconventional in situ upgrading. (i) Conventional in situ upgrading: This entails the redevelopment of an informal settlement in a comprehensive and relatively complete fashion in respect to housing, tenure, and infrastructural services (Amao 2012). There are significant challenges in achieving conventional upgrading.
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(ii) Nonconventional in situ upgrading: This has become one of the most promising approaches to the housing crisis in the “Global South” (Ehebrecht 2015). This approach is receiving increasing attention given the significant constraints in achieving conventional upgrading. Nonconventional upgrading as Ehebrecht (2015) notes takes two main forms: (a) The provision of interim relief measures and/or the initiation of initial upgrading measures to address key needs such as fire protection, basic sanitation, access to potable water, solid waste removal, basic healthcare, and improved internal access ways and (b) the delivery of a full upgrade solution but utilizing different methods and housing typologies.
Challenges of Upgrading of Informal Settlements Informal settlements are heterogeneous entities and include urban dwellers with varied needs and interests. The primary challenges in upgrading informal settlements are achieving some kind of coherence in the community and finding solutions to a wide range of needs and interests. All of these interests must be properly assessed and brought into the planning process. The best way to do this is through negotiated development, in which people participate in negotiating their rights. Insufficient financial and human resources, burdensome regulatory rules, unclear administrative procedures, and unrealistic standards have all been reported as major challenges to successful upgrading (Amao 2012). Upgrading of informal settlements is part of the housing programs, which aim to address the housing challenges. Responses to the housing question often remain very technical and developmental in nature. The housing sector has not been given a priority it deserves within the context of national economic and social development. A lack of proper coordination between housing and other urban services and infrastructure government
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agencies are very often the challenges to successful upgrading. As most informal settlements are located in hazardous areas, thus need to be upgraded incrementally and on the same site. Incremental housing is a step-by-step process of upgrading informal settlements. Incrementalism allows informal housing to be adapted over time. There is a need to develop the incremental settlement process in such a manner that it will lead to access to integrated human settlements. The process has multiple stakeholders and requires active participation of urban citizen in the process. The informal settlement praxis is cross border in nature, and thus the process toward incremental upgrading, complexities, and dynamism is universal. The increasing rate of urbanization especially informal urbanization and settlements are great challenges, and upgrading informal settlements to well-serviced and integrated neighborhoods poses a daunting challenge. A lack of recognition by relevant government authorities of the urban informal settlements as part of urban fabric is a major impediment to improve the living conditions of these settlements. As a result, the informal settlements have not received adequate developmental attention. Some of the other challenges that slum upgrading programs face as Ndukui (2013) included include complexities of slum settlements with regard to tenure arrangements; lack of coordination of various stakeholders; resistance to the slum upgrading program especially by the slumlords; lack of participation by the slum dwellers in the upgrading program; residents not being aware of their roles as stakeholders in the upgrading program; lack of adequate land for slum upgrading; lack of goodwill and mistrust from the slum dwellers; inadequate budgetary allocations to the program from the government; and above all the politicization of the upgrading programs. Slum upgrading also faces the challenge of extensive environmental degradation in the slums. Limited land space, growing demand for affordable housing, complex land ownership, and lack of urban planning of informal settlements are the perpetual challenges for upgrading informal
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settlements. Another daunting issue in informal urbanization planning is lack of reliable data. Information on the demographic, social, and economic characteristics of people living in informal settlements is often limited as these information are not generally captured in formal national censuses. A comprehensive knowledge about informal settlements is needed to plan for improving housing, environment quality, and quality of life in cities. Globalizing processes have tremendous impacts on national urbanization and on the process of urban development. Much of urban development is market-driven. The debate between planning and market-driven urban process continues. The basic principle is that urbanization will continue to grow, and it is unstoppable. Forced eviction of slum or squatter dwellers to the periphery will not solve the problem. The understanding of the dynamics and complexities around informal settlements needs to be rationalized. Ooi and Phua (2007) emphasized that the city governments need to establish the critical link between economic development, urban growth and housing. The informal and formal city debate continues (McFarlane 2012; McFarlane and Waibel 2012; Hernandez et al. 2012). There is a greater need to have efforts to convert informal urbanization to formal urbanization. However, the main challenge is how to integrate informal settlements and informal urban development into a formal system.
Way Forward Urbanization is expected to grow unprecedentedly especially in the developing countries and it is projected to grow to 1.4 billion by 2020 (UNHabitat 2006). Informal settlements are likely to grow with growing urbanization. The informal urbanization is likely to be the dominant form of urbanization in most developing countries in the future. David Gouvernuer (2015) in his work Planning and Design for Future Informal Settlements: Shaping the Self-Constructed City focused on a realistic approach that recognizes the current
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urban realities in developing countries, and it provided useful tips for future planning and design of informal settlements rather than eliminating these settlements. Gouvernuer (2015) relies on a strategy for “guiding the growth of emerging informal settlements, anticipating that properly selfconstructed cities can become balanced, efficient, accessible, and desirable urban areas.” According to Gouvernuer (2015), “developed Informal Armateurs (IA) which is a design and managerial approach that fosters sustainable growth of the informal city. . .enhancing their positive aspects while addressing their deficiencies.” The Informal Armateurs (IA) is easy to implement design and managerial approach with the ability to provide residents with conditions that they can achieve themselves. Okyere (2016) suggests that merging of planning, design and management solutions is a way forward for the future of informal city. Informal settlement upgrading is adevelopmental process that needs to be part of the broader human settlement delivery framework. A comprehensive approach to upgrading slums needs to be seen as a way to foster equitable and inclusive development (Hermanson 2016). The “informal settlements can be both catalyst and vehicle for the achievcment of greater inclusiveness while fostering innovation, creating jobs and developing social capital” (ibid.).
Conclusion Informal urbanization is an issue of marginalization, poverty, inequality, and urban planning and governance. In developing countries, the question of inequality is both social and spatial in nature. Urban design by itself cannot reduce social inequality and urban poverty; there is a need to integrate design into upgrading of informal settlements. Community participation from informal settlements and urban society at large in the process of urban upgrading is vital. There is a greater need to adopt integrated approaches to planning and management of informal urbanization. Governments need to take more positive approach to urbanization and need to have the planning
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tools to deal with the rapid urbanization. There is an urgent need to integrate informal urbanization in general and informal settlements in particular into formal city planning and management. Multi-scale, multidisciplinary, and structured approaches are essential to tackle the challenges of informal settlements in cities. Enabling a multidisciplinary approach to urban development particularly in the areas of housing will promote an integrated approach to the planning, design, and development of housing solutions. Informal settlements hold much promise for achieving more inclusive cities. If incrementally developed, informal settlements could achieve more socially just cities. Informal settlements need to be seen as solutions to informal urbanization rather than problems. Interventions and cooperations from government, nongovernmental organization, civil society, private bodies, and communities are most needed (Mitlin and Satterthwaite 2004) to make informal settlement upgrading successful and building sustainable and livable cities.
Cross-References ▶ Inclusive City, Perspectives, Challenges, and Pathways ▶ Spatial Planning and Sustainable Cities and Communities ▶ Strategies for the Promotion of Affordable Rural Housing
References Abbott J (2002) An analysis of informal settlement upgrading and critique of existing methodological approaches. Habitat Int 26(3):303–315 Acioly C (2007) The challenge of slum formation in the developing world, land lines. Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Cambridge Amao FL (2012) Housing quality in informal settlements and urban upgrading in Ibadan, Nigeria. Dev Country Stud 2(10):68–80 Amis P (1984) Squatters or tenants: the commercialization of unauthorized housing in Nairobi. World Dev 12(1):87–96
Challenges of Informal Urbanization Beard DC (1920) Shelters, shacks and shanties. University of Virginia/Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York Bellegooijen JV, Rocco R (2013) The ideologies of informality: informal urbanisation in the architectural and planning discourses. Third World Q 34(10):1794–1810 Bunnel T, Harris A (2012) Reviewing informality: perspectives from Asia. Int Dev Plan Rev 34(4):339–347 Davis M (2004) Planet of slums. Verso, London De Soto H (1989) The other path: the invisible revolution in the Third World. I.B. Taurus, London Dovey K, King R (2011) Forms of informality: morphology and visibility of informal settlements. Built Environ 37(1):11–29 Eckstein S (1990) Urbanization revisited: inner-city slum of hope and squatter settlement of despair. World Dev 18(x):165–181 Ehebrecht D (2015) The challenge of informal settlement upgrading: breaking new ground in Hangberg, Cape Town? Universitatsverlag Potsdam, Potsdam Evans P (ed) (2002) Livable cities? Struggles for livelihood and sustainability. University of California Press, Berkeley Fainstein SS, Gordan I, Harloe M (1992) Divided cities: New York, London in the contemporary world. Blackwell, Oxford Fekade W (2000) Deficits of formal urban land management and informal responses under rapid urban growth, an international perspective. Habitat Int 24:127–150 Gouvernuer D (2015) Planning and design for future informal settlements: shaping the self-constructed city. Routledge, London Guibrunet L, Broto CV (2015) The sustainability of the informal city: an urban metabolism approach. http:// www.esee2015.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/0220. pdf. Accessed 16 June 2018 Hall P, Pfeiffer U (2000) Urban future 21: a global agenda for 21st century cities. E & FN Spon, London Hardoy JE, Satterthwaite D (1989) Squatter citizen: life in the urban third world. Earthscan Publications, London Harpham T, Lusty T, Vaughan P (eds) (1988) In the shadow of the city: community health and urban poor. Oxford University Press, Oxford Hermanson JA (2016) Achieving inclusiveness: the challenge and potential of informal settlements. Habitat III. http://citiscope.org/habitatIII/commentary/2016/01/ach ieving-inclusiveness-challenge-and-potential-informalsettlements. Accessed 29 May 2018 Hernandez F, Kellett P, Allen L (eds) (2012) Rethinking the informal city: critical perspectives from Latin America. Berghahn Books, New York Huchzermeyer M, Karam A (eds) (2007) Informal settlements: a perpetual challenge? CPT Press, Cape Town Lipton M (1977) Why poor people stay poor: a study of urban bias in world development. Maurice Temple Smith, London Lombard M (2014) Constructing ordinary places: place making in urban informal settlements in Mexico. Prog Plan 94:1–53
55 Marcuse P, van Kempen R (eds) (2000) Globalizing cities: a new spatial order? Blackwell, Oxford Mathéy K (ed) (1992) Beyond self-help housing. Mansell, London McFarlane C (2012) Rethinking informality: politics, crisis, and the city. Plann Theory Pract 13(1):89–108 McFarlane C, Waibel M (eds) (2012) Urban informalities – reflections on the formal and informal. Ashgate, Farnham Mitlin D, Satterthwaite D (2004) Empowering squatter citizen: local government, civil society and urban poverty reduction. Earthscan, London Mohanty M (2005) Poverty, environmental hazards and vulnerability of urban poor in small island states: a case of squatter communities in Suva city, Fiji Islands. In: Feng FH, Yu L, Solecki W (eds) Urban dimensions of environmental change: science, exposures, policies and technologies. Science Press, Monmouth Junction, pp 231–236 Mohanty M (2006) Urban squatters, the informal sector and livelihood strategies of the poor in Fiji Islands. Dev Bull 70:65–68 Mollenkopf J, Castells M (eds) (1991) Dual city: restructuring New York. Russell Sage Foundation, New York Ndukui CE (2013) Challenges of slum upgrading for urban informal settlements: case of soweto east village in kibera informal settlements, city of Nairobi. University of Nairobi, Nairobi Neuwirth R (2006) Shadow cities: a billion squatters in a new urban world. Routledge, Abingdon Okyere DSA (2016) The future of the informal city: merging planning, design and management solutions. Division of Global Architecture, Osaka University, Japan. http://www.urbanisticatre.uniroma3.it/dipsu/? portfolio=a-future-for-the-informal-city Ooi G, Phua K (2007) Urbanization and slum formation. J Urban Health 84:27–34 Pamuk A, Cavallieri PFA (1998) Alleviating urban poverty in a global city: new trends in upgrading Rio-deJaneiro’s favelas. Habitat Int 22(4):449–462 Perlman J (1976) The myth of marginality. University of California Press, Berkeley Porter L (2011) Informality, the commons and the paradoxes for planning: concepts and debates for informality and planning. Plann Theory Pract 12(1):115–153 Richmondvale Academy (2016) Effects of Urbanization on Poverty. https://richmondvale.org/en/blog/effects-ofurbanization-on-poverty. Accessed 7 June 2018 Rocco R, Bellegooijen JV (2018) The Routledge Handbook on Informal Urbanization. Routledge, New York Roy A (2005) Urban informality: towards an epistemology of planning. J Am Plan Assoc 71(2):147–158 Roy A, AlSayyad N (eds) (2004) Urban informality: transnational perspectives from the Middle East, South Asia and Latin America. Lexington Books, Lanham Skinner RJ, Rodell MJ (eds) (1983) People, poverty and shelter: problems of self-help housing in the third world. Methuen, London
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Smith N (2002) New globalism, new urbanism: gentrification as global urban strategy. Antipode 34(3):427–450 United Nations (2013) Sustainable development goals. http://www.unfoundation.org/features/globalgoals/thegl obal-goals.html. Accessed 15 June 2018 UN-Habitat (2003) The challenge of slums. Global report on human settlements. UNCHS, London UN-Habitat (2006) The state of the world’s cities report 2006/2007: The Millennium development goals and urban sustainability, United Nations Human Settlements Program, Nairobi UN-Habitat III (2016) Issue paper on informal settlements, United Nations conference on housing and sustainable urban development, Paper 22, New York, 31 May 2015. https://unhabitat.org/habitat-iii-issue-papers-22informal-settlements/. Accessed 5 June 2018 van Kempen R (2007) Divided cities in the 21st century: challenging the importance of globalization. J Housing Built Environ 22:13–31 Werlin H (1999) The slum upgrading myth. Urban Stud 36:1523–1534 World Bank (2015) World inclusive cities approach paper. Report no AUS8539. http://www-wds.wordbank.org. Accessed 25 May 2018
Changing Spatialities of Employment: Geographies of Industry and Services Simonetta Armondi and Giulia Fini Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy
Definitions The employment is the right to work, from the peculiar perspective of the spatial conditions and opportunities. Against the backdrop of the intense development of ICTs and their effects on labor, spaces, and socioeconomic dynamics, the terms “production” and “employment” need to be referred to economic activities, in which the separation between manufacturing, services, and retail sectors is increasingly blurred. The spatial dimension of the employment (the workplaces) is a crucial effect provided by both the spatial transformation of industrial spaces and services spaces, to the ongoing multifaceted urban and regional change transformation.
Introduction Since the late 1970s, a combination of technological change and economic and policy choices has generated what are recognized as the “great inversion” (Martin et al. 2018) and the “new geography of jobs” (Moretti 2012). A key characteristic of this shift is that it was based, in large part, on a unique form and particularly turbulent phase of globalization. The inversion concerns the fact that many peripheral regions, middle and small metropolitan areas that were once fairly prosperous, have been concerned by a combination of out-migration, unemployment, declining laborforce participation, or declining per capita income relative to the national average. In some others, employment may be growing but on average is not of high quality, including relatively lessskilled jobs (Martin et al. 2018). The EU28 unemployment rate was 6.3% in May 2019 (Eurostat data, 1 July 2019), down from 6.4% in April 2019 and from 6.9% in May 2018. Among the Member States, the lowest unemployment rates in May 2019 were recorded in Czechia (2.2%), Germany (3.1%), and the Netherlands (3.3%). The highest unemployment rates were observed in Greece (18.1%), Spain (13.6%), and Italy (9.9%). In the contributions urban and regional change assumes critical meaning in relation to industrial and services spatialities, their related workplaces, and social practices, with reference to the broad theoretical framework on knowledge, creative and sharing economy, urban technologies, and smart urbanism (Florida 2005). The entry assumes a definition of the “urban” that refers to new socioeconomic dynamics rather than to the city as a settlement bounded unit, against the backdrop of timely academic debate on the planetary urbanization (Brenner and Schmid 2015). The contribution aims at present established knowledge about the word “employment,” its main workplaces, and current modifications. It connects this keyword to Goal 11 (“Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable”) referring to the following main questions:
Changing Spatialities of Employment: Geographies of Industry and Services
• Within the urban context, where are the old and new industrial services and office workplaces located and why? Which are their main characteristics? • What is their socioeconomic impact on the spatial context? • Do these workplaces have any impact on urban and territorial transformation? Can they be regarded as opportunity to foster sustainable urban regeneration processes, also starting from the recycling of empty spaces and former industrial and commercial areas? Can they contribute to create better relations both on a spatial, social, and functional levels with their contexts?
The Spaces of Industrial Production The industrial sector has changed in the last 50 years, with the crisis of Fordism that marked a change within the core industrialized countries that involved declines in manufacturing employment. Furthermore, the 2007–2008 global financial crisis reconfigured the relationship between state and capital, production, and territories, seemingly questioning some of the assumptions made about the nature and processes of globalization, especially its territoriality. This section examines three issues that are particularly critical to investigate the nexus between employment and the Sustainable Development Goal 11: first, shrinking territories, spatial process of deindustrialization, and characteristics of postindustrial societies related to changing patterns of employment in manufacturing and services; second, changing geographies of manufacturing industry beyond Europe and the United States; and third, the geography of knowledge-based economy based on networked systems driven by high-tech innovations. First Issues: Shrinkage in Industrial Areas The long-term decline in industrial employment is one of the most critical questions for shrinking cities (Martinez-Fernandez et al. 2016). “Shrinking city” is a concept coined by Oswalt
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(2006). Only a few years ago, shrinkage was a taboo subject in Europe and systematically disregarded as a dominant development trend in specific areas. A shrinking city is characterized by economic decline and – as a consequence – the transformation of urban areas. Economic decline, deindustrialization, and high unemployment rates are unquestionably causes for urban population losses in many territories. Shrinking cities contradict the image, familiar since the Industrial Revolution, of the “boomtown,” a dense, big city characterized by constant economic and demographic growth. Shrinking cities provoke a reconsideration not only of traditional ideas of the European and North American city but also of the future development of urban worlds. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the shrinking cities phenomenon is widespread particularly across Europe and in the Rust Belt cities in the United States. In fact, negative growth urban trend is mainly associated with cities in North America and Europe (UN-HABITAT 2008). Wiechmann and Bontje (2015) recognized shrinking areas mainly in four types of regions in Europe: • Western European industrial agglomerations in economic decline (Ruhr, Merseyside, etc.) • Peripheral, very sparsely populated areas (primarily Northern Sweden, Eastern Finland, and Scotland) • Transformation regions with serious industrial reversion (large parts of Russia and the Central and Eastern European states) • Rural emigration areas with a rapid decrease of births (e.g., parts of Spain, Italy, and Greece) In Europe there is an important example in former socialist East Germany cities (e.g., Dresden), where the breakdown of the statedirected economy caused economic decline, industrial regression, and high unemployment rates in 1990. Due to out-migration and decreasing birth rates, the cities lost residents. As a consequence, too many housing, warehouses, and office vacancies as well as infrastructure
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oversupplies plagued the cities. The drastic changes in cities caused by shrinkage thus present not only an economic and social but also a planning challenge. US cities began to shrink in large numbers as early as the 1950s. In the United States, either shrinkage can either be part of industrial transformations related to the huge decline of the manufacturing sector (e.g., Ford industry in Detroit) or it can be triggered by economic changes in the so-called postindustrial transformations of a second generation within the hightech industry (e.g., the dot-com bust). Rather than prompt national policy change, however, the discourse became the starting point for local, sometimes bottom-up, action of greening strategies (Mallach 2017). New typologies of shrinking territories arise after 2008 world economic crisis. In the context of Latin-Mediterranean countries, Italy presents a quite diverse context, with a different typology of shrinkage: the decline of the typical Italian small and medium enterprises’ industrial districts of the regions, after the “resurgent regional economies” of Third Italy. Features characterizing Italian districts – such as of resilient cultures and social capital, organized politically on the basis of long-standing local communities – are articulate in several in-depth studies (Piore and Sabel 1984). These areas are now under pressure in the wake of the global economic crisis; nonetheless their problems stem from the results of their own decisions such as delocalization, low investment in education and skills, human capital, and innovation technology. Consequently, typology of Italian fragmented shrinkage is more imperceptible, because it’s a sort of urban and territorial perforation, concerning with productive settlement zones outside city centers. The concept of growth has dominated thinking in modern societies; shrinkage and regression have been viewed as accident and exception. In future, however, a culture and a planning of shrinkage are set to develop. Academic debate on the contemporary city in North America stresses the shift in terminology away from “urban decay” and “urban decline” toward “shrinking cities” and to
“shrinking smart” (Pallagst et al. 2009). How can these challenges become project tools for sustainable urban planning? Urban planning and architecture in shrinking cities face new tasks through a reversal approach: whereas until now construction has been seen as the goal of regional/urban planning initiatives, here it is the starting point. This shrinking age could maybe not only a threat but the first opportunity to reconsider also the perspective of planning field. Firstly, abandoned and underused productive settlements could be the focus for a research oriented to find new tools of a different planning and policy perspective. Secondly, sustainable development requires flexible and resilient building types that could be adapted by future uses and users and that can adjust to changing circumstances. The advantage of such hybrid buildings is already felt by many of those who use a house as an office, or reuse a former factory as an apartment, or a former bus garage as workshop. New flexible buildings can be conceived in various sizes, types, and forms to be used for various purposes. In particular, such buildings can be conceived within a transitional strategy, which opens to the longterm opportunity of introducing housing to an industrial area where it is currently unsuitable. Second Issues: Spaces for Manufacturing Industry Outside Global North Heavy manufacturing industries tend to be highly geographically concentrated in cities and industrial clusters; thus as the world becomes increasingly urbanized and industrialized, a challenge for the cities, related to Goal 11, is represented by the large-scale, comprehensive planning of industrial manufacturing plants and clusters. This is the case in both developed and developing economies beyond the Global North: from China to Africa or Latin America. Some of the manufacturing growth in the semiperipheral and peripheral countries is ascribed to government policies promoting the formation of export processing zones (EPZs). These are free-trade zones, industrial areas that function according to different policies than the rest of the country in which it is located in order to attract and support export-oriented production.
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With the link between exports and economic growth well established, many government policies have sought to encourage exports as a method of increasing productivity and growth. Special economic zones (SEZs) are export processing zones launched in China as part of a national policy to create a more open, market-oriented economy. A SEZ is a defined geographic area in which special incentives and/or policies apply that are not available elsewhere in the country (Farole 2011). While many factors could be identified to explain China’s success, it is no doubt that the numerous special economic zones (SEZs) (Farole and Akinci 2011) and industrial clusters that emerged after the country’s reforms are two important engines that have been driving China’s rapid economic growth. Establishing the special economic zones in China’s economic transition has been the first and crucial step that China took to reform and open its economy since 1979 (Zeng 2012). In the late 1970s, China’s first special economic zone (SEZ) was established in Shenzhen City to attract overseas investment and initiate domestic reform. Because of its location adjacent to Hong Kong, the city massively grown (from ca. 30,000 in 1979 to more than 10 million in 2009) becoming the China’s largest city of millions of migrant laborers with or without permanent residence. Despite its SEZ head-start advantages, tax breaks were no longer sufficient to persuade businesses to maintain operations in Shenzhen. By 2002, the city’s government launched a new planning action that strengthened Shenzhen’s pioneering role in economic reform. By reorienting the local economy on export-led light industries and then moving toward high-tech industries, the new plans were rather positive, but they also created imbalances and left weaknesses in Shenzhen’s industrial foundation (Xiangming and de’Medici 2010). To amend this, the national government in 2008 approved Shenzhen to be the first experimental city aimed at becoming an urban innovation center to design products instead of simply manufacturing them. Shenzhen experienced a lack of general planning and a failure in anticipating the urbanization problems and opportunities toward a more equitable and sustainable city (ibidem).
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Globalization is linked with the development of labor-intensive, export-oriented assembly industrial spaces known in Latin America as Maquiladora Industry Program. A maquiladora is a manufacturing plant, frequently foreignowned, that obtains duty-free imported materials, assembles or processes them, and then exports them. These plants can be thought of as an EPZ that consists of a single factory. Generally, maquiladoras have been associated with Mexico. Notwithstanding maquiladoras were part of a government-based policy to deal with unemployment along the border with the United States and to scatter some of the industry away from the region around Mexico City, they are not without spatial and geographical controversy, particularly for the low wage and wage inequality (Feenstra and Gordon 1997). Also, maquiladoras can be important causes of water and air pollution because of less strict environmental regulations in Mexico and Central America (Perry et al. 1990). Finally, Newman et al. (2016) emphasize several emerging opportunities for Africa to industrialize through SEZs. Economic changes that are taking place in Asia establish a window of opportunity for late industrializers elsewhere to enter into global markets. Rising costs, particularly in China, growing domestic demand in Asia, and China’s focus on investment and trade with Africa open up important chances for industrializing African nations considering the role of SEZs as a policy tool of industrial development (Newman and Page 2017). To conclude, EPZs have been promoted as a strategy for helping countries industrialize and promote employment growth. They can facilitate and attract foreign investment and trade, can support the production of new, nontraditional exports, and can create jobs. EPZs, however, have also been criticized. From a geographic perspective, they can increase welfare discriminations and intensify uneven development and pollution by concentrating resources and infrastructure in them, to the neglect of other regions. Third Issues: The Geography of the Knowledge-Based Economy In the twenty-first century, the generation, transformation, and consumption of knowledge,
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mostly in the form of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and arts, are seen as an answer for the adaptation to economic changes, management of societal challenges, and global urban competition. Planning spaces that concentrate on knowledge production, exchange, and marketing have become a priority for many cities. The concept of knowledge-based economy is seen as a powerful tool to bring growth and sustainability to cities (Carrillo et al. 2015). Knowledge precincts (Yigitcanlar and Inkinen 2019) and knowledge and innovation spaces became the spatial manifestation of knowledge-based planning that refers to clustering of research and development (R&D) activities and high-tech manufacturing of knowledge-intensive industrial and business sectors linked by mixed-use zones (housing, business, education, and leisure). In different countries digital districts, hightech clusters and hubs, knowledge or innovation districts, and so on designate a clustering of hightech enterprises mainly within central urban areas. The guiding principle is the variety of uses, merging tertiary with residential, retail, and public facilities. Consequently, they are not technology parks but are planned as a place to live, to work, and to learn (Fernández-Ges 2018). Examples of successful knowledge urban districts include Arabianranta (Helsinki), 22@Barcelona (Barcelona), One-North (Singapore), and Strijp-S (Eindhoven). For some scholars, from Barcelona to Silicon Valley “models,” these new generation urban knowledge hubs also contribute significantly to the knowledge-based transformation efforts of their cities (Gascó et al. 2015). For others (Charnock et al. 2014), a top-down high-tech economic development policy for a neighborhood with an important amount of public intervention and private investment brings with it a range of challenges related to uneven development.
Service Sector: Office and Directional Districts The Service Sector: Features, Activities, and Development After the previous section’s probe into production spaces, this section focuses on service sector
workspaces. Similarly, it looks at the main settlements and their modifications and mentions the aspects through which tertiary-office districts can or are contributing to the development of a more innovative and sustainable urban environment and communities. The service workspaces are in fact specialized and highly differentiated areas of the contemporary city, crucial but at the same time problematic: they have long been conceived mainly for their economic role and as catalysts for supralocal functions, flows, and capitals. Within this section, traditional spaces for offices and administrative-directional activities are particularly considered, without going into the detail of high-technology specialized areas, infrastructures, or educational and commercial spaces, which constitute workplaces and settlements with further characterization and diverse “spatialities.” For several authors and considering some recent experiences, it is in fact possible to observe that offices and directional-administrative workspaces are currently subject of important modification and regeneration processes (Bergevoet and van Tuijl 2016; Nozeman and van der Vlist 2014; Ehret 2015), through which the work activities that take place therein, environmental and open space comfort, and energy efficiency of the buildings are redefined. These changes can collectively contribute to a genuine “transaction” toward office-directional districts with a growing functional and spatial articulation, a greater attention to environmental resources and human practices, and clearer relations at the urban scale. At the economic level, the “service sector” is the third sector of economy: it is composed of group of activities linked to the production, maintenance, or repairs of “services” (intangible goods instead of intangible goods). In addition, it comprises all those activities which, in a residual way, do not fall within the primary sector (agriculture, mining, forests, fishing) and the secondary one (manufacturing, construction industry, business activities that facilitate the production of tangible goods). This tripartition is owed to the pioneering work of Fisher (1935) and Clark (1940), while the disaggregation’s detail of the activities that are part of the tertiary sector can be found recently in the statistics’ construction methodologies elaborated by the United Nations, European
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Statistical Commission, and US Institute for Supply Management (ISM). According to the original definition proposed by Fuchs (1968), services are intangible products, instantaneous, and non-storable and made in the presence of the consumer, a definition that considers a series of attributes that partially have become obsolete for the development of communication technologies. Various distinctions have been made over the years in relation to the services sector’s development. A first distinction provides, in a very clear way, two large classes of activity: “services intended for sale” which are exchanged on the market with a corresponding price (trade, transport, communications, real estate and commercial services, personal and community services, etc.) and “not intended for sale” services that are financed by taxes and duties (“nonmarket services,” such as education, justice, public healthcare and social assistance, public administration activities). Subsequent classifications of tertiary sector were brought considering the services as a “product” (or in relation to a product) or as an “occupation”: in fact, with regard to this latter distinction, certain activities related to research, development, promotion, and marketing of specific goods are also carried out by a substantial part of industry and agriculture employees. Within the tertiary sector, traditional laborintensive activities – such as transport, trade, and services for people – are combined with “advanced services,” characterized by a high added value, high skills qualification, and use of innovative technologies (i.e., research, healthcare, telecommunications). A broad spectrum of activity consequently makes up the sector, with the presence of individuals and families services (education, health, training), financial services (banks, insurance agencies, and stock exchanges), telecommunications (with the transmission of data, news, and information in various forms), public administration, research and laboratories, and activities related to transport, tourism, and commerce. For the whole of the first part of the twentieth century and up to the 1970s, the service sector was, at the economic and employment levels, less relevant than the large manufacturing industry
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at the heart of urban development between 1950 and 1980 and economic driver of global growth. The “ancillary” role of service sector was highlighted by economic literature which initially interpreted it as a brake to development, employing workforce and resources that were expelled or on-expendable by the secondary sector. As from the second half of the 1970s, the economic mechanism changed with a slow but progressive inversion in favor of the service sector, reinforced by various factors strengthened in the following decades. Among these factors at the economy level are the opening of global markets, economic activities’ specialization, and growing processes of privatization. An increase and differentiation in the request for services both from businesses and from broad parts of the population effected the sector (consider the growing economic prosperity, the increase in mobility and tourism, the requests of specific groups such as the elderly and/or families). Finally, technological innovation bolstered the production and increased the efficiency and the volume of immaterial products, cutting down on the number of employees required for operations. Through a process of continuous and tumultuous growth since the 1980, the service sector is today the most important economic sector of many countries (the United States, Europe, Japan) due to the share of population employed with peaks of 60–75% of the economic system. In Europe 70% of the domestic income is produced by service activities, and a firm differentiation can be found between national contexts with a very strong scope toward advanced service sector as communications, technology, research and development (such as in Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the United Kingdom), and contexts with stronger development in traditional public services, commerce, and tourism, such as in Mediterranean countries and, with even lower shares, in the nations of Eastern Europe. Metropolitan Specialization and Relations with the Urban Centers Within these economic modification processes, urban centers and in particular large metropolitan
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areas remain crucial both in the first and second part of the twentieth century. If, on the one hand, the factors that made necessary the concentration of businesses and production have partially disappeared, on the other hand, urban contexts emerged as fundamental nodes of economic and financial networks, combination of services, intangible exchanges, and research and development activities, also in relation to specific economic sectors (consider, e.g., the concentration related to fashion, communication, and design sectors in Milan, banking and financial activities in London and Frankfurt, ICT and trade fair exhibition in Amsterdam, etc.). Compared to the early stages of development, the localization of service, directional, and research activities did not develop only in the central cores of urban regions or close to public transport nodes which facilitated access. Instead, their localization have followed linearly the urban regions’ expansion toward outlying areas, with progressively greater distances from the central core, as a result of growth in private and public transport to a regional scale, the expansion of airport areas, and, more generally, the progressive sprawl of residential and commercial activities on the territory. At the end of the 1990s, various authors had already highlighted the variety of specialized settlements in the contemporary territory, in relation to a growing fragmentation and differentiation, with a multiplicity of geographies for service workplaces: a diversity that can be traced in many contexts, such as Europe, the United States, Latin America, or Asia. Among these is Hall (2001: 73–74) who categorized six different types of locations, part of a polycentric network: “traditional downtown centres,” “new business districts,” “internal edge cities,” “external edge cities,” “remote edge cities,” and “specialized subcentres.” Kunzmann (2001) also identified a variety of locations with the most evocative neologisms and terms, such as “R&D intensive center,” “aeroville,” “funurbia,” “university town,” “technopolis,” and “shopping city,” part of the “city-regional archipelago model.” With reference to many more specific contexts, see also the contribution by Neutelings on the Dutch
“patchwork metropolis,” Indovina on the processes of metropolitan specialization and the settlement spread of the Italian regions, and Sievert with the German “zwischenstadt” (“in-between city”). Geographies and Types of Office-Service Workplaces Considering the variety of previous metropolitan localizations, it is possible to make some distinctions to create various taxonomies of contemporary workplaces. The main settlements of office-directional district can, in fact, be investigated by differently highlighting (a) the periods of construction, (b) the distances from the core of the agglomerations, (c) the status and economic range of metropolitan area to which they belong, and (d) finally the typologies of development and promoter (Fini 2019). In relation to this last issue, two main classifications can be traced: unitary projects with a limited number of developers, often public actors, and parceled and fragmented interventions with a plurality of developers, predominantly private, and characterized by an incremental development (ibidem). A perspective closely linked to the principles of urban planning and to its development during the twentieth century is, instead, proposed by Fernández-Ges (2018). The emergence of urban districts dedicated exclusively to business and financial activities is primarily related to the “zoning principles of modernist urbanism and the synergies created by concentrating tertiary uses in a specific area” (ivi: 197). In the United States, the concentration of economic activities linked to the service sector in central areas of the city developed in parallel with urban sprawl processes in the outermost areas of the suburbs back in the 1930s (Soja 1989), while the progressive concentration of commercial and financial activities led to their being called central business districts (CBD) (Murphy 1972). In Latin America and Asia, similar processes developed with a shift of 30 years, in relation to the opening of foreign capitals and market economy, combined with a stronger polarization in residential areas development (i.e., the emergence of informal settlements and exclusive residential and gated community enclaves).
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In Europe, the concentration of service sector activities in specific urban zones developed as from the 1950s and for all of the next three decades, through the creation of unitary directional districts often realized by public or by private-public partnership. These interventions were motivated by political and economic decisions in support of economic growth: therefore, they provided for the creation of new districts outside the historical cores, the strengthening of peripheral areas (or even medium cities), renovation of abandoned areas, or problematic historical fabrics. Significant in this regard – only to draw some examples – are the districts Paris La Défense, Lyon Part-Dieu, and Bordeaux Meriadeck in France (the latest in the framework of “Metropole d’équilibre” national economic policy), Bologna and Naples Directional Center in Italy, London Docklands redevelopment, AZCA area in Madrid, Zuidas in Amsterdam or through the transformation of the inner city districts, Bankenviertel in Frankfurt, and Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. In addition to central business districts, a further typology of service sector workspace is identifiable in business parks; large allotments developed both through an incremental process and, in less numerous cases, even promoted by a single developer and characterized by a unitary design conception. Also, in this case, private accessibility (vicinity to motorways and highways), proximity to public transport infrastructural nodes, and a metropolitan employment catchment area become crucial factors in localization. If the intervention has an international dimension and appeal, closeness to an airport and well-planned airport area becomes relevant factors. Parceled business parks are predominantly characterized by a lack of attention to internal connections and slow mobility network, limited common spaces or services, as well as by a weak buildings’ architectural characterization. On the other hand, unitary interventions may be marked by a more attentive overall design, including at the level of the landscape, the presence of public amenities and common architectural features; there is often a reference to the tradition of UK garden cities as in the cases of Letchworth and Stockley Parks in London.
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Two additional typologies of service sector workspaces are represented by science and technology parks and corporates cities (FernándezGes 2018). Science parks can be identified as a further specialization of business parks but with a stronger presence of high technology, science, and research and development activities (in certain cases, also in relation with university and public research). These interventions involve significant public investments, accompanied by tax incentives, with the primary objective of attracting private firms and creating synergies between the economic activities (Castells and Hall 1994). An extensive list of cases is reported by the International Association of Science Parks (IASP): among them Paris-Saclay in Paris, Sophia-Antipolis close to Nice and Marseille, Tsukuba Science City in Tokyo, as well as the cases of Amsterdam, Utrecht, Birmingham, Cambridge, and Turku. A last typology consists of corporate cities, company campuses, right up to the officedirectional buildings completely realized by private companies. Early examples include the office district of General Motors in Warren (Michigan) and the IBM offices in Stuttgart; most recent realizations are Telefonica-Santander City in Madrid, Novartis Campus in Zurich, Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein, or the new Apple Campus in Cupertino. These interventions explicitly reflect the primary aim of representing the image, the philosophy, and the marketing of the company. Often composing private closed “citadels” offering services and common spaces only for employees, more recently company campuses are opening up to the city, contemplating new integrations of functions, urban and landscape relations (see the cases of Vitra and Novartis campuses). Finally, a further typology is represented by singular office buildings, which can be important and with a distinctive design but still don’t have a significant role in relation to possible transformations and integrations at the urban scale. A Sustainable Transition: Changes in Progress and Relevant Issues As already mentioned, various ongoing processes of modification and regeneration are currently
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affecting tertiary-office workspaces, in connection with the changes in economic systems and forms of labor, the increasing demands for articulation and flexibility of spaces, and a greater attention paid to open and in-between buildings spaces (Jansen et al. 2017; Agence François Leclercq et al. 2016). Leaving aside a number of significant but specific cases, some recent researches approach this issue in a systematic manner, showing the breadth and scope of the change in progress for tertiary districts: among these, Nozeman and van der Vlist (2014) which focuses on ten European national contexts and on the real estate market conditions in particular; also the research The Flexible City (Bergevoet and van Tuijl 2016) shows that the need for a rethinking of office spaces for new uses and greater flexibility is a significant phenomenon in many European contexts (the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, France). These changes are relevant because they reflect the prospects for broader social changes. The environment in which work takes place is considered “a tangible reflection of its own time [. . .] a stage for the radical changes regarding form and meaning taking place in the contemporary world” (Forino 2011: 4). In particular, it is emphasized that the places where tertiary activity takes place are changing in relation to the evolution of economic values and environmental conditions, “reflecting the changes in society and organizing the spaces according to a conception that is closer to reality than the design of residential housing” (ibidem). With regard to the necessities driving the change, there are two conditions that can be identified. Some projects have not managed to maintain their relevance and attractiveness for hosting service, institutional, and scientific functions over time. This is the case with projects located in metropolitan areas, which, since the 1990s, have experienced rapid development processes in relation to specific economic sectors, such as banking, finance, ITC, web-based, and new economy sectors. The subsequent changes in the economic cycle, the international crisis of 2007, along with the requests for differentiated offices spaces, have created widespread problems in these contexts,
involving vacancy rates and the presence of a high proportion of empty offices that are no longer meeting market demands. In this regard, the case of the Netherlands is highly significant, with 1.3 million square meters of vacant office space, 2 million in the Amsterdam metropolitan area, and 7.5 million for the country as a whole. In Amsterdam, the proportion of vacant offices is equal to 17%, whereas in peripheral and monofunctional areas, such as Amstel III and Sloterdijk, that number can go up to 25–30% (Brouwer 2014; Janssen-Jansen and Salet 2009). In a second situation, the modification projects are determined not so much by specific issues of vacancy but rather by the need to modernize districts or singular buildings. This is the condition of tertiary-directional districts that no longer correspond to contemporary forms of work, comfort requirements, and energy performance and also stand in the way of the impulse to redefine urban relationships and the character of public space (Ehret 2015; Remøya and Street 2018; Fini 2019). For example, this applies to the projects built between the 1950s and the middle of the 1990s of the previous century, in some cases including those conforming to principles arising from the Modern Movement, such as functional and flows separation (i.e., Lyon Part-Dieu, Bordeaux Mériadeck, the Directional Center of Naples, the Fair District of Bologna, etc.). With regard to the wide range of issues that this condition raises, an important reference experience is the regeneration of La Défense in Paris. This project, in its own complexity, shows both the “hard” nature of a unitary office district and the possibility of changing spaces and functions through various interventions which were realized starting from the end of the 2000 to 2010 decade. Further recent exploratory researches aim toward the rethinking of major office complexes close, for instance, Zaventem airport (Aureli and Tattara 2015) or European Quarter of Brussels (Ranzato 2017), focused, respectively, on a new development of spaces and practices through a mix with residential functions and on innovative ecological and water management dimension. The contemporary outlined debate shows the manner in which it is possible to imagine an
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evolution of office-directional workspaces and the fact that rethinking them constitutes a challenge for the contemporary city. The changes effecting tertiary districts and the economic dynamics underpinning them have a reach that is not limited to any particular building project but shows spatial effects at a larger urban scale. The latest studies and projects show how the tertiary-directional district can be designed not as self-enclosed “citadels of work,” i.e., as univocally monofunctional spaces, but as part of an evolving urban process, a process which is able to more powerfully absorb the modification and practices, reflect the changes arising from social and economic evolution, and rise up to meet the new challenges regarding remodeling and the energy transition (in this regard, see also the conclusions).
The Workspaces of Sharing Economy In the twenty-first century, against the backdrop of the global economic downturn, cities are changing through a shift led by three intertwined forces (Armondi and Di Vita 2018) that challenge the aims of the Sustainable Development Goal 11: • Changing workspaces and practices that include increased sharing, decentralized networks, and the creation of marketplaces where the design, production, sale, and consumption of products occur • Digital technologies that have altered traditional manufacturing as well as the services • The transition toward a knowledge- and service-based economy within contemporary world economy. These are some of the causes that have fostered the diffusion of new workspaces, new jobs, and the growing unemployment and self-employment. Working is apparently becoming less dependent on distance, location, and time. Consequently, people can work outside regular working hours, often outside traditional offices, where new technologies are used extensively. In this framework, cities are emerging as key locations for new (small scale) workplaces related
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to social and economic urban experimentation of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. A makerspaces or fab lab (Doussard et al. 2018) is a small-scale workshop (often located in vacant industrial or commercial building), a community center that provides technology, digital manufacturing equipment, and educational opportunities to the public, often complemented with coworking spaces and other forms of workspace (craft and creative ateliers, manufacturing, or innovation hubs). Fab labs, makerspaces, and coworking partially coincide with the hybrid phenomena of third places (Oldenburg 1989). They are a widespread phenomenon in European cities such as Milan (Armondi and Bruzzese 2017; Mariotti et al. 2017) and Berlin (Pacchi 2018). Consequently, the spatial reconfiguration of work in contemporary cities and the impact on employment (and the generation of new form of flexible employment) represent a key research issue in urban studies although moderately investigated in the academic debate. Furthermore, the proliferation of freelance workers, in coworking and makerspaces, as hidden and vulnerable workforce raises critical issues for urban planning (Merkel 2018).
The Spaces for Employment and Sustainable Development Goal 11 Which are the implications for cities implementing the Goal 11 having an approach focused on the spatialities of employment? As a response to a multiplicity of social, environmental pressures, on one hand an increasing number of European firms are supporting their corporate social responsibility strategies. Corporate social responsibility, first promoted in 2001 by the European Union (Commission of the European Communities 2001), has introduced a new orientation in this direction by boosting businesses to voluntarily include social and environmental concerns in their commercial activities and in relations with their internal (managers, employees, and shareholders) and external (public authorities, suppliers, subcontractors, inhabitants/consumers) stakeholders.
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Focusing on the space of industrial production, on one hand, greening the cities, through urban policy, planning, and regulatory instruments, can generate jobs and new employment on a number of fronts: (1) urban and peri-urban green agriculture, (2) public transport, (3) renewable energy, (4) waste management and recycling, (5) green construction, and (6) adaptive reuse of vacant buildings. Green services will generally be more urban-orientated than green manufacturing or primary industry, although there will be some high-tech green manufacturing clusters in or close to urban cores, drawing on knowledge spillovers, universities incubators, and research labs (UNEP 2011). Moreover, reusing existing urban land, vacant industrial buildings, or brownfields while restricting urban sprawl and peripheralization is central to the creation of sustainable urban environments, especially when retrofitting mature cities with previously developed industrial land. Considering closely the second type of workspaces taken into consideration – those regarding tertiary sector and production of services – it is interesting to note that the changes currently underway involve both informal processes (started by the workers themselves and the users of such areas), in addition to more structured projects and policies, developed by public actors or private owners. A common trend – toward greater integration and sustainability in tertiary-administrative districts – is the intention to “rework” such spaces through a transcalar approach in order to establish multiple spatial and functional relationships. A first level, which focuses on built-up spaces, concerns improving the energy performance of buildings, establishing and developing relations at the ground floors, redefining interior spaces (in response to a new working condition that intersects to a greater degree with other activities during the day), and, lastly, the possibility of exploiting interior spaces on the basis of a broader temporal spectrum and greater flexibility. A second level focuses on the role of these interventions on an urban scale and network of
open spaces. With respect to these topics, the broad range of modifications may include creating an urban spatial structure and clear connections with the surroundings, the possibility to redefine public space as a “support” or a “palimpsest,” for differentiated practices, improving the environmental comfort of the open space, and expanding the use of the districts during the daily hours (beyond the limits of normal working hours and functions). Lastly, a third level consolidates the role of the office districts within the ambit of the respective territory and as part of a broader system of relationships and flows, creating a new attractive multifunctional image and enhancing overall habitability, beyond their role as mere economic and employment facilities. To conclude, the research focusing on workplaces has a profound meaning also in relation to broader changes and challenges. Secchi (2011) underlined that it is during “moments of transition from one production system to another or, in other words, at the change of relations between capital and labour” that a new urban question comes to the fore. The changes currently taking place in the fields of production and labor, together with the global crisis of recent years, reflect these characteristics: it is in these moments that a spatial and technological reorganization of production becomes apparent, together with modified social relationships and new geopolitical orders. Interpreted from this perspective, the territory and its changes, therefore, are “structurally” involved in the development of main social, economic, and political phenomena, a reversal view, indicated recently by the expression “spatial turn,” which can be traced back to Jane Jacobs’ The Economy of Cities (1969). Thus, in this contribution, we highlighted the main geographies and changes that typified workspaces in the second half of the twentieth century. This perspective is considered as a “lens” through which to observe and interpret new challenges of environmental and social sustainability facing contemporary urban areas, also with reference to the need to rethink principles and structures that deeply typified the 1900s.
Changing Spatialities of Employment: Geographies of Industry and Services
Cross-References ▶ New Pervious Concrete Construction Material for Carbon Dioxide Sequestration ▶ Sharing Economy: Risks and Opportunities in a Framework of SDGs ▶ Spatial Planning and Sustainable Cities and Communities ▶ Spatial Resilience in Planning: Meanings, Challenges, and Perspectives for Urban Transition ▶ Sustainable Urban Planning and Making Sustainable Cities ▶ Urbanization and Urban Growth: Sustainable Cities for Safeguarding Our Future
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68 Janssen-Jansen L, Salet W (2009) The Amsterdam office space tragedy: an institutional reflection on balancing office space development in the Amsterdam metropolitan region. In: Duyvendak JW, Hendriks F, van Niekerk M (eds) City in sight: Dutch dealings with urban change. Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, pp 249–266 Kunzmann KR (2001) Welche Zukünfte für Suburbia? Acht Inseln im Archipel der Stadtregionen. In: Brake K, Dangschat J, Herfert G (eds) Suburbanisierung in Deutschland. Aktuelle Tendenzen. Opladen, Berlin, pp 213–221 Mallach A (2017) What we talk about when we talk about shrinking cities: the ambiguity of discourse and policy response in the United States. Cities 69:109–115 Mariotti I, Pacchi C, Di Vita S (2017) Coworking spaces in Milan: location patterns and urban effects. J Urban Technol 24(3):47–66. https://doi.org/10.1080/1063073 2.2017.1311567 Martin R, Tyler P, Storper M, Evenhuis E, Glasmeier A (2018) Globalization at a critical conjuncture? J Reg Econ Soc 11(1):3–16 Martinez-Fernandez C, Weyman T, Fol S, Audirac I, Cunningham-Sabot E, Wiechmann T, Yahagi H (2016) Shrinking cities in Australia, Japan, Europe and the USA: from a global process to local policy response. Prog Plan 105:1–48 Merkel J (2018) ‘Freelance isn’t free’. Co-working as a critical urban practice to cope with informality in creative labour markets. Urban Stud 56(3):526–547 Moretti E (2012) The new geography of jobs. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York Murphy RE (1972) The central business district. A study in urban geography. Atherton, Chicago/Aldine Newman C, Page JM (2017) Industrial clusters: The case for Special Economic Zones in Africa. WIDER Working Paper 15, Helsinki Newman C, Page J, Rand A, Shimeles M, Söderbom M, Tarp F (eds) (2016) Manufacturing transformation: comparative studies of industrial development in Africa and emerging Asia. Oxford University Press, London Nozeman E, van der Vlist A (2014) European metropolitan commercial real estate markets. Springer, Berlin Oldenburg R (1989) The great good place. Paragon House, New York Oswalt P (ed) (2006) Shrinking cities, vol. 1. International research. Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern-Ruit Pacchi C (2018) New workspaces in Milan and Berlin. Coworking spaces between defensive strategies and transformative potential. In: Fisker JK, Chiappini L, Pugalis L, Bruzzese A (eds) The production of alternative urban spaces. Routledge, London, pp 58–72 Pallagst K et al (2009) The future of shrinking cities: problems, patterns and strategies of urban transformation in a global context. IURD, University of California, Berkeley Perry DM, Sanchez R, Glaze WH, Mazari M (1990) Binational management of hazardous waste: the maquiladora industry at the US-Mexico border. Environ Manag 14(4):441–450
Circular Economy and Urban Mining: Resource Piore M, Sabel C (1984) The second industrial divide. Possibilities for prosperities. Basic Books, New York Ranzato M (2017) Water vs. urban scape. Exploring integrated water-urban arrangements. Jovis, Berlin Remøya H, Street E (2018) The dynamics of ‘post-crisis’ spatial planning: a comparative study of office conversion policies in England and The Netherlands. Land Use Policy 77:811–820. https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.landusepol.2016.12.005 Secchi B (2011) A new urban question. Territorio 53:8–18 Soja E (1989) Postmodern geographies: the reassertion of space in critical social theory. Verso, London/New York UN-HABITAT (2008) State of the world’s cities: 2008/ 2009: harmonious cities. Earthscan, London/Sterling United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) (2011) Green economy: cities investing in energy and resource efficiency. Report. http://wedocs.unep.org/handle/ 20.500.11822/7979 Wiechmann T, Bontje M (2015) Responding to tough times: policy and planning strategies in shrinking cities. Eur Plan Stud 23(1):1–11 Xiangming C, de’Medici T (2010) Research note -The “instant city” coming of age: production of spaces in China’s Shenzhen special economic zone. Urban Geogr 31(8):1141–1147. https://doi.org/10.2747/0272-3638. 31.8.1141 Yigitcanlar T, Inkinen T (2019) Geographies of disruption. Place making for innovation in the age of knowledge economy. Springer, Cham Zeng DZ (2012) China’s special economic zones and industrial clusters: success and challenges. Lincoln Institute of Land Policy working paper. Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Cambridge, MA
Circular Economy and Urban Mining: Resource Efficiency in the Construction Sector for Sustainable Cities Ana Paula Bender1 and Patricia Bilotta2 1 Positivo University, Curitiba, Brazil 2 Graduate Program in Environmental Management, Positivo University, Curitiba, Brazil
Definition Urban mining is the activity of recovering materials and energy from anthropogenic stocks, and the buildings are one of the most important stocks in the city context, since the construction sector is
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responsible for high rates of natural resource extraction and consumption. It can be defined as a circular economy strategy in a macro level, as it is capable of returning construction and demolition wastes as raw materials in the industrial process.
Introduction Cities are dynamic anthropogenic systems with a particular metabolism. Inputs of materials, energy, and information are processed and transformed into large quantities of consumer goods, essential to constant supplying population needs in growing urban settlements (UN-HABITAT 2016; Baccini and Brunner 2018). Since the twentieth century, consumption has become the fundamental basis of the capitalist society and synonymous of development and success. Commodities and goods are intentionally designed to last each time fewer, driven by “fashion, emotion and progress” logic (Stahel 2012). Products are consumed and turn to waste after fulfilling their function, and most of the outputs generated by industrial processes are not reinserted in the productive chain (Kapur and Graedel 2006). Assuming natural resources are finite, the linear logic dominant in present economic activities is unsustainable and cannot last indefinitely as it contributes to natural resources’ scarcity, climate changes, and income inequality and unemployment (UN-HABITAT 2016). Instead, a new paradigm has to be installed, so natural resources could be managed to sustain the next generations’ demands. In this context, circular economy represents an economic model that replaces the end-of-life concept with a regenerative and restorative approach (Macarthur 2001) wherein materials must flow in a closed loop by recycling, reducing, reusing, and recovering (Kirchherr et al. 2018). That “cradle-to-cradle” thinking can preserve the natural resources from scarcity and reduce the amount of waste disposal in landfills and the emissions from treatment (Cossu and Williams 2015). Besides, energy consumption should be minimized, and renewable and no waste can be generated (UNEP 2012). Materials can be separated in two types:
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biological nutrients, which could be biodegraded via composting and anaerobic digestion, and the technical nutrients, which cannot be absorbed by the biosphere and must be reincorporated in the production chain (Cossu and Williams 2015; Preston 2012; Macarthur 2001). A great amount of materials is accumulating in urban and landfill stocks (Haas et al. 2015). These stocks are mines for the future (Ortlepp and Deilmann 2015) as they could be restored in production chain, replacing natural resources. Materials and energy embodied in stocks are secondary raw material sources that should be extracted, recycled, or reused as products lifespan ends (Brunner 2011). The urban stock compound by buildings and urban infrastructure is the major contributor to materials extraction (Krausmann et al. 2009), but do not represent only a consumer of resources, also an important metal and mineral source of secondary raw materials (Kleemann et al. 2017). Even though circular economy and urban mining applications are becoming popular among politicians, businessmen, and society in general, only 6% of total materials return to production chain (Haas et al. 2015), which shows that there are still challenges to overcome.
Circular Economy and Urban Mining Since the Second World War, humanity has experienced a fast economic development and population explosion. Consumption patterns rose sharply, requiring great amounts of extracted natural resources to create products capable to attend all types of consumer needs, such as food and fuel for transportation (EEA 2016). In the last century, the use of materials increased eightfold, and 60 Gt of raw materials are consumed each year. Europe and North America were initially the major contributors, and this trend continues due to the higher consumption rates in developed countries. Evidence shows that the growth of the use of materials is not slowing down or decreasing (Krausmann et al. 2009). Although the consumption has improved human well-being, the consequences of anthropogenic activities in ecosystems show to be irreversible and fast-growing, even
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with increased environmental awareness (EEA 2016). Pressure exceeds the boundaries of countries, so materials have to be imported from one place to another (UNEP 2015). Exploitation of natural resources has a wide range of negative effects. Resources are being consumed 50% faster than they can be regenerated. About 60% of the ecosystem services are being degraded or explored in unsustainable ways (UNEP 2012), resulting in 30% of biodiversity loss. Resource scarcity describes a situation where the supply of renewable resources (water, forests, and croplands) is not sufficient to meet the demand (UNEP 2015). As resource supplies became scarce and exploration expensive, the prices of raw materials increased, leading to instabilities that are spreading throughout production chain (Macarthur 2001). In this context, resource efficiency and optimization has become a key strategy for a sustainable economic development of the countries (EEA 2016). Circular economy represents a paradigm shift, due to its ability to solve the fundamental question about how the industrial process can achieve resource efficiency while maintaining productivity and benefits for all stakeholders involved (Stahel 2012; Preston 2012). Therefore, a formal definition of circular economy is still in discussion among scientific researchers. Table 1 presents some definitions of broad state of the art. In order to promote sustainable development by preserving resources security for the future generations, CE must support the environmental, economical, and social demands (Korhonen et al. 2018). The main idea of “circular” suggests the opposite of linear economy (Cooper 1999; Preston 2012; Korhonen et al. 2018) – that raw materials are extracted from nature, transformed by industrial processes in consumer goods, and then discarded when they fulfill the costumer’s needs. In linear economy (LE), products are intentionally designed to have shorter lifetimes, so that energy, labor, and value embedded get lost in landfills (Macarthur 2001). On the other hand, CE represents an alternative to the “take-make-consumedispose” business models, in which natural resources are treated as “infinity, easily exploited and cheap to dispose” (Stephan and Athanassiadis
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2017). LE contributes to the scarcity of natural resources, accelerating climate change and producing social losses, such as income inequalities and unemployment (UN-HABITAT 2016). Instead, “restorative approach,” “closing loops,” the “4Rs,” and “no end-of-life” – terms used in CE definitions – bring ideas of return, similar to natural biochemical cycles, where nothing (or almost nothing) is left behind as a waste or emitted in pollution forms (Murray et al. 2017). Using reuse and recycle strategies, CE aims to reinsert materials in the supply chain, as waste configures in raw materials for other industrial processes. By industrial symbioses, energy and material consumed in production and use can be minimized (EEA 2016). In this context, there is no longer “end-of-life” concept, as material’s final disposal should never occur. Thus, resources keep flowing in closed loops through the production chain (Macarthur 2001). The closed loops apply the “reverse chain” or “waste-as-food” concept, when outputs of industrial processes re-enter into another production chain as raw materials in another production chains (Ellen Macarthur 2012; Murray et al. 2017). CE in reverse-cycle activities can represent a material cost saving opportunity as turns waste in wealth (Cossu and Williams 2015; Macarthur 2001). Estimates show that material cost savings can represent USD 340–380 billion at European Union level for a “transition scenario,” and USD 520–630 billion per annum (Macarthur 2001). In fact, higher resource-effectiveness is the central purpose in CE, as resources are used many times and not just once in contrast to LE approach (Korhonen et al. 2018). Restoring materials in closed cycles brings a wide range of environmental benefits. The amount of primary raw materials used as inputs in industrial processes is minimized, preserving natural resources (Cossu and Williams 2015). As a consequence, lower quantities of water are spent, and the costs for material and energy procurement can be reduced (Stahel 2012). Reducing waste contributes for less space for final disposal, enhancing the lifetime of existing landfills. Besides, waste treatment and emissions resulting from these processes are also minimized (Stahel 2012; Cossu and Williams
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Circular Economy and Urban Mining: Resource Efficiency in the Construction Sector for Sustainable Cities, Table 1 Circular economy (CE) concepts Reference Cooper (1999)
Macarthur (2012)
Preston (2012)
Stahel (2012)
WRAP (2012)
Kirchherr et al. (2018)
Murray et al. (2017) Korhonen et al. (2018)
Concept The model of linear economy – assumed that there is an unlimited supply of natural resources and that the environment has an unlimited capacity to absorb waste and pollution – is dismissed. Instead, CE is proposed, in which the throughput of energy and raw materials is reduced. “A circular economy is an industrial system that is restorative or regenerative by intention and design. It replaces the ‘end-of-life’ concept with restoration, towards the use of renewable energy, eliminates the use of toxic chemicals, which impair reuse, and aims for elimination wastes through designing of materials, products, systems, and business models.” Central to the CE is the idea that open production systems – in which resources are extracted, used to make products and become waste after the product is consumed – should be replaced by systems that reuse resources and conserve energy. A “circular economy” would turn goods that are at the end of their service life into resources for others, closing loops in industrial ecosystems and minimizing waste. A circular economy is an alternative to a traditional linear economy (make, use, dispose) in which we keep resources in use for as long as possible, extract the maximum value from them whilst in use, then recover and regenerate products and materials at the end of service life. “Economic system that replaces the ‘end-of-life’ concept with reducing, alternatively reusing, recycling and recovering materials in production, distribution, and consumption processes. It operates at the micro level (products, companies, consumers), meso level (eco-industrial parks), and macro level (city, region, nation and beyond), with the aim to accomplish sustainable development, thus simultaneously creating environmental quality, economic prosperity and social equity, to the benefit of current and future generations.” “Economic model that planning, resourcing, procurement, production, and reprocessing are designed and managed, as both process and output, to maximize ecosystem functioning and human well-being.” Sustainable development initiative aims to reduce the productionconsumption throughput of linear flow material and energy systems by applying material cycles, renewable and cascade-type energy flows. CE promotes high value material cycles alongside to the cooperation of producers, consumers and other actors.
Keywords Opposite of linear economy Raw materials reduce Energy reduce Restoration Elimination of chemicals and waste Renewable energy Opposite of open systems Reuse resources Energy conservation Closing loops Minimizing waste Opposite of linear economy Recover and regenerate No “end-of-life” concept 4Rs Micro, meso, and macro level Sustainable development Ecosystem functioning Human well-being Opposite of linear economy High value material cycles Sustainable development
Font: The author
2015). A shift to CE would decrease greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by up to 70% (EEA 2016). The use of renewable energy is also a key issue as the process cannot be truly circular if nonrenewable energy sources have to be consumed. Besides, recycling usually demands great amount of energy (Haas et al. 2015). Energy savings can also be achieved with reuse of goods, as the embodied energy is preserved. Recycling and incineration also recover a small fraction of energy, though these alternatives come
after reuse in the waste treatment hierarchy. Ecodesign represents one of the strategies to reach eco-effectiveness in CE goals. In LE, eco-efficient tools seek only decreasing volume and contamination of materials in-use. A few materials are recycled, but not created with this purpose. A large quantity of material still flow down-cycling, cradle-to-grave to final disposal. Instead, ecoeffectiveness intends to up-cycling materials, making use of creative technologies to generate real cradle-to-cradle flows inside production
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systems (Macarthur 2001). Bocken et al. (2016) listed the most usual design strategies, based on Stahel (2012), to slow or close resource loop. A slower loop means extending the service life of products through repair, re-manufacture, upgrade, and retrofit, while closing loops refers to the transformation of old goods to new resources by recycling (Stahel 2012). A summary is presented in Table 2. Once raw material is already extracted and transformed, it must be kept in-use as long as possible through better manufacturing and maintenance with low rates of replacement. This results in reduced resource and keeps the product function and value in use (Korhonen et al. 2018). Innovation and technology enhance the quality of materials embebbed in products, so they could be restored many times preserving original physical properties (Preston 2012). A precautious obsolescence leads to faster loops, and product’s disposal happens before the service life ends. Keeping the consumer good seductive for longer periods configures a design tool challenge. Besides, in these cases, products could be remanufactured and sold as new. Reuse is always a good choice as it can preserve embodied materials and energy (Stahel 2012). When service life of a product ends, extracting its parts or materials to recycle and reuse should be ensured by design (Micheline et al. 2017). Disassembly must be done avoiding compromise or damaging the technical or natural nutrients. Also, mixing both could disturb or even enable material’s recovery (Table 2). Thus, from the economy point of view, CE represents a shift paradigm in production and consumption. Making products last longer or keeping “technical nutrients” flowing in closed loops means a reduction in resource consumption (Preston 2012), although usually demands more expensive processes (Sauvé et al. 2016). The consequences of greater longevity impact the economic development indicator. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) the monetary value due products (Callen 2008) production and consumption that appears to be inconsistent with create wealth from lasting products (Stahel 2012). In LE consumer goods are decoupled from environmental costs involved. Environmental impacts
Circular Economy and Urban Mining: Resource Circular Economy and Urban Mining: Resource Efficiency in the Construction Sector for Sustainable Cities, Table 2 Types of design strategies Design strategies Concepts To slow loops a) Designing long-life products Design for Refers to subjective characteristics attachment and of products, as trust and empathy trust Design for Refers to physical characteristics of reliability and products and depends mostly on the durability material selected and function without failure b) Design product-life extension Design for easy Products must retain functional maintenance and capacities and could have restored repair their perfect conditions after damage Design for Products must allow future upgradability modification for improving quality, and adaptability value, or performance Design for Creating products whose parts standardization could fit in other products and capability Design for disCreating products whose parts and reassembly could be separated and easily regrouped This property is also fundamental to maintain material’s purity To close loops a) Design for a The design must ensure that technological “technical nutrients” will be cycle completely recycled without loosing quality, maintaining original proprieties b) Design for a The design must ensure “biological biological cycle nutrients” will be biodegraded c) Design for dis- Creating products whose parts and reassembly could be separated and easily regrouped This property is essential for separating biological from technical compounds Font: Adapted by Bocken et al. (2016)
are public, but the costs involved are private. Internalization of these environmental costs must be accounted in product’s price (Stahel 2012). Besides, reducing the dependence on natural resources in a growing global competition market is a good strategy to avoid the volatility of product’ costs. Uncertain and unstable prices can also disrupt the sectors that are dependent on these
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Circular Economy and Urban Mining: Resource Efficiency in the Construction Sector for Sustainable Cities, Fig. 1 Types of stocks. (Fonte: Adapted by Kapur and Graedel (2006))
resources, forcing companies to lay people off, defer investment, or stop providing goods and services (EEA 2016). New business models are being adopted for resource efficiency which can change the relationship between costumers and goods. As an example, product-service systems (PSS) are defined as a business model where services are sold like products to fulfill costumer’s needs (Sauvé et al. 2016; Micheline et al. 2017). Groups share the function of products; consuming is replaced with buying access and performance on a limited time (Preston 2012; Korhonen et al. 2018), liberating consumers from the responsibility of maintenance and storage (Sauvé et al. 2016). These models allow to retain ownership, which guarantee resource security and competitive costs (Stahel 2012). In social dimension, the major contribution of CE is on its capacity of employment creation. The labor inputted is higher than manufacturing process as additional steps of dismantling; cleaning and quality control are needed (Stahel 2012). However, the quality of new jobs and skill demands must be discussed in order to avoid unfair labor relations (EEA 2016). Besides, the CE concept does not clarify strategies that are able to reduce poverty and social inequality (Murray et al. 2017). Maintaining secondary raw materials safe from hazardous chemicals is also fundamental to protect human well-being and health.
Stock Types A circular economy is about stock optimization (Stahel 2012). Stocks of materials can be classified depending on their source, spatial location, and concentration in the environment. Raw stocks refer to materials that have never been extracted by humans. They could be concentrated in ores or distributed in nature. Employed stocks refer to resources already extracted and used for human purposes, discarded or not (Kapur and Graedel 2006). The amount of materials in employed stocks is concentrated in urban products or infrastructure in-use and in hibernate and disposal sites. Material stocks may be metals, plastics, paper, and others embedded in products with active service life. Once these products fulfill its purpose, it could be disposed, usually in landfills or hibernate, where stocks could be formed by diverse products, from an old electronic equipment store in a basement to urban obsolete structures (Krook et al. 2011). For this reason, controlling hibernate stocks is a challenge to overcome. Dissipated stocks are hard or impossible to recover, as metals emitted in the air, soil, or water during life cycle steps of consumer goods production (Johansson et al. 2013). Evidence show that dissipated stocks are higher than geologic ores for some metals (Obernosterer and Brunner 2001). Figure 1 summarizes the types. From the perspective of the CE, concentrated technospheric stocks in cities can be considered as
74 Circular Economy and Urban Mining: Resource Efficiency in the Construction Sector for Sustainable Cities, Fig. 2 Average composition of electric electronic equipment. (Font: Krausmann et al. (2009))
Circular Economy and Urban Mining: Resource Estimate composition of WEEE 2% 3%
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“repositories of natural resources” for new life cycles, given their ability to provide materials that would otherwise be extracted from nature (Johansson et al. 2013; Ortlepp and Deilmann 2015). In this context, Stallone 2011 proposes the definition of “urban mines.” The term refers to the extraction, reuse, and recycling of waste materials, including the construction and demolition of buildings and urban infrastructure (Brunner 2011). The urban mining concept extends the activities to all kinds of anthropogenic stocks (Lederer and Fellner 2015).
composition and size of the landfill (Jones et al. 2012). Landfills may be available for resource recovery since they are inactive, but any existing materials are disorganized and placed together with other types of waste, making the landfill a kind of “black box” (Johansson et al. 2013). Separation of products must occur for easy disassembly and extraction of non-contaminated materials. The key for landfill mining success depends on high value creation in waste-to-energy and wasteto-material transformation techniques (Jones et al. 2012).
Landfill Mining This concept proposes the resource recovery activities in disposal landfills and it understands a temporary storage, from where materials could be extracted in the future, when more sophisticated technology promotes economic feasibility (Jones et al. 2012). “In situ” mining is done without excavation processes, as methane extraction from biogas and biofuel production. Waste-toenergy activities could transform waste materials in energy sources for heating, fuel, or electricity purposes. It could be done with biologic treatments that can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions (Tilche and Galatola 2008). Up to 7.4 million tons of CO2 could be avoided by keeping organics out of landfills (Macarthur 2001). “Ex situ” mining requires partial or full excavation of the waste for further treatment. Alternatives of recovery depend on the
In-Use Stocks: EEE The production and consumption of electric and electronic equipment (EEE) is one of the most growing areas among other consumer goods. Due to the constant innovation in new technologies, these products tend to have a short service life. When disposal occurs, high volume of waste is generated, so reuse and recycle initiatives are important to preserve landfill lifetimes and recover valuable materials (Cui and Forssberg 2003). Waste of EEE (WEEE) has a wide range of materials, such as metals (iron, steel, and cooper), plastics, glasses, wood, and others, including precious metals, such as gold and silver, which makes the reuse and recycle interesting (Fig. 2) (Cui and Zhang 2008). Metals embodied in “in-use” products could be presented in a variety of forms, which impact the recycling potential: (1) pure forms,
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(2) multicomponent alloys, (3) complex assemblages (as in computer chips), and (4) dissipative forms (such as paint). In pure forms, copper, a conductor of electricity or heat; lead, used in batteries; and gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and rhodium (five precious metals) can be found (Graedel 2011). Krook et al. (2011) estimate the unused copper and aluminum cables and their possible recovery in two cities of Sweden. They concluded that mining this type of material is interesting from economic perspective, due to the prices of copper in market. However, a lot of knowledge is needed for locating and recognizing these cables, which are in hibernation. Metal stocks represent a potential resource – 90% of Pb is stocked in building and infrastructure, while 10% in landfills in Vienna city (Obernosterer and Brunner 2001). The biggest barriers to recycling are separation techniques and social behavior, as products have to be correctly disposed, as “in-use” WEEE can quickly become hibernated (Reck and Graedel 2012). Ongondo et al. (2015) bring the delimited urban mining (DUM) concept that consists “delimited spaces in the anthroposphere with high concentrations of specific products/materials,” which can be a source of products that is feasible to recover and treat. As an example, the authors present the potential of recovering metals from waste electrical and electronic equipment in one university. Building Stocks Among the products produced by urban metabolism, none generate more negative impacts than the built environment. This is characterized by the high impact on the consumption of natural resources, emission of GHG, and generation of large amounts of wastes (UN-HABITAT 2016). Global use of construction materials had an abrupt growth since the Second World War and continues to increase (Fig. 3). The participation of construction materials and the use of cement on total material consumed were from 15% in 1900 to 74% in 2005 (Krausmann et al. 2009). Figure 4 presents the composition of building stock in Japan during the period 1965 to 2010. Cement concrete and aggregates presented the higher amounts and showed the same trend of increasing.
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Portland cement – a fundamental ingredient for the concrete manufacture – is responsible for a large amount of GHG emissions due to the energy-consuming requirements (Mehta 2001). For this reason, a lot of studies have replaced this material for another recycled aggregate (Rao et al. 2007). Several studies quantify and prove the environmental benefits generated by the insertion of waste recycling and reuse processes in the construction industry, in light of the principles of circular economy and urban mining (Cossu and Williams 2015). Among the benefits are the reduction of natural resource extracted from the environment, the reduction of energy consumption, the extension of the useful life of landfills, and the reduction of GHG emissions. The intensity of these benefits varies according to the recyclability potential of each material – as it depends on the percentage of material that can be transformed for other uses through currently available technologies (Pappu et al. 2007). Pappu et al. (2007) quantified waste disposed in landfills in India, estimating the portion that could be recycled and used in the production of new building materials. The incorporation of tailings in the production of Portland cement and clay bricks decreased the energy demand from 30% to 15%, respectively. Gao et al. (2001) evaluated the potential of recyclability of different construction methods and estimated the energy consumed in the production of new materials against the energy consumed by the recycling of these same materials. The authors concluded that it is possible to reduce materials by 50% (in kg) and 10% to energy consumption if the recycled materials are intended for construction. Coelho and Brito (2012) say that the potential for global warming and acidification can be reduced by up to 77% and 57%, respectively, if the recycling of demolition waste is carried out. Vitale et al. (2017) investigated the environmental impacts (GHG emissions, mineral extraction, and energy consumption) of the final phase of the residential building life in southern Italy, focusing on waste management. Cabeza et al. (2013) revised the state of the art regarding embodied energy in buildings. The authors affirm that the incorporated energy became more relevant once the energy
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Circular Economy and Urban Mining: Resource Efficiency in the Construction Sector for Sustainable Cities, Fig. 3 Total consumption of material from 1900 to 2005. (Font: Krausmann et al. (2009))
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Circular Economy and Urban Mining: Resource Efficiency in the Construction Sector for Sustainable Cities, Fig. 4 Consumption of construction materials in Japan. (Font: Tanikawa et al. (2015))
consumption in the operational phase was reduced. In addition, the authors evaluated the substitution of materials with lower energy incorporated. There is consensus among researchers that the creation of indicators is not feasible, since the methodologies for calculation and values vary widely. For Thormark (2001), the energy incorporated can be reduced when recycled or reused materials are applied. He performed the energy recovery calculations incorporated in a study of buildings with low operating consumption in Sweden and concluded that 45% of all energy consumed over 50 years
(usel life considered for the buidings) was due to the incorporated energy, but between 35 and 40% of that energy could be recovered if recycling and reuse processes were applied to demolition waste, for its insertion in a new life cycle. Ng and Chau (2015) quantified the potential of reducing energy consumption for a commercial building built in concrete. The recycling process showed the energy saving potential of 53%, while reuse was 6.2% and waste incineration 0.4%. The authors concluded that recycling strategies should be adopted in buildings with a high content of concrete and the reuse should be adopted in
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elements with high concentration of aluminum. Ibrahim (2016) estimated the economic and environmental returns if recycling were applied to the waste. Management not only conserves landfills but also reduces impacts on the manufacture of new materials and reduces the expense of the building itself by avoiding the high waste of materials and additional waste disposal costs. Zhao et al. (2010) investigated the economic feasibility of construction material recycling. Although a net of supply and demand exists, the activity probably faces investment risks under current market conditions. Rao et al. (2007) identify barriers to more widespread use of cycled aggregate in concrete, and it includes lack of awareness and government support; however, no regulations for controlling this process were found. Arora et al. (2017) consider that knowledge about the concentrations of stockpiled anthropogenic materials is critical to the sustainable management of resources. Brunner and Rechberger (2015) incorporate two aspects to the term urban mines, in order to seek sustainability in the material flows generated by the city’s metabolism. The first aspect concerns to the identification and quantification of materials contained in the constructed inventories that can be used for recycling, given the available technology and the costs of implementing these technologies. The second aspect deals with the energy consumption related to these processes, due to the transport of the waste and the recycling process itself. Quantifying Stocks To achieve CE goals, the first challenge to overcome resides in the lack of information about material stocks and their locations and concentrations. Resource reservoir data provide useful information for waste treatment purposes (Kapur and Graedel 2006). Locating these ores requires great amount of information, so geographic information systems (GIS) can help measure, report, analyze, and visualize material stocks, creating information for decision-making (Zhu 2014). Different methodologies can be used to estimate the stocks in a city: top-down, bottom-up approach (Graedel 2011). The bottom-up approach analyzes individual type of products
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and their quantity indicators (m3 of concrete in m2 of commercial building, for example). Then, these values are extrapolated to all stocks. For building the stocks account, construction types with greater statistical representativeness in relation to the inventory are selected as archetypes or prototypes; the others are distributed among the archetypes due to similar characteristics (Stephan and Athanassiadis 2017). According to Mastrucci et al. (2017), the definition of archetype categories can come from a variety of sources: urban zoning and land use and occupation laws, expert opinion, statistical analysis, and empirical data. For each archetype the amounts of materials, energy, and emissions, among others, is evaluated, depending on the objective of the survey. These values are obtained from the knowledge of the floor area and the volume of the building (or kg /per capita) and extrapolated to the whole (Stephan and Athanassiadis 2017). Another methodological option to estimate “in-use” stock is a top-down analysis, which is more applicable on national and global levels, and requires data on material flows from long periods (Graedel 2011). This method adopts material and energy inputs and outputs for the whole stock based on data related to the city, such as energy consumption and social and economic indicators (Brøgger and Wittchen 2017). However, if the spatialization of the results is uncertain (Wu et al. 2016), the first method is used more frequently (Reinhart 2016). Stephan and Athanassiadis (2017) state that the amount of materials and energy incorporated in the built stock and the spatialization of this information contribute to a better waste management over time, focusing on the reinsertion of this in the production chain, in light of the principles of CE. Mastrucci et al. (2017) state that the constructed stock modeling can be performed with a focus on material and energy flows or the entire life cycle. Material flow analysis considers the balance of inputs and outputs in all phases of the life cycle – from the extraction of raw material for construction materials to the waste. In addition, they exhibit accumulations of materials contained in the different constructive methods over time (Wu et al. 2016).
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Reyna and Chester (2015) evaluated dynamically (time-varying) the Los Angeles city-built stock, with the objective of quantifying the materials, energy, and emissions of GHG incorporated and estimated their variation through construction and demolition. This study provides important data regarding the growth potential of cities, from the perspective of “urban mines.” Kleemann et al. (2017) carried out the built stock of the materials present in buildings and in the infrastructure of the city of Vienna. Results indicate that 96% were minerals, with organic materials and metals being the smallest quantities. Wu et al. (2016) estimated the amount of demolition waste in China, analyzing economically different scenarios regarding the disposal of these wastes over time, both for new products through recycling and in landfills. Condeixa et al. (2017) carried out the analysis of material flow in the residential stock constructed in the city of Rio de Janeiro (until the year 2010). The inputs and outputs of materials and wastes produced in the stages of use, reforms, and demolition were considered. As a result, they obtained maps with current quantities of material as well as the amounts destined to landfills and recycling plants over time. They concluded that the study is capable of generating a prognosis for waste management in the municipality scale. Mastrucci et al. (2017) quantified the materials incorporated into the Luxembourg stock. Two scenarios were modeled for the final destination of demolition waste, one being the current scenario and the other alternative is in which a larger percentage of materials were sent to recycling. The environmental impacts, such as acidification and global warming potential arising from both scenarios, were compared. Challenges of Circular Economy and Urban Mining Although CE principles clearly contributes to sustainable goal, levels of circularity are still low in practice. Challenges to overcome involve technical, economical, and social conditions. Technical barriers of circularity rely on recycle processes, which represent the most widespread strategy to achieving CE. By the thermodynamics laws, a
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complete recycling process is impossible since by-products are always generated. Besides that, great amount of energy are required (of infinite sources, like the Sun) (Korhonen et al. 2018). In this context, recycling impacts must be considered in the entire life cycle, as some effects appear to be positive in one chain but with negative impacts from another point of view (Sauvé et al. 2016). The techniques used for separating and extracting must ensure purity and decontamination, so recycling process could deliver more quality in secondary raw materials (Preston 2012). As an example, glass and metal are two materials that could theoretically be recycled indefinitely, as long as they are pure and not contaminated. However, plastic recycling is more complicated since plastic waste is a mixture of a number of different types of plastics, and the products often consist of several composite materials which are technically challenging to recycle (EEA 2016). The same occurs in electronic waste products and vehicles, where metals are mixed and hence hard to extract. Construction materials represent high volume of waste, but only a few are recycled, due to the lack of efficiency in separation and high energy requirements (Arora et al. 2017). These factors could lead to lower quality of secondary materials and indirectly increase virgin material demands or drive a production of new low-price products. For Stahel (2012), chemical science is a precondition for CE success as it could fulfill the lack of know-how to disassemble materials at the atomic level, so material separation could happen in mixed components. From the economic perspective, slowing down the loops with more lasting products could lead to higher levels of energy consumption (Murray et al. 2017) and production costs (Sauvé et al. 2016). To effective closed loops, it must have an economic incentive that enable the post-consuming returned in the supply chain, as making durable products, is more expensive than the cheap ones (Sauvé et al. 2016). In actual conditions, recycling and urban mining are interesting if economic value attached to the material exists, like the mining of rare metals embodied in jewelry, batteries, and EEE. For other products, regulations and financial incentives are required, so CE aims can be
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achieved. From social point of view, there is a lack of interest and awareness of consumers and firms itself to change “business-as-usual” (Kirchherr et al. 2018). The society needs to realize that preserving the resource from scarcity is fundamental, and the relations production and consumption need a broad transformation.
Conclusion The application of circular economy (CE) concept could increase the efficiency in the use of natural resources. Urban mining is a CE strategy able to recover materials and energy from existing stocks, such as buildings and urban infrastructure. There are still barriers for the implementation of CE and urban mining activities, and the lack of information about the stocks is one of them. In this context, the following topics may be highlighted: – Urban mining is a CE strategy that may contribute to the development of sustainable cities by materials and energy recovering from existing stocks, such as buildings and urban infrastructure. – The application of CE concept may increase the efficiency and the sustainability in the use of natural resources. – There are still barriers for the implementation of CE and urban mining in the cities, and the lack of information about the stocks is one of them.
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Circular Economy and Urban Mining: Resource Pappu A, Saxena M, Asolekar SR (2007) Solid wastes generation in India and their recycling potential in building materials. Build Environ 42(6):2311–2320 Pauw I, Bakker C, Van Der Grinten B (2016) Product design and business model strategies for a circular economy. Journal of Industrial and Production Engineering, v. 33, n. 5, p. 308–320. Preston F (2012) A global redesign? Shaping the circular economy. Briefing paper. Chatham House, London, p 20. http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/ files/chathamhouse/public/Research/Energy,Environm entand Development/bp0312_preston.pdf Rao A, Jha KN, Misra S (2007) Use of aggregates from recycled construction and demolition waste in concrete. Resour Conserv Recycl 50(1):71–81. http://www.science direct.com/science/article/pii/S0921344906001315 Reck BK, Graedel TE (2012) Challenges in metal recycling. Science 337(6095):690–695 Reinhart CF, Davila CC (2016) Urban building energy modeling – A review of a nascent field. Building and Environment, v. 97, p. 196–202. Reyna JL, Chester MV (2015) The growth of urban building stock: unintended lock-in and embedded environmental effects. J Ind Ecol 19(4):524–537 Sauvé S, Bernard S, Sloan P (2016) Environmental sciences, sustainable development and circular economy: alternative concepts for trans-disciplinary research. Environ Dev 17:48–56. www.sciencedirect. com/science/article/pii/S2211464515300099 Stahel WR (2012) The business angle of a circular economy – higher competitiveness, higher resource security and material efficiency. The Product-Life Institute, STAHEL, W. R. The business angle of a circular economy – higher competitiveness, higher resource security and material efficiency. The Product-Life Institute, Geneva, v. 15.05.12. Stephan A, Athanassiadis A (2017) Corrigendum to “quantifying and mapping embodied environmental requirements of urban building stocks” [Building and environment 114 (2017) 187–202]. Build Environ 121:291–292 Tanikawa H, Fishman T, Okuoka K, Sugimoto K (2015) The weight of society over time and space: a comprehensive account of the construction material stock of Japan, 1945–2010. J Ind Ecol 19(5):778–791 Thormark C (2001) Conservation of energy and natural resources by recycling building waste. Resour Conserv Recycl 33(2):113–130 Tilche A, Galatola M (2008) The potential of bio-methane as bio-fuel/bio-energy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions: a qualitative assessment for Europe in a life cycle perspective. Water Sci Technol 57 (11):1683–1692. https://doi.org/10.2166/wst.2008.039 UNEP. United Nations Environment Programme (2012) Environment for the future we want. Popul Dev Rev 24:407. www.jstor.org/stable/2807995?origin=crossref UNEP. United Nations Environment Programme (2015) Land and natural resources conflict, renewable resources and conflict. UN: New York. www.un.org/ en/events/environmentconflictday/pdf/GN_Renewable_ Consultation.pdf
Climate Change and Ecotourism in the Context of the 2030 Agenda UN-HABITAT. United Nations Human Settlements Programme (2016) Urbanization and development emerging futures. World cities report 2016. UN Habitat, New York Vitale P, Arena N, Di Gregorio F, Arena U (2017) Life cycle assessment of the end-of-life phase of a residential building. Waste Manag 60:311–321 WRAP. (2012) “WRAP’s Vision for the UK Circular Economy to 2020”. Wu H, Wang J, Duan H (2016) An innovative approach to managing demolition waste via GIS (geographic information system): a case study in Shenzhen city, China. J Clean Prod 112:494–503. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.08.096 Zhao W, Leeftink RB, Rotter VS (2010) Evaluation of the economic feasibility for the recycling of construction and demolition waste in China—The case of Chongqing. Resour Conserv Recycl 54(6):377–389. www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092134490 9002055> Zhu X (2014) GIS and urban mining. Resources 3(1): 235–247. www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/3/1/235
Citizen Participation ▶ Participatory Design: Participatory Urban Management
City Biodiversity Index ▶ Indicators and Practices of Urban Biodiversity and Sustainability
City Planning ▶ Planning Small Cities Toward Being Inclusive, Safe, Resilient, and Sustainable: The Case of a City in Rio Grande Do Sul, Brazil
City Sustainability Index ▶ Indicators and Practices of Urban Biodiversity and Sustainability
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Climate Adaptation ▶ Resilience in the Context of Climate Change
C Climate Change ▶ Resilience in the Context of Climate Change
Climate Change and Ecotourism in the Context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Joana Salgueiro1, Edison Barbieri2 and Fernando Morgado1 1 The Centre for Environmental and Marine, Studies (CESAM) and Department of Biology, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal 2 Instituto de Pesca – APTA-SAA, Governo do Estado de São Paulo, Barra Funda, Brazil
Definitions Ecotourism is now defined as responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment, sustains the well-being of the local people, and involves interpretation and education (TIES 2015). It is a form of tourism involving visiting fragile, pristine, and relatively undisturbed natural areas, intended as a lowimpact and often small-scale alternative to standard commercial mass tourism. It means responsible travel to natural areas, conserving the environment, and improving the well-being of the local people. Its purpose may be to educate the traveler, to provide funds for ecological conservation, to directly benefit the economic development and political empowerment of local communities, or to foster respect for different cultures and for human rights (TIES 2019).
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Climate Change and Ecotourism in the Context of the 2030 Agenda
Introduction Tourism emerged in the nineteenth century, but it was after the Industrial Revolution that it evolved more as a result of increased purchasing power and following the needs and interests of man, consisting of a phenomenon arising from the voluntary and temporary displacement of individuals (Ruschmann 1997; Rodrigues and AmaranteJúnior 2009). Currently, tourism is one of the most influential and growing economic revenues in various parts of the world, whose pillar is the consolidation of capitalism, a sector that has contributed to the sociocultural, economic, and environmental value of the regions (Bastias-Perez and Var 1992; Goodwin 1996; Cruz 2009; Rodrigues and Amarante-Júnior 2009). However, ironically, some issues nowadays associated with environmental unsustainability originated from that time, with the overexploitation of natural resources, associated with technological development since, when inadequately developed, it can have many negative impacts (Yorio et al. 2002; Taylor and Knight 2003; Klein et al. 1995; Zilioli 2008; Souza 2009). Tourism related to leisure and recreation has almost always been interrelated with the environment, since tourism has the basic resources to develop its activity (Cunha 2006). Nature and natural and landscape heritage have been fundamental to increasing the attractiveness of almost all tourist destinations and recreation and leisure areas, but to date these resources have been used with little consideration (Farrell and Runyan 1991; Zilioli 2008; Rodrigues and AmaranteJúnior 2009). The relationship between tourism and conservation can be classified into three distinct groups: parasitic relationship, where tourism is detrimental to the environment; coexisting, where tourism has no impact on the area in which it acts; and symbiotic, where preservation is driven by tourism (Lindsay et al. 2008; Jacobson and Lopez 1994). There is now a worldwide recognition that the planet is being the victim of a colossal environmental degradation, and the causes behind this problem are numerous (Zilioli 2008). The literature review on the impacts of tourism has contradictory results, due to the fact
that some authors defend that tourism is responsible for the destruction of natural areas, while others promote the potential of ecotourism to protect these areas through environmental awareness (Wall 1996, 1997; Sunlu 2003). The impacts of tourism are complex and can be economic, sociocultural, and environmental, depending on how the activity is planned, implemented, and monitored and the characteristics of the area and visitors. On the other hand, the impacts may present different levels of intensity and, in more severe cases, compromise the attractiveness of the site (Wall 1996, 1997; Gossling 1999; Cavalcante et al. 2015). The tourism sector is far from being known as harmless, and there is an extensive list of studies that document the negative impacts of tourism, demonstrating research over the years, the lack of appropriate global and multidimensional norms, and indicators in strategies to monitor the growth of tourism activity worldwide (Goodwin 1996; Belanger 2006; Zilioli 2008; Souza 2009; Moaes and Lignon 2012) are currently one of the most potentially contributing to this deterioration, and frequent monitoring through activity control is therefore imperative (Zilioli 2008; Souza 2009). The UN General Assembly adopted on 25 September 2015 the Resolution Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (A/70/L.1). This 2030 Agenda identifies 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 corresponding targets. Tourism is explicitly mentioned in three targets: 8.9, 12.b, and 14.7. In addition, there are many more targets that don’t explicitly mention “tourism” but where tourism is/can be very relevant in their achievement. The Inter-agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators (IAEG-SDGs), created by the UN Statistical Commission, is developing an indicator framework for the SDGs. It will present its proposed indicators to the UNSC in March 2016. In addition to this “core set” of indicators, it is expected the framework allow for the development of “thematic sets” as menus of indicators that countries can choose from to focus on specific policy areas relevant to them. Development of “thematic sets” will begin once the UN Statistical Commission has approved the “core set.”
Climate Change and Ecotourism in the Context of the 2030 Agenda
Following this initiative, the United Nations has proclaimed 2017 as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development in recognition of the great potential of the tourism industry, which accounts for about 10% of global economic activity, to contribute to the fight against poverty and promote mutual understanding and intercultural dialogue – central themes of the UNESCO mission. These objectives have long been recognized by UNESCO’s various cultural and scientific programs, in particular the World Heritage Program (UNESCO 1999), which has been working to ensure that tourists visiting its 1,052 natural and cultural sites benefit local communities and that visitor flows be managed in a manner compatible with heritage conservation. Tourism in general can also make a significant contribution to the sustainable development of the 119 Global Geoparks designated by the UNESCO in 33 countries, which are sites that teach about the history of our planet. Similarly, the Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Program, comprising 669 sites in 120 countries, has been a pioneering laboratory for sustainability, since it was established to promote economic development aware of the need to preserve the environment and natural resources. In this chapter, an extensive analysis of ecotourism in terms of tourism management and planning, the importance of environmental perceptions of the target public and agents of the tourism sector, tourism contribution to biodiversity conservation and sustainable development, and ecotourism as a form of alternative tourism is presented. In the framework of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, tourism and political strategies for Nature Conservation and Biodiversity 2025 are crucial to understand how ecotourism could be a tourism sector that can benefit local communities and have a basic level of knowledge about the potential benefits and impacts of the activity (Walker 1996; Zilioli 2008). Tourism is an important element of city’s socioeconomic and political development associating environmental requirements as well as economic expectations but also the social and physical structure and the local population. The simplest way to ensure community participation
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in planning is through the development of community organizing programs, which have the potential to offer new jobs and thus provide additional income for areas that are often economically unstable (Wall 1996; Belanger 2006). Nevertheless, there is the possibility of creating new markets for the sale of local products/handicrafts without the use of intermediaries; however, these new markets drive total product prices (Belanger 2006). The impacts and challenges of tourism development show that the resources on which tourism is based are fragile and that there is a growing demand for improved environmental quality.
Tourism Management and Planning: The Environmental Perceptions of the Target Public and Agents of the Tourism Sector Tourism management and planning is a dynamic process, requiring periodic modification and adaptation as circumstances change in order to preserve and enhance the city’s quality of life. The planning process assembled government, other public authorities, decision-makers and professionals in the field of tourism, public and private associations and institutions whose activities are related with tourism industry, and citizens to propose ways to mitigate tourism impacts. In this process, the importance of environmental perceptions of the target public and agents of the tourism sector is evident. Social perceptions about environment evidence the way people conceive, explain, and interact with the environment, helping in the process of understanding their expectations, satisfactions, and discontents (Torres and Oliveira 2008; Salvarani 2011). As no form of tourism is impact-free, the definition of acceptable limits is related to the way people value environment and the socioeconomic variables. In this context, environment perception refers to the subjective view that the tourists have about the conditions of a certain area and express the willingness of the host population to consent to the visitors and the ability of absorption of the tourist activities without interruption of the traditional commerce (Gossling 1999). However,
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the applicability of these limits is a difficult task because we live in complex dynamic systems where there are no absolute limits (Gossling 1999). Knowing the primary singularities of visitors and agents involved in the tourism sector makes it possible to understand how they benefit from natural areas and helps identify the causes and potential solutions, as the way the tourist behaves is correlated with their culture, education, and lifestyle (Takahashi 1998; Ladeira et al. 2007; Zilioli 2008). It is therefore important to examine the preference and perception of visitors and agents involved in the tourism sector in relation to the ecological and recreational conditions of each area. The studies on the origin of the impacts are carried out from a detailed study of the environments, and the similarity between the amount of use and the impacts is not linear, depending on the type of use of the area, on the identification of the causes, and later on the definition of strategies of conservation and organization (Takahashi 1998; Viana and Rocha 2009). The study carried out by Bastias-Perez and Var (1992) had as hypothesis to prove, through the application of questionnaires, that age is determinant in attitudes and perceptions in relation to tourism. It was expected that younger residents would respond more favorably to tourism than older tourists. However, the data obtained suggest that middle-aged residents appreciate the positive economic benefits more and are more concerned with being able to respond with services (Bastias-Perez and Var 1992). Takahashi (1998) also characterized the visitors’ preferences and perceptions and evaluated the impacts of tourism in the Marumbi Peak State Park and the Salto Morato Nature Reserve in Brazil, using the questionnaire as a research methodology, first phase, individually, and subsequently through correlation. As a result, it found sociocultural and economic differences between the visitors of the two parks that were justified by the academic degrees of the respondents and consequently differences in requirements and awareness regarding problems encountered in both parks, namely, soil resistance to penetration and content of carbon, among other ecological
indicators, and the sample whose academic level was higher had a higher level of awareness. A descriptive study by Niefer (2002), whose objective was to obtain the profile of the visitors, used the questionnaire as a research methodology where the type of sample was nonprobabilistic accidental. The results obtained, when analyzing the surveys, showed the need for continuous monitoring of visitors, implementation of information centers and environmental education projects for tourists and residents, implementation of basic sanitation systems, establishment of the limit of visitors, and the need for community involvement in tourism planning and environmental monitoring. Ladeira et al. (2007), in Ibitipoca State Park, whose objective was to obtain information regarding the profile of the visitors, showed that the majority of them had a high level of education and that the main reason for the visit was related to the need for relaxation and contact with the nature. Similarly, Moaes and Lignon (2012) characterized the visitors of the State Park of Cardoso Island, through the application of questionnaires, and concluded that the activities developed by the visitors were divided into three groups: leisure, work, and education. Campos et al. (2011) state that it is essential to know the profile and perception of the tourists who visit the protected areas, because this provides a greater incorporation of these aspects in the planning and consequently guarantee a rich experience to the visitor without causing any impacts. He used the questionnaire as a research methodology where the type of sample was non-probabilistic, and the results obtained showed that in the profile of an individual interested in ecotourism, people with education of a higher level predominated; that is, most ecotourists have a good level of schooling and are mostly more aware of environmental conservation needs. Not least, it is the profile of the guides and monitors that orient tourists, and an investigation was carried out by Alves and Costa (2012), whose objective was to decipher the profile of these individuals, as well as the way of acting and perception regarding the problems that of tourism activity may arise. As such, in order to make it possible, they applied several
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surveys in the State Park of Ilha Grande, and it was concluded that the respondents were aware of the characteristics of socio-environmental pressures and impacts.
Tourism, Biodiversity, and Sustainable Development With the growth of the tourism sector and the displacement of thousands of people around the world, tourism is currently one of the most important economic activities at the local, regional, or global level. In this sense, the economic agents involved (public or private) in the development and management of tourism continually seek new niche markets and differentiated and more effective ways of promoting new products and increasing revenues. The restructuring of the economic politics of countries, especially the rural and coastal world, tends to impose the need to search for alternatives to agriculture traditional fishing, wealth and welfare, while at the same time tends to provoking at the present time a deep reflection on these same alternatives. The revaluation of the coastal and inland regions, based on the landscape, the great natural units, the historical heritage, the artistic heritage, the built heritage, and the different cultural aspects, has become a decisive factor in the integrated development of regions whose riches have been, as a rule, forgotten. The use of endogenous resources from regions passing through large tourist flows or even large areas of economic repulsion becomes a key factor for an integrated and sustainable local development and enhancement of rural and coastal areas. The finding of the demand for new economic activities or new approaches to the existing ones, based on the profitability of a whole set of “products” whose area in question shows an unquestionable richness and diversity, seems to indicate a new direction in the perspective of new areas for the development of the vast Portuguese territory. The trend toward population desertification and uneven prospects for economic growth leads to the need to promote activities complementary to existing ones, with a
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view to increasing income and improving the quality of life of the population. At the moment almost all the cultures somehow recognize the importance that nature and its biological diversity assume and the need to maintain it, which requires the establishment of balances between political, economic, environmental, and cultural interests (Wilson et al 2007). In this context, the transformation of mentalities into the tourist market has become an absolute necessity. The alternative or complementarity to the dominant tourism appeared more frequently, taking the form of a tourism offer aimed at enhancing the endogenous potential of rural areas and the coast: alternative tourism, integrating, among others, cultural tourism and tourism environment. The most innovative proposals for an integrated development of regions with a high tourist importance have started to include, as a decisive factor of development, the different types of alternative tourism, providing a set of offers in the field of Earth Sciences (fauna, vegetation, geomorphology and geology, cultural heritage, artistic heritage, gastronomy, ethnography, etc.), where those interested in the different themes can deepen their knowledge of the regions, as well as global itineraries, where the different themes will be analyzed more generally, in turn, by to the tourist. Currently, there is an abundance of alternatives to conventional tourism, which are often used in the marketing and design of tourism products, and ecotourism is considered one of the most used concepts (Goodwin 1996; Rodrigues and Amarante-Júnior 2009). In terms of terminology, ecotourism is marketable, and the conservationist nature of this concept has been misunderstood by the market, through a comparison between conservation norms and projections of the financial income of those responsible (Belanger 2006; Rodrigues and Amarante-Júnior 2009).
Ecotourism as a Form of Alternative Tourism The concept of ecotourism emerged in 1960, based on the concern to minimize the impacts of conventional tourism and from the evolution of
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human needs to stimulate the need for rest triggered by the increase of urban stress. At present there are about 85 definitions of ecotourism; there is no standard definition of the concept yet; all are based on values such as conservation, ethics, sustainability, education, and community; and there is a consensus that this niche must meet three main criteria – the attractions must be nature-based, visitor interactions with this should be centered on learning, and the product should follow the principles of sustainability (Hvenegaard and Dearden 1998; Wall 1996; Sekercioglu 2002; Weaver and Lawton 2007). When the term ecotourism began to emerge frequently in the literature, the position that this niche would occupy within the tourism sector has never been idealized, and this is one of the sectors that is currently growing the most in the world, especially in developing countries, and considered as an important economic solution for the sustainable use of more sensitive areas and as an incentive to protect their ecosystems (Jacobson and Lopez 1994; Weaver and Lawton 2007; Cunha 2010). This concept has spread rapidly, not only because it has different meanings but also because of the opportunistic use of marketing and the prefix -eco that is synonymous with responsible consumerism (Wall 1996; Zilioli 2008; Rodrigues and Amarante-Júnior 2009; Tran and Do 2011). However, the line separating ecotourism from conventional tourism is very tenuous, and several studies are needed to assist in the planning and management of the areas to be applied (Campos et al. 2011). Ecotourism destinations involve, in most cases, extremely fragile ecosystems or socioeconomically unstable countries, with unavoidable negative effects that are ubiquitous – unstable sources of subsistence, water and air pollution, alteration or destruction of vegetation, and disruption of water birds (Jacobson and Lopez 1994). This activity cannot be seen as benign, and it is imperative to share information that allows us to identify, monitor, and mitigate the individual and cumulative negative effects of the activity (Jacobson and Lopez 1994; Cavalcante and Pazera 2005). Like conventional tourism, ecotourism also triggers economic, environmental, and social impacts, which must be socioeconomically
viable and environmentally adequate, and constant monitoring is essential due to the dynamics that characterize it (Jacobson and Lopez 1994; Hvenegaard and Dearden 1998).
Tourism and Political Strategies for Nature Conservation and Biodiversity 2025 Since the nineteenth century, the concept of protected areas has been established as one of the strategies for nature conservation. In 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development proposed preserving 12% of the terrestrial area that contained protected areas – a condition necessary to safeguard hotspots, but not sufficient, because some protected areas are of insufficient size to support all species occurring there (Gossling 1999; Cavalcante and Pazera 2005). Only 12 countries are known to have megadiversity, with 60–70% in Brazil, followed by Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, Congo, Madagascar, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Australia; however, this biogeographic phenomenon causes most species to be located in developing countries, which face several difficulties and that consequently are exerting pressure on their ecosystems (Gossling 1999; Dias and Figueira 2010). According to the IUCN, protected areas are created to protect and promote their enjoyment and to maintain biodiversity and ecological life support systems, but it is also at the creation of these that they are a prominent element in tourism products and nature and its constituent pretexts for leisure and discovery, thus giving rise to a new market, ecotourism (Farrell and Marion 2002; Kerbiriou et al. 2009). Raising awareness of the importance of biodiversity globally has led to a commitment to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010 (CBD 2002) in the Convention on Biological Diversity. However, due to inadequate policies, increasing pressures on biodiversity, and misaligned responses, these goals have not been met (Butchart et al. 2010). As a consequence, 20 new targets were set for 2020 with the aim of reducing biodiversity loss, and this decade was named by
Climate Change and Ecotourism in the Context of the 2030 Agenda
the United Nations “biodiversity decade” to mark this commitment (CBD – Decision X/2 2010). In the context of the United Nations Decade for Biodiversity 2011–2020, EU 2020 Biodiversity Strategy, and national strategies, including the National Biodiversity Conservation Strategy and the sectoral working groups of the ENAAC 2020 Organizational Structure, a number of actions and strategic measures have been developed within the framework of environmental policies for the implementation of democratic management of the environment and the sustainable use of areas and species. One of the four pillars of the strategies for 2020 includes enhancement and sustainable exploitation of endogenous resources, enhancing national endogenous differentiating resources through the enlargement of its knowledge base, and the sustainable exploitation of existing potential for the development of innovative ecosustainable and high-added value products, in particular the resources associated with the environment and natural resources. In this context, special attention has been given to major societal challenges such as environmental contamination, risk mitigation and biodiversity, improvement of the quality of life of the populations, and sustainable use of natural resources, making compatible with the economic activities of communities with the preservation of biodiversity. Within the current national and international policies of the European Union and the Member States of the Convention on Biological Diversity as reflected in the Strategic Plan 2011–2020 in order to contribute to the achievement of the goals of the United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda 2030, biodiversity and nature conservation play a crucial role in the context of climate change adaptation processes. The current challenges and requirements of development and competitiveness in an increasingly global economy converge in a sustainable and efficient view of the use of resources, ensuring the resilience of natural ecosystems and the conservation of biodiversity. Nature and biodiversity conservation strategies for the years to come, as defined in the priority objectives to be pursued by 2025, but with a long-term vision for 2050, are based on three fundamental pillars: (i) to improve
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the conservation status of habitats and species; (ii) promote the recognition of the value of natural heritage; and (iii) promote the appropriation of natural values and biodiversity in their different policies, strategies, and practices. These principles aim to contribute to a progressively greener and more efficient economy, consumption, and use of resources based on countries’ endogenous possibilities, knowledge, skills, and natural heritage. The United Nations has proclaimed 2017 as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development in recognition of the great potential of the tourism industry, which accounts for about 10% of global economic activity, to contribute to the fight against poverty and promote mutual understanding and intercultural dialogue – central themes of the UNESCO mission. These objectives have long been recognized by UNESCO’s various cultural and scientific programs, in particular the World Heritage Program, which has been working to ensure that tourists visiting its 1,052 natural and cultural sites benefit local communities and that visitor flows be managed in a manner compatible with heritage conservation.
Impacts and Challenges of Tourism Development The complex impacts of tourism activity consist of changes triggered by gradual processes of tourism development at the receiving sites, which are associated with variables that produce them and consequently give them different intensities and directions, depending on how the activity is planned, established, and monitored and the characteristics of the area and visitors (Gossling 1999, Zilioli 2008; Souza 2009; Moaes and Lignon 2012). In this process there are several challenges that can arise when assessing these: (i) difficulty in determining a base level for the measurement of change, (ii) difficulty in differentiating between human-induced changes and natural changes, and (iii) spatial and temporal continuity between cause-effect and complexity of environmental interactions (Wall 1997). That is, it is unrealistic to try to separate the consequences of tourism from other causes of changes that may be
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occurring in the same place and at the same time, and these effects can be seen as resulting from the type or types of tourism involved, communities, or visitor behavior (Wall 1997). There are three main methods by which to assess the type and level of impact: after-the-fact analysis, monitoring of changes over time, and simulation (Wall 1996, 1997). However, the applicability of these methods is difficult because we live in complex dynamic systems where there are no absolute limits (Gossling 1999). In the majority of cases, tourism is an economic alternative, having increased during the last decades due to the interest in landscape and biological diversity; however, there are still few studies on the impacts of tourism (Takahashi 1998; Cunha 2010; Moaes and Lignon 2012). One of the measures that can be applied in the control of the tourist activity is the load capacity, which controls the number of visitors who visit the attractions and their length of stay, determining if the level of use exceeds the acceptable levels specified by the tourists’ standards of evaluation (Farrell and Marion 2002; Zilioli 2008). However, the load-carrying paradigm has failed because it is a theory that relies heavily on the maximum number of areas to tolerate, not considering that tourism is composed of two components: the biophysical and the social (Takahashi 1998; Takahashi et al. 2005). Once the limitations of the load capacity model were recognized, an alternative system called Limits of Acceptable Change was created, which can be summarized in four main components: (i) definition of indicators of ecological and recreational impacts, (ii) establishment of maximum limits, (iii) identification of management actions, and (iv) a monitoring and evaluation program for the effectiveness of management actions (Gossling 1999; Takahashi et al. 2005). However, its applicability is difficult, due to the fact that we live in complex dynamic systems where there are no absolute limits (Gossling 1999). Tourism is a sector that can benefit local communities by providing additional income through the creation of new jobs; however, it is essential that they be included in the planning and development of the project at an early stage and informed about the
potential harmless impacts of the activity (Walker 1996; Belanger 2006; Zilioli 2008). Therefore, this dynamic activity cannot be seen as benign, and it is imperative to share information that makes it possible to identify, monitor, and mitigate the individual and cumulative negative effects of the activity (Jacobson and Lopez 1994; Hvenegaard and Dearden 1998; Steven et al. 2011). The review showed that there is some lack of knowledge about the problems triggered by this activity, highlighting the need for continuous monitoring of visitors, implementation of information centers and environmental education projects for tourists and residents, implementation of basic sanitation systems, establishment of the number of visitors, and the need for community involvement in tourism planning and environmental monitoring. This continuous monitoring of those involved can be voluntary or developed as a regular activity through the implementation of environmental education projects and training. This management can be achieved through awareness of the link between inappropriate behavior and specific ecological problems and demonstration of appropriate behavior (Niefer 2002).
Future Perspectives Tourism global analysis must incorporate multidisciplinary research and theory as well as best practice to advance the understanding of tourism and to support addressing consumers, industry, policy, and destinations. Ecotourism is a tourism sector that can benefit local communities by providing additional income through the creation of new jobs; however it is critical that they be included in the project planning and development at an early stage and informed of potential harmless impacts. Therefore, this dynamic activity cannot be seen as benign, and it is imperative to share information to identify, monitor, and mitigate the individual and cumulative negative effects of the activity. However, there are several challenges that may arise when measuring tourism: difficulty in determining a baseline for measuring change, difficulty in differentiating man-induced changes
Climate Change and Ecotourism in the Context of the 2030 Agenda
and natural changes, and spatial and temporal continuity between cause-effect and complexity of environmental interactions. To understand the tourism system and its impacts, it is crucial to define the importance of cultural, social, environmental, and economic issues in sustainable tourism; apply sustainable tourism criteria to a sustainable ecotourism; make analyses of ecotourism contribution to environmental conservation; integrate visitor management techniques to reduce and prevent impacts on physical and social resources within and around protected areas; evaluate ways tourism can contribute to the conservation of biodiversity and cultural integrity of environment; and assess demand-supply, economic benefits, and sustainability issues inherent in long-term and successful sustainable ecotourism developments.
Cross-References ▶ Disaster Risk Management Strategies: Building the Resilient Human Settlements ▶ Resilience in the Context of Climate Change ▶ Risk Management in Cities ▶ Spatial Planning and Sustainable Cities and Communities ▶ Urbanization and Urban Growth: Sustainable Cities for Safeguarding Our Future
References Alves L, Costa N (2012) Perfil dos guias de (eco)turismo e de sua atuação no Parque Estadual da Ilha Grande (RJ). Rev Bras Ecoturism 5(3):582–599 Bastias-Perez P, Var T (1992) Perceived impacts of tourism by residents. Academic Press. Belanger K (2006) Ecotourism and its effects on native populations. http://www.uhu.es/pablo.hidalgo/ docencia/effects/AADD/kbelanger.pdf Butchart SHM, Walpole M, Collen B, Van Strien A, Scharlemann JPW, Rea A, Baillie JEM, Bomhard B, Brown C, Bruno J, Carpenter KE, Carr GM, Chanson J, Chenery AM, Csirke J, Davidson NC, Dentener F, Foster M, Galli A, Galloway JN, Genovesi P, Gregory RD, Hockings M, Kapos V, Lamarque JF, Leverington F, Loh J, Mcgeoch MA, Mcrae L, Minasyan A, Hernández Morcillo M, Tee O, Pauly D,
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Quader S, Revenga C, Sauer JR, Skolnik B, Spear D, Stanwell-Smith D, Stuart SN, Symes A, Tierney M, Tyrrell TD, Vié JC, Watson R (2010) Global biodiversity: indicators of recent declines. Science 328: 1164–1168 Campos R, Vasconcelos F, Félix L (2011) A import^ancia da Caracterização dos Visitantes nas Ações de Ecoturismo e Educação Ambiental do Parque Nacional da Serra do Cipó/MG. Turismo em Análise 22(2):397–427 Cavalcante MB, Pazera JRE (2005) Uso sustentável do parque estadual da pedra da boca: conservação ou ecoturismo. In: III Simpósio de áreas protegidas, Pelotas. Anais, Pelotas-RS Cavalcante EDC, Bispo MS, Soares LC (2015) Praia, Sol e Mar: um mergulho na compreensão da orla marítima de João Pessoa (PB) como organização. Gestão & Regionalidade 31(92):103–119 Convention on Biological Diversity (2002) Decision VI/26: strategic plan for the convention on biological diversity. In: Report of the sixth meeting of the conference of the parties to the convention on biological diversity, 7–19 April 2002 – The Hague, Netherlands. Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity. UNEP/CBD/COP/6/20, 348 pp Convention on Biological Diversity (2010) Decision X/2 – the strategic plan for biodiversity 2011–2020 and the aichi targets. Tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, 18–29 October 2010 – Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan. Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity. UNEP Cruz J (2009) Avaliação dos Impactes Ambiental e Socioeconómicos em São Tomé e Príncipe. Universidade de Aveiro. Cunha L (2006) Economia e Política do Turismo. Editora Verbo, Lisboa Cunha A (2010) Negative effects of tourism in a Brazilian Atlantic forest National Park. J Nat Conserv 18(4): 291–295 Dias R, Figueira V (2010) O turismo de observação de aves: um estudo de caso do município de Ubatuba/SPBrasil. Rev Estud Politécnicos VIII(14):85–96 Farrell TA, Marion JL (2002) The protected area visitor impact management (PAVIM) framework: a simplified process for making management decisions. J Sustain Tour 10(1):31–51 Farrell BH, Runyan D (1991) Ecology and tourism. Ann Tour Res 18(1):26–40 Goodwin H (1996) In pursuit of ecotourism. Biodivers Conserv 5:277–291 Gossling S (1999) Ecotourism: a means to safeguard biodiversity and ecosystem functions? Ecol Econ 29:303–320 Hvenegaard G, Dearden P (1998) Ecotourism versus Tourism in a Thai National Park. Ann N Y Acad Sci 25(3):700–720 Jacobson S, Lopez A (1994) Biological impacts of ecotourism: tourist and nesting turtles in Tortuguero
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90 National Park Costa Rica. Wildl Soc Bull 22(3):414–419 Kerbiriou C, et al. (2009) Tourism in protected areas can threaten wild populations: from individual response to population viability of the chough Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax. J Appl Ecol 46(3):657–665 Klein ML, Humphrey SSR, Percival HF (1995) Effects of ecotourism on distribution of waterbirds in a wildlife refuge. Conserv Biol 9(6):1454–1465 Ladeira A et al (2007) O perfil dos visitantes do parque estadual do Ibitipoca (PEIb), Lima Duarte, MG. R Árvore 31(6):1091–1098 Lindsay K, Craig J, Low M (2008) Tourism and conservation: the effects of track proximity on avian reproductive success and nest selection in an open sanctuary. Tour Manag 29(4):730–739 Moaes H, Lignon M (2012) Caracterizando os visitantes do Parque Estadual da Ilha do Cardoso (SP): subsídio para o planejamento de atividades turística-educacional em áreas de manguezal. Rev Bras Ecoturism 5(3):648–665 Niefer IA (2002) Análise do perfil dos visitantes das Ilhas do Superagui e do Mel: Marketing como instrumento para um Turismo Sustentável. Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil Rodrigues GB, Amarante-Júnior O (2009) Ecoturismo e conservação ambiental: contextualizações gerais e reflexões sobre a prática. Rev Bras Ecoturism 2(2): 142–159 Ruschmann D (1997) Turismo e Planeamento Sustentável. A Protecção do Meio Ambiente. Papirus Editora, S.P Brasil Salvarani P (2011) Diagnóstico da Conservação das Tartarugas Marinhas em Ambiente Escolar. Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal Sekercioglu CH (2002) Impacts of birdwatching on human and avian communities. Environ Conserv 29(03):282–289. http://www.journals.cambridge.org/ abstract_S0376892902000206. Accessed 16 July 2014 Souza C (2009) Turismo e Desenvolvimento: percepções e atitudes dos residentes da Serra da Estrela. Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal Steven R, Pickering C, Castley J (2011) A review of the impacts of nature based recreation on birds. J Environ Manag 92(10):2287–2294 Sunlu U (2003) Environmental impacts of tourism. CIHEAM 270(57):263–270 Takahashi L (1998) Caracterização dos visitantes, suas preferências e percepções e avaliação dos impactos da visitação pública em duas unidades de conservação do estado do Paraná. Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil Takahashi LY et al. (2005) Indicadores de Impacto para monitorar o uso público no Parque Estadual Pico do Marumbi – Paraná. Revista da Sociedade de Investigações Florestais, Viçosa – MG, 29 (1):159–167 Taylor A, Knight R (2003) Wildlife responses to recreation and associated visitor perceptions. Ecol Appl 13(4): 951–963
Climate Mitigation TIES (2015) The International Ecotourism Society website. Retrieved from http://www.ecotourism.org/ ties-overview TIES (2019) The International Ecotourism Society website Torres D, Oliveira E (2008) Percepção ambiental: instrumento para educação ambiental em unidades de conservação. Rev Eletrônica Mestr Educ Ambient 21:227–235 Tran L, Do QA (2011) Impact of Ecotourism. A Study on the Environmental Impact of Ecotourism in Can Gio Mangrove Biosphere, Viet Nam. Laurea University of Applied Sciences. Kerava, 60 pp UNESCO (1999) World Heritage Nomination – IUCN technical evaluation Atlantic forests (southeast) Brazil. UNESCO 1-8 Viana FM, de F, Rocha CHB (2009) Impactos ambientais em UCs. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia, Juiz de Fora, UFJF/MG, 25 p Walker SL (1996) Ecotourism impact awareness within defining vernacular tourism, United States of America, San Marcos, Texas Wall G (1996) Ecotourism: change, impacts, and opportunities. Yale Sch For Environ Stud Bull Ser 99:108–117 Wall G (1997) Is ecotourism sustainable? Environ Manag 21:483–491 Wilson KA, Underwood EC, Morrison SA, Klausmeyer KR, Murdoch WW, Reyers B, Wardell-Johnson G, Marquet PA, Rundel PW, McBride MF, Pressey RL, Bode M, Hoekstra JM, Andelman S, Looker M, Rondinini C, Kareiva P, Shaw MR, Possingham HP (2007) Conserving biodiversity efficiently: what to do, where, and when. PLoS Biol 5:12 Weaver DB, Lawton LJ (2007) Twenty years on: the state of contemporary ecotourism research. Tour Manag 28(5):1168–1179 Yorio P et al (2002) Tourism and recreation at seabird breeding sites in Patagonia, Argentina: current concerns and future prospects. Bird Conserv Int 11(04):231–245 Zilioli RM (2008) Levantamento do Impactos socioambiental causado pelo turismo na região do rio Carapitanguí e povoado de Barra Grande. Universidade Estadual Paulista, São Paulo, Brazil
Climate Mitigation ▶ Resilience in the Context of Climate Change
Co-creation ▶ Participatory Design: Participatory Urban Management
Communicative Turn in Spatial Planning and Strategy
Collaboration ▶ Sharing Economy: Risks and Opportunities in a Framework of SDGs
Collaborative Governance ▶ Participatory Design: Participatory Urban Management
Collaborative Planning Theory ▶ Communicative Turn in Spatial Planning and Strategy
Communicative Planning Theory ▶ Communicative Turn in Spatial Planning and Strategy
Communicative Turn in Spatial Planning and Strategy Stefania Proli Department of Architecture, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
Synonyms Collaborative planning theory; Communicative planning theory; Deliberative planning
Definition The term “communicative turn” has been used to denote the spread of a planning theory, generally
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called “communicative planning theory” or “collaborative planning theory” that, instead of focusing on the production of a plan, emphasizes the value of planning in promoting public debates (Olsson 2009). Communicative planning or collaborative planning is a planning approach where planners use discourse, communication, and consensus building for facilitating the dialogue between the stakeholders involved in a planning issue and reaching a shared understanding of the problem and consensus on what to do (Verma 2007; Machler and Milz 2015). Unlike systematic planning, where decisions are taken on the basis of the technical expertise and skills of the planner, the main concern of communicative planning is the democratic management and control of urban and regional environments and the design of less oppressive planning mechanisms (Allmendinger and Tewdwr-Jones 2002).
Introduction Over the last three decades, a loss of confidence in the decision procedures in planning processes and the political system it relied upon has quested a reaffirmation of the case for radical forms of social democratic planning as an alternative to the market models put forward by the “new right” (Allmendinger and Tewdwr-Jones 2002). Aiming to escape from the frustration and cynicism that marked the world of planning theory in the 1970s (Machler and Milz 2015), the communicative model has emerged in the 1980s with the purpose of moving the focus of planning from “a preoccupation with the distribution of material resources” to a much broader “process of working out how to coexist in shared space” (Healey 1996, p. 219). Since then, a growing number of planning theorists have taken the so-called communicative turn (Healey 1996) in describing and theorizing urban and spatial planning to the point where some have declared the emergence of a dominant new paradigm (Huxley and Yiftachel 2000), and the term “communicative planning” has been used to denote a variety of planning strategies and theories focused
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on discourse and process (Flyvbjerg and Richardson 2002; Forester 1999; Khakee 1998; Sager 1994; Verma 2007; Olsson 2009). Collaborative planning is a form of planning conceived on certain theoretical foundations and assumptions and linked to concepts of democracy and progress (Healey 1992, 1997). It owes considerable debt to the critical social theory, mostly to Habermas’ theory of communicative action, which inspired the perception of planning as an interactive process (Healey 2003) and thus to the development of planning theories that recognize strategies and policies not as the outcome of objective, technical processes but as actively produced in social contexts (Stromberg 1999). Communicative planning implicates a profound transformation of the planning profession (Rode 2016): instead on solving problems on their own, planners act at first as mediators among the people involved in a planning situation (Fainstein 2000) and pay more attention on dialogue than decisions (Verma 2007; Olsson 2009). To understand the impact of communicative planning theory on spatial planning and strategy, the following discussion focuses at first on the theoretical outline of this approach, by analyzing the work of the main authors who have influenced its program of research and of the planners and scholars who have contributed mostly to its theoretical development, bringing these ideas to the fore in planning and thus generating a change of paradigm in their practice. Then it analyzes the main focus of the work of communicative planners, in particular the role of public participation in the collaborative planning process, as well as the main positive innovations that the application of communicative planning has brought to the planning field as well as the main critiques and observations to this theory. Finally, the essay highlights the qualities of such approach in fostering sustainability in urban and spatial planning and the potentiality of using still the communicative planning paradigm in the planning practice for meeting the future challenges.
Theoretical Outline During the last three decades, the so-called communicative turn has involved an increasing
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number of planning theorists: a rapidly growing amount of work drawing on social, ethnographic, and related studies has prompted some scholars and practitioners (Healey 1997; Forester 1999; Innes 1995; Mandelbaum 1996) to articulate the emergence of new forms of “collaborative” or “deliberative” planning and to affirm the ascendancy of a “new paradigm” based on the existence of a shared “consensus” among scholars on key theoretical and methodological questions (Huxley and Yiftachel 2000). Communicative planning theorists acknowledge several of the perceived inadequacies of those planners that, from the 1960s onward, have called to the attention of the planning community the need to clarify, in the planning process, the dynamics of decisions and information in order to establish an effective relationship between strategy and action, at first, by pointing out that planning problems are “wicked problems” because they are often confusing, dynamic, ambiguous, and difficult to identify and define (Rittle and Webber 1973) and, then, by underlying that problems usually tend to interact with one another at different levels, making it sometimes difficult to identify technical solutions (Schön 1983). Another critical point of decision-making in urban and spatial planning has been associated with the risk of making choices in a process built upon distorted information or ineffective forms of participation (Arnstein 1969). At the fundamentals of the communicative theory lays in fact the idea that things are understood both through our communication and interaction with other human beings (Machler and Milz 2015). In this respect, it builds a new discourse, inspired by Habermas’ social construction of knowledge, which challenges the traditional notion of representative democracy – by encouraging more direct forms of participation – and which links the planning activity to broader concepts of participatory or discursive democracy (Rode 2016). Jurgen Habermas and the Role of Communicative Rationality in Planning Practices One of the greatest influencer of communicative planning theorists is the German critical theorist Jürgen Habermas. In his theory of communicative
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rationality, Habermas (1984) proposes a different conception of human reason based on a shift of perspective from an individualized, subject-object conception of reason to reasoning formed within intersubjective communication (Healey 1992). The fundamental idea of his philosophy is that knowledge is constructed by power relationships between groups: not only the conversation is controlled and influenced by the group who have more power but also the way knowledge is communicated, how it is understood, the language it is based on, etc. determine a distorted understanding that reinforces certain power relationships instead of others in society (Machler and Milz 2015). This distorted communication described by Habermas reflects thus distorted power relationships: “groups who have more power than others, and can therefore control the conversation, have much more influence in establishing what counts as knowledge. More importantly, how this knowledge is communicated shapes power relationships” (Machler and Milz 2015, p. 20). Conversely, the theory of communicative rationality claims that broadly based interactive processes can produce not only real changes in people’s quality of life but can also bring quality of opportunities by fostering identity construction and social mobilization (Albrechts 2003). Collaborative planners emphasize urban and spatial planning as an activity where the decisionmaking process plays a fundamental role from the perspective of deliberative democracy. Hence, they believe it is the interest of the planning profession to guarantee that this process can be simultaneously consistent and fair (Sager 2002). The first who has transferred Habermas’ theories to urban and spatial planning is John Forester, who demonstrated that planners are not neutral participants in the planning process, but the words they use and the communication style they choose distort the flow of information and reinforce their power (Forester 1982, 1989). Judith Innes, in believing that the knowledge used by all the actors involved in a planning process – including planners – is not impartial but “socially constructed” (Machler and Milz 2015), has used Habermas’ communicative perspective to analyze the dynamics among community members and groups and thus reframe the
93 Communicative Turn in Spatial Planning and Strategy, Table 1 Successful plans according to Innes (1992) 1. Key stakeholders are incorporated 2. The participant groups are aware that the agreement they reached matter and thus they take the collaboration as an important task 3. The planning process is conducted by giving to all members an equal voice 4. Delegated experts (e.g., planners) act as bridges to fill the knowledge gaps among the participants Source: Machler and Milz (2015)
evaluation parameters of a planning process (Innes 1992) (Table 1). However, in the planning field, Habermas’ “communicative rationality” is mostly associated with the work of Patsy Healey, whose work is not only well known but also fully representative of the main objectives of communicative planning theory: a discipline that attempts to be empirical, interpretative, and critical (Khakee 1998; Mazza 2002). The Influence of Patsy Healey The work of Patsy Healey has been influenced not only by Habermas but also by other contributors to the “postmodern and antirationalist debate” such as Michel Foucault (1984) and Pierre Bourdieu (1990) and by the position of the economic geographer David Harvey (1989) and his attempt of reconstructing the “incomplete” project of modernity (Healey 1992). Like other communicative planning theorists, her research owes thus considerable debt to the critical social theory, and it is founded on “progressive planning practice,” “emancipatory way of knowing,” and “inclusionary argumentation” (Healey 1996). In her view, planning is a governance activity that occurs in complex and dynamic institutional environments, shaped by wider economic, social, and environmental forces that structure but do not determine specific interactions (Healey 2003, p. 104). Her project that became “collaborative” or “communicative planning” was thus inspired first by the perception of planning as an interactive and interpretative process. In interactive, communicative planning practice, planners, who are directly involved in community concerns, politics, and public decision-making, need a diverse
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94 Communicative Turn in Spatial Planning and Strategy, Table 2 Planning as a communicative practice in ten propositions (Healey 1992) 1. Planning is an interactive and interpretative process 2. Individuals are engaged with others in diverse, fluid, and overlapping “discourse communities” 3. Planning involves respectful discussions which means recognizing, valuing, listening to, and searching for translative possibilities between different discourse communities 4. Planning involves invention not only through programs or action but in the construction of the arenas within which these programs are formulated and conflicts are identified and mediated 5. A communicative process brings into play all dimensions of knowing, understanding, appreciating, experiencing, and judging 6. A reflexing and critical capacity should be kept alive in the processes of argumentation, using the Habermasian criteria of comprehensibility, integrity, legitimacy, and truth 7. This inbuilt critique serves the project of democratic pluralism by according “voice,” “ear,” and “respect” to all those with an interest in the issues at stake 8. Interaction is not simply a form of exchange, or bargaining around predefined interests, but it involves a process of mutual learning 9. The process of argumentation actively constructs new understandings and has the potential to change, to transform material conditions, and to establish power relations 10. Such an intercommunicative planning encourages the efforts at interdiscursive understanding, drawing on, critiquing, and reconstructing the understandings everyone brings to the discussion
range or resource and a continuing education in order to reduce distortion of information, discuss the qualities of places, and address the evident reality of conflicts of interest in noncombative ways (Healey 1998a, 2003) (Table 2). According to Healey (1998b), communicative planning is to a large extent an interactive communicative activity that involves, therefore, a dialogue between “stakeholders,” meaning those who have an interest in a place and represent different parties in processes of urban development and regeneration, where information is presented in a variety of ways (Khakee 1998). In giving such importance to dialogue and interactions among the participants, Healey’s communicative planning gives a specific interpretation of
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spatial planning and its objectives, by centering its focus on the capacity of political communities to organize and collaborate for the improvement of their place (Healey 1997). However, her position is not just confined in the analysis of the role of interaction and communication and is more complex: her work in fact focuses also on processes and outcomes and moves between two equally important themes: shaping the qualities of places and renewing the form of governance (Mazza 2002).
Relevant Issues in Communicative Planning Theory Over the last three decades, the communicative turn has undergone a number of mutations, from “planning through debate” to “communicative planning,” “argumentative planning,” “collaborative planning,” and “deliberative planning” (Allmendinger and Tewdwr-Jones 2002), and the term “communicative planning” has been used to denote a variety of planning strategies and theories focused on discourse and process (Olsson 2009). However, the fundamental ideal at the core of this shift has remained the same: a new recognition of the diversity of people affected by planning, their complex relations, and varied interests and values (Rode 2016). With the communicative or collaborative planning model, the focus of planning has thus moved from “a preoccupation with the distribution of material resources” to a much broader “process of working out how to coexist in shared space” (Healey 1996, p. 219), where planners serve as impartial mediators, working to ensure the results of collaboration are tailored for multiple and diverse audiences (Goodspeed 2016). By highlighting the role of social behavior, relations, and organization in planning, decisionmaking, and outcomes (Hoernig et al. 2005), the most critical issue in the work of community planners is probably how to link knowledge and action, which means at first the understanding of two main issues “how and under what circumstances knowledge affects decisions” and “how the planning process should be orchestrated in
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order to maximize the accumulation and use of knowledge” (Khakee 1998). In this regard, Healey (1996) has proposed to adopt an inclusionary approach, which means that planners, before initiating a strategic planning process, should design their activity by carefully investigating some crucial points: the place of the discussion and the style it will be used; the way issues will be addressed in the discussion; the development and the management of the chosen strategies; and the way citizens will agree or critique a strategy. In summary, in structuring their work, the role of participation – how and where it is delivered – is pivotal for the success of the communicative planning process. The Role of Public Participation in Communicative Planning Processes The forms of public participation in a planning process are diverse and can range from information-sharing, to formal consultation on proposals, through to various modes of partnership, delegated powers, and, finally, citizen control (Head 2007). Main issues in participation are information and dialogue (Innes and Booher 2004). If the planning process provides structured opportunities for participation, which means that citizens and stakeholders have the tools to question and present data, as well as information that can help to develop the quality of decisions, then it will be easier to achieve not only a common vision but also other essential results, like the creation of network and of institutional capacity (Innes and Booher 2004). On the contrary, ineffective and weak forms of participation, based on episodic, narrow, and bad faith forms of involvement and consultation, will lead to the failure of the communicative activity. To support knowledge development, problem solving, and the coordination of decisions and actions, some practical problems should be addressed when designing the planning process (Stromberg 1999). For example, the design and use of the type of arena (e.g., forum, courts, auditions) and their location (e.g., government building or neutral places) are a determining factor in open and participative governance which do not discredit the discussion (Healey 1996). Arenas
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could also change throughout the course of the communicative planning process. Another example of critical issue to address in public participation is the style of discourse during the planning process: it should be inclusionary, which means it should be comfortable and understandable for all the parties (but it should also consider non-present parties at the discussion), and it should address diversity by paying attention to language techniques and cultural barriers or misunderstandings (Healey 1996). By centering the planning activity around public participation, the role of communicative planners, as stated by Healey, is dual: one is to approach the need of shaping the quality of places and questioning institutional design so as to adapt the planning system to support communicative action; the other is to participate as mediator between the parties, by considering the planning process from a comprehensive cultural, social, and economic point of view and not from a specific and partial one (Stromberg 1999; Mazza 2002).
Critical Appraisal of Communicative Planning Theory During the last three decades, the interactive and communicative nature of planning has been widely recognized by planning theorists and practitioners (Khakee 1998). Besides offering more inclusive and democratic decision-making, collaborative planning approaches have been seen to have multiple potential benefits that are not confined to policies but include other essential results such as (Forester 1989; Healey 1996; Khakee 1998; Innes and Booher 2010; Rode 2016) the generation of communicative networks and of social and human capital, transformative learning and community empowerment, consensus and long-term commitment of key stakeholders, and ultimately greater social and environmental justice. In summary, the importance of collaborative planning has been seen in providing the possibility of a democratic approach to planning (Forester 1999), by moving between two equally important
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themes: shaping the qualities of places and renewing the form of governance (Mazza 2002). However, these characteristics have been critically attacked by those planning scholars and practitioners who keep believing that urban and spatial planning is at first related to the spatiality of social and economic processes and thus to spatial management (Huxley and Yiftachel 2000), asserting that communicative planning keeps privileging communication at the expense of its wider social and economic contexts. Moreover, it has been argued that, by focusing the attention on achieving consensus, communicative planning may exclude actors and mobilize bias in favor of a few alternatives (Olsson 2009). Even if communicative planning has undoubtedly increased its consensus through the years, becoming a dominant paradigm in postmodern planning, and most of the planning literature have taken the so-called communicative turn (Huxley and Yiftachel 2000), planning theory as a whole remains very diverse, and bias on communicative planning theory has been discussed by showing alternative positions. The main strengths and weaknesses of the communicative turn, which are diverse and interrelated, are summarized in the following two paragraphs. Strengths of Communicative Planning Theory Much of the reasons for the success of communicative planning theory is that it provides valuable strategies for conflict management, by building local coalitions with common interest and even bridging social capital among stakeholders, and that it provides a useful lens for looking at the participation of community groups in comprehensive plan-making processes (Gallent and Ciaffi 2014). Furthermore, as a collective action, supporters of communicative planning theory assert that this planning approach is not only designed to create plans, data, and analyses but also networks that have the potential to create and sustain social capital, which can be utilized by each individual in further interactive contexts (Olsson 2009): in other words, it shifts the task of urban and spatial planning from “building places” to fostering the institutional capacity in territorial political communities
Communicative Turn in Spatial Planning and Strategy
for ongoing “place-making” activities (Healey 1998a). The undiscussed value of social capital is therefore regarded as an important incentive for actors to contributing time and other resources in a communicative planning process (Olsson 2009). By placing the emphasis on the importance of building new policy discourses about the qualities of places, of developing collaboration among stakeholders in policy development as well as delivery, and widening stakeholder involvement beyond traditional power elites, the collaborative approach has been credited with the merit of recognizing the value of different forms of local knowledge and with the quality of building rich social networks as a resource of institutional capital through which new initiatives can be taken rapidly and legitimately (Healey 1998a). It has in fact been acknowledged that these types of mechanisms could bring multiple benefits such as an increase appeal of a common political project, a renewed policy process, a more equal balance of power, and a better understanding of the nature and of the possibility of political consensus (Rode 2016). Even if communicative planning theory is mainly a theory of planning practice, advocates of this approach assert that it has also a strong normative concern and, moreover, that a basic feature of the communicative planning theory is the intertwining of the interpretative and normative aspects (Khakee 1998). In describing, interpreting, and explaining what they do, planners are not only forced to define, exemplify, and elucidate their planning practice, they are inevitably reflecting on the relationship between problems and issues experienced in their everyday work and facing the larger structural shape of the political economy in which they work (Khakee 1998). In summary, the communicative turn would positively involve not only theories that look primarily at the dynamics of successful group processes but also to the understanding of the setup and functioning of institutions and governance arrangements in order to promote transformative change (Machler and Milz 2015). The Limits of Communicative Planning Theory Probably as first critique to communicative planning, detractors assert that communicative
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theorists privilege the study of planning processes, rather than outcomes, with the result of forgetting the multiple nature of the planning process, which is characterized, instead, by all policies and practices which contribute to the development of the urban and regional environment under the rules of the current democratic system (Fainstein 2000; Huxley and Yiftachel 2000; Brand and Gaffikin 2007) and thus of producing vague or ineffective consensus plans, policy, or investment ideas (Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger 1998). The theory has also been criticized for the limited understanding it provides of social relations necessary for the redistribution of resources to marginalized groups and thus for not addressing complex structures of power and influence in planning situations (Olsson 2009; Gallent and Ciaffi 2014). Another issue regards stakeholders’ involvement. Critics of communicative planning assert that, if one examines the “deliberative designs” that are advocated, the logistical problems are clearly revealed (Allmendinger and TewdwrJones 2002). The first problem is that only the minority of the relevant population is usually involved in the plan-making process because the tools used by communicative planners are designed for small groups of citizens randomly selected from the populations concerned: “citizens,” “juries,” “community workshops,” or “focus groups” are an example of underrepresented form of inhabitants’ involvement (Allmendinger and Tewdwr-Jones 2002). To them, it is also questionable the level of comprehension that such groups could achieve when involved in the making of strategic plans and other “integrated land use policies” which permeate urban and regional economies and environmental systems (Allmendinger and TewdwrJones 2002). A further critical point of communicative planning theory is based on the recognition of the apparent paradox that occurs when the promotion of collaborative practices – rooted in values of cohesion, solidarity, and inclusivity – meets “a world that can be seen as ever more individualist, socially fragmented, competitive, or in other words, un-collaborative” (Brand and Gaffikin
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2007, p. 283). In summary, according to this point of view, communicative planning theory is founded on the assumptions that the parties engaged in the collaborative process are negotiating in good faith and willing to compromise (Gallent and Ciaffi 2014). At the basis of this position, there is the belief that despite the factors which appear to favor a new platform for more collaborative decision-making – e.g., the reduced certitudes and predictabilities and thus the level of complexity of the postmodern word; the demands for accountability and the need to interact with multiple stakeholders due to the shift to new modes of governance; the new forms of entrepreneurship and collaboration among these stakeholders, linked to new characteristics the changing economy; and the increasing hegemony of a model of neoliberalism that has dismantled old divisions between state and market to accommodate new synergistic partnerships – the material and political process which shape cities and regions includes also dynamics that foster much less participative practice and thus the purpose of greater decisiveness and speed in plan-making (Brand and Gaffikin 2007).
The Longevity of Communicative Planning Theory Despite the critics, it is widely recognized that the communicative turn has shaped current urban and spatial planning by establishing its presence in the planning community with more participatory practices (Machler and Milz 2015), becoming undoubtedly the most prominent postmodern planning approach (Rode 2016). The loss of confidence in the political system (Forester 1989; Sager 1994; Innes 1995) has contributed to the rise of a new planning model – that one proposed by communicative planning theory – where the solution of problems and conflicts is developed with a comprehensive cultural, social, and economic point of view and not with a specific and partial one (Mazza 2002). Other factors have contributed to the communicative turn. The environmental problems that started to threat the planet (e.g., environmental
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disasters, energetic crisis, etc.) from the late 1970s onward have introduced the concept of sustainability, which has begun to be systematically debated and discussed in major policy and academic conferences (e.g., the Brundtland Report in 1987 and the Rio Summit in 1992), with the growing assumption that sustainable development is more than environmentalism: it is a cultural problem and a social attitude, too (Machler and Milz 2015). Communicative planning theory, thus, has also been developed with the attempt of tackling sustainability – and problems related to sustainability – by proposing a different perspective in challenging problems which is not based on the pure application of technical knowledge of external experts but founded on a collaborative approach where strategies and policies are actively produced in social contexts through comprehensive plan-making processes (Stromberg 1999; Healey 2003). Considering the impact that climate change and related sustainability problems is having in the context of governmental policies and actions at diverse levels (from the global to the national, the regional and the local level), it can be easily assumed that communicative planning will continue to provide not only a useful lens to understand the impact of these problems on local communities – without missing the understanding of the diverse dynamics in the wider strategic context – but also a valuable tool for developing a set of collective actions that can lead to effective and durable transformative change. The diffusion of communication technologies and social media, where the Internet appears as a giant network of interconnected computers sharing information and as a place organized without a hierarchy or a chain of command, represents another crucial issue for communicative planning theory (Machler and Milz 2015). If the “networked society” is summed with the fact that culture worldwide is increasingly fragmented and volatile, achieving consensus appears as the first step for the success of spatial strategies (Faga 2006), and communicative planning represents probably the most effective practice to ensure better debate, discussion, and deliberation for the designing of shared futures.
Communicative Turn in Spatial Planning and Strategy
More recently, the recognition of the high level of complexity and fragmentation in current environments has brought communicative planners to refocus and evolve their theories toward planning models which propose an adaptive governance framework able to incorporate the diversity inherent in complex problems (Machler and Milz 2015). Within such a scenario, the value of public debates and interactions will continue to grow, and the need for places where building new policy discourses will still be a key requisite of plan making. If this is the future, the structural weaknesses of communicative planning theory argued by part of the planners’ community (e.g., see Fainstein 2000; Huxley 2000; Huxley and Yiftachel 2000) could probably appear as less relevant, and the communicative turn will continue not only to flourish, but its appeal as a planning practice will probably increase (Goodspeed 2016).
Cross-References ▶ Participatory Design: Participatory Urban Management ▶ Rethinking Empowerment: Seeking Justice, Not Just Sustainability ▶ Spatial Planning and Sustainable Cities and Communities ▶ Sustainable Urban Planning and Making Sustainable Cities
References Albrects L (2003) Planning and power: Towards an emancipatory planning approach. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 21(6):905–924. https://doi. org/10.1068/c29m Allmendinger P, Tewdwr-Jones M (2002) Planning futures: new directions for planning theory. Routledge, London/New York Arnstein S (1969) A ladder of citizen participation. J Am Inst Plann 35(4):216–224. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 01944366908977225 Bourdieu P (1990) In other words: essays towards a reflective sociology. Polity Press, Oxford Brand R, Gaffikin F (2007) Collaborative planning in an uncollaborative world. Planning Theory 6(3):282–313. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473095207082036 Faga B (2006) Designing public consensus: the civic theatre of community participation for architects
Communicative Turn in Spatial Planning and Strategy landscape architects, planners and urban designers. Wiley, London Fainstein SS (2000) New directions in planning theory. Urban Aff Rev 35(4):451–478. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/107808740003500401 Flyvbjerg B, Richardson T (2002) Planning and Foucault: in search of the dark side of planning theory. In: Allmendinger P, Tewdwr-Jones M (eds) Planning futures: new directions for planning theory. Routledge, London, pp 42–62 Forester J (1982) Planning in the face of power. J Am Plan Assoc 48(1):67–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 01944368208976167 Forester J (1989) Planning in the face of power. University of California Press, Berkeley Forester J (1999) The deliberative practitioner: encouraging participatory planning processes. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA Foucault M (1984) Space, knowledge and power. In: Rabinow P (ed) The Foucault reader. Pantheon Books, New York, pp 239–256 Gallent N, Ciaffi D (2014) Communities, community action and planning. In: Gallent N, Ciaffi D (eds) Community action and planning. Context, drivers and outcomes. Bristol University Press, Bristol, pp 3–20 Goodspeed R (2016) The death and life of collaborative planning theory. Urban Planning 1(4):1–5. https://doi. org/10.17645/up.v1i4.715 Habermas J (1984) The theory of communicative action vol. 1: reasons and the rationalisation of society. Beacon Press, Boston Harvey D (1989) The condition of postmodernity. Blackwell, Oxford Head BW (2007) Community engagement: participation on whose terms? Aust J Polit Sci 42(3):441–454. https://doi.org/10.1080/10361140701513570 Healey P (1992) Planning through debate: the communicative turn in planning theory. Town Plann Rev 62(2):143–162. https://doi.org/10.3828/tpr.63.2.422x602303814821 Healey P (1996) The communicative turn in planning theory and its implications for spatial strategy formation. Environ Plann B Plann Des 23(2):217–234. https://doi.org/10.1068/b230217 Healey P (1997) Collaborative planning: shaping places in fragmented societies. UBC Press, Vancouver Healey P (1998a) Building institutional capacity through collaborative approaches to urban planning. Environ Plan A Econ Space 30(9):1531–1546. https://doi.org/ 10.1068/a301531 Healey P (1998b) Collaborative planning in a stakeholder society. Town Plann Rev 69(1):1–21. https://doi.org/ 10.3828/tpr.69.1.h651u2327m86326p Healey P (2003) Collaborative planning in perspective. Plann Theory 2(2):101–123. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 14730952030022002 Hoernig H, Leahy D, Zhuang ZX, Early R, Randall L, Whitelaw G (2005) Planning for people: integrating social issues and processes into planning practice. Berkeley Plann J 18(1):35–55. http://scholarship.org/ uc/ucb_crp_bpj/18/1. Accessed 25 Oct 2010
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100 2–5 October 1999. http://www.greenstructureplanning. eu/MAPweb/Goteb/index.htm. Accessed 25 July 2018 Tewdwr-Jones M, Allmendinger P (1998) Deconstructing communicative rationality: a critique of Habermasian collaborative planning. Environ Plan A 30(11): 1975–1989. https://doi.org/10.1068/a301975 Verma N (2007) Institutions and planning: an analogical inquiry. In: Verma N (ed) Institutions and planning. Elsevier, Oxford, pp 1–16
Community Engagement ▶ Urban Regeneration and Sustainable Housing Renewal Trends
Community Gardening ▶ Urban Farming and Its Role in Enhancing the Sustainability of Cities
Compact City as a Model Achieving Sustainable Development Elisa Conticelli Department of Architecture, School of Engineering and Architecture, Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
Synonyms High density city; Mixed-use city; Transitoriented city
Definition There is not a common definition of compact city in literature, indeed this concept is one of the most discussed in contemporary urban policy. Nevertheless, the compact city model is expected to
Community Engagement
improve cities’ environmental, social, and economic performance, by influencing the use of space and by integrating different urban policies. The compact city definition can be structured with reference to the following approaches: “to increase built area and residential population densities; to intensify urban economic, social and cultural activities and to manipulate urban size, form and structure and settlement systems in pursuit of the environmental, social and global sustainability benefits derived from the concentration of urban functions” (Burgess 2000, pp. 9–10). The 2012 OECD Report on Compact City Policies gives a synthetic definition of the compact city as a “Spatial urban form characterized by ‘compactness’” and with some “key characteristics as: (i) dense and proximate development patterns; (ii) urban areas linked by public transport systems; and (iii) accessibility to local services and jobs” (OECD 2012, p. 26). Therefore, the compact city concept in the framework of sustainable development does not only mean to enhance urban density but rather to combine the quantitative concept of density within other goals and requirements aiming to undertake high levels of economic viability, environmental quality, social equity in the urban environment.
The Controversial Paradigm of the Compact City The compact city model has always been a controversial and discussed concept, characterizing the last 150 years of urban policies. More recently it has been associated with the sustainability imperatives thus gaining a wide consensus among the urban planning strategies developed worldwide and fighting against dispersed settlements and mono-functional suburbs. At the same time, also with the appearance of new urban issues, such as climate change effects and new territorial risks, it has received several critiques as well, making the compact city model more and more complex and rather discussed for promoting a real sustainable development.
Compact City as a Model Achieving Sustainable Development
From the Ancient to the Spread City The compact city concept arose with the origin of cities. They were exemplified by dense and very small areas surrounded by walls, where residents carefully allocated space to residential areas, public squares, and roads. The main and widely recognized model of compact city is the medieval city. Indeed, in the Middle Age urban density within the city walls was high and the city was compact and mixed use since people lived and worked in a confined space. This dense structure encouraged concentration of activities and of new inhabitants rather than new expansions. This form was developed in most European cities during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as well as the central parts of many older cities in North America, Australia, and New Zealand, to ensure destinations were within a reasonable walking distance (Newman 1992). During the industrial revolution in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, city walls were gradually destroyed in all those cities where industrial, transport, and port activities were more developed. The original urban order and the ancient compact city form came to an end. These new economies attracted large numbers of people from rural areas, giving birth to a new and rapid urban growth, thus producing a physical explosion of the urban fabric as well as big health problems due to the lack of capacity in sewage and garbage disposal and the co-existence of polluting firms and overcrowded housing. The spread development of passenger trains and trams coincided with massive urbanization throughout Europe, North America, and Australasia (Newman 1992). During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the compact city became both a tool for containing uncontrolled urban expansions and a critical model to be overcome in order to ensure better urban living conditions. Consequently, greenbelt policies were developed in several European cities as a planning tool for limiting urban expansions through new green boundaries, following the removal of city walls (Kühn 2003). Ebenezer Howard theorized the “Garden City” concept, based on a greenbelt hosting agricultural and recreational
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activities developed around a city for limiting its expansion. The fundamental aim of greenbelt policy was to prevent urban sprawl by keeping land permanently open. Especially in UK, greenbelts have become an important part of the National policy during the twentieth century, but other European cities such as Vienna, Barcelona, Budapest, and Berlin have followed this tradition (Kühn 2003) and several other non-European cities such as Washington, DC, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Seoul, Sydney, and Melbourne adopted this policy (Tang et al. 2007). At the same time the Garden city theory looked beyond the city borders by foreseeing to establish new self-sufficient Garden Cities, which would house a socially mixed population and would be surrounded by greenbelts. This regional, decentralizing vision gained relevance not only in Europe but also in Russia, where the abolition of old cities and the dispersion of populations into the countryside was encouraged (Hirt 2007) and in the USA, where Frank Lloyd Wright theorized Broadacre City, a radical dispersal scheme where each lot was at least 1 acre. The influence of these utopias favored the uncontrolled spread of low-density suburbs, especially around North American, Australian, and New Zealand cities. Moreover, the introduction of the automobile occurred during the first decades of the twentieth century, ensured people to be not obliged to live in the city or close to a transit station anymore, but to escape pollution and noise by living outside the city, using their private motorized vehicle to reach their place of employment every day and any other destination. The direct consequence was the development of low-density suburban sprawl and the decentralization of cities since the early twentieth century, which characterized mostly North American, Australian, and New Zealand cities (Arbury 2006) as well as the European cities after the Second World War. Rediscovering the Compact City for Achieving Sustainable Development During the 1960s the negative effects due to urban sprawl became evident as a social issue, especially in the USA. Indeed, the sprawl of suburbs generated segregation, the loss of community values,
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Compact City as a Model Achieving Sustainable Development
and less leisure time, due to the longer commuting times. The planning theories and practices that strongly opposed to density in the urban context till the beginning of 1900 were progressively questioned and density has been rediscovered as a condition favoring the mix of human preferences, social diversity, uses, activities, etc. (Moroni 2016). The first endorsements to more compact settlements came from the social sciences. Indeed, Jane Jacobs, an American sociologist, argued that the city, with its vitality, mix of uses and traditions, rather than low-density suburbs, represented the most desirable form of development (Jacobs 1961), by implicitly referring to compact city’s main features. In her studies she supported compact city neighborhoods where different kinds of households and individuals live together, establishing relationships more easily than in dispersed singleuse, single family suburbs. Since 1970s, the awareness of the negative effects due to urban sprawl further increased, affecting not only social aspects but also environmental consequences, thus pushing towards the promotion of more compact settlements. The 1987 World Commission on Environment and Development’s Our Common Future (WCED 1987), also known as the “Brundtland Report,” introduced the concept of sustainability to the broad public. Sustainability has been embedded in urban planning theory and the compact city began to emerge as the most sustainable model of urban growth, ensuring the two sustainability imperatives of resource conservation and wasteminimization (Burgess 2000). The compact city concept was widely discussed during the 1990s in many countries worldwide as a way to address urban sustainability (OECD 2012). In this process the European Commission played a key role with the publication of the “Green Paper on the Urban Environment” (CEC 1990) where urban containment policies and more compact forms are encouraged assuming that they make urban areas more environmentally sustainable and improve quality of life (Jenks and Jones 2010; Jabareen 2006). Indeed, as summarized by Jenks and Jones (2010, p. 2) “compact urban forms would reduce urban sprawl, protect agricultural and amenity land, and lead to more efficient use of existing,
previously developed urban land. With a mixture of uses in much closer proximity, alternative modes of travel would be encouraged, such as walking and cycling, and public transport use would also increase. This in turn would lead to environmental, social and economic benefits.” This position has been assumed by urban planners and scholars all over the world who recognized a lot of advantages in intensifying the density of urban settlements. The most cited benefit was that the compact city model is more sustainable in terms of energy consumption and pollution than suburbs (Breheny 1995; Newman and Kenworthy 1989). Indeed, denser cities could optimize energy and transport flows by taking advantage from the reduced distances among dwellings, work places, businesses, and public services and facilities, thus enhancing public transport, and consequently by reducing air and noise pollution and increasing protection of agricultural land and open spaces (Burton et al. 2000; Jenks and Burgess 2000; Neuman 2005; Churchman 1999; Breheny 1992; Conticelli et al. 2017). Consequently, another important aspect characterizing the compact city model is the mix of different urban uses. Generally mixed-use development is able to reduce travel times and to support more sustainable means of transport by locating businesses services and workplaces among residential areas, overcoming the rationalist separation of the urban functions or the singleuse suburban city model. Denser mixed-use environments achieve also social and economic sustainability by favoring social inclusion and equity, through easier access to services and facilities by foot, bicycle or public transport, and encouraging people meet each other by face-to -face interactions (Williams 1999; Bramley and Power 2009; Arbury 2006). As Neuman (2005) pointed out, this thesis was claimed not only by scientists but also by important institutions, such as the Urban Land Institute (1998), the American Planning Association (1999), the European Environment Agency (1998), and the United Nations (1992). This generated a wide consensus around the importance to plan more compact cities, particularly in Europe, the United States, and Australia.
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An effective synthesis of main socioeconomic and environmental goals linked to high-density environments emerging from several planning documents has been proposed by Churchman (1999). These relate to the following spheres: environmental quality, transportation systems, physical infrastructure and urban form, social factors, and economic factors. Recent Urban Planning Movements and Theories Advocating the Compact City Model During the 1990s, the ideal of the “compact city” inspired real movements that have been initially developed and further codified in the AngloSaxon countries, where the suburban development was born (Reale 2008). The US smart growth movement, endorsed by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), was born with the aim of preserving open spaces and parkland and protecting critical ecosystems form urban sprawl. The main principles were to improve low-carbon transportation choices (walking, bicycling, and transit), to promote brownfield redevelopment and imperviousness reduction, and to develop better higher density housing (Smart Growth Network 2006; Danielsen et al. 1999). A branch of the Smart Growth movement is the New Urbanism, whose theorization has been generally attributed to Duany and Plater-Zyberk (1991) and advocated in the USA as a response to urban sprawl. The New Urbanism approach seeks to achieve compact, liveable, pedestrian friendly, and mixeduse neighborhoods (CUN 1999) by giving a strong importance to a human-scaled urban master design (Neuman 2005). The New Urbanism design proposal is based upon adapting the design principles of “traditional” towns to the modern life style, integrating walkable communities with a strong local identity. The urban structure is strongly based on a Transit-Oriented Development, an urban planning model theorized by the New Urbanist Peter Calthorpe (1993), which tends to intensify the presence of residential, business uses, leisure, and facilities within a walking distance of public transport nodes, to drastically reduce the need of car.
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These movements of architects and urban planners arrived to define real densification techniques of existing settlements, by producing handbooks and guidelines where urban planning and design techniques specific for achieving compact and mixed-use settlements have been punctually codified. In Europe the compact city has been deeply investigated especially in the British literature, where several scientists wrote extensively on the topic. Intensification theories and policies investigated in the British context were focused on maximizing the use of urban land, with the redevelopment of existing buildings, vacant and derelict land, the intensification of activities in order to preserve the countryside and open spaces in urban areas (Jenks et al. 1996). A valuable contribution was provided by the Urban Task Force led by Richard Rogers who advocated the idea of a well-designed, compact, and connected city designed around its public spaces (Urban Task Force 1999). The city is conceived as not in contradiction with the aim of ensuring good life conditions and wellbeing. The sustainable city model proposed by Rogers is characterized by few key elements: compactness and polycentric structure, good connections based on public transport, walking and cycling, mixeduse urban environments, socially mixed, environmentally responsible, well-designed urban environment, and technologically advanced. By undertaking such a compact city model, Rogers puts on the agenda the priority need to upgrade the existing urban fabric and to use the derelict and brownfield sites before developing greenfield. New Challenges for the Compact City: Further Evolution of the Concept As already stressed, the compact city concept has gained a wide consensus during the final part of the last century, evolving from a simple urban containment policy to protect the natural environment and agricultural land, to a multipurpose policy that includes sustainability principles (OECD 2012). This leads to the proposition of specific strategies and targets aimed at preserving land and consequently at intensifying the existing city. As a matter of fact, in Europe specific targets
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for limiting land take and promoting compactness have been introduced by the European Commission within the EU Environment Action Programme to 2020 (seventh EAP) which aims to have policies in place by 2020 in order to achieve “no net land take” by 2050 in each Member State. However, while the drive towards the promotion of more compact cities became strong, several studies have expressed some concerns about its potential to de facto ensure urban sustainability (Breheny 1992, 1996; Stretton 1996; Gordon and Richardson 1997; Mindali et al. 2004; Jenks and Burgess 2000; Williams et al. 2000; Neuman 2005). The predicted benefits due to the implementation of compact city policies were not happening as they were foreseen, and the effects were not in line with economic environmental and social demands (Thomas and Cousins 1996). Compact urban forms and urban density have reflected complex and multifaceted issues that should have been carefully managed and assessed to ensure liveability, health, and wellbeing of the urban environment, as well as to reduce CO2 emissions and energy consumption in cities. Moreover, new challenges have been identified in the framework of urban sustainability, such as urban resilience and climate change adaptation, which require open permeable spaces and greener solutions. Indeed, exceeding in increasing the urban density could determine not only the increase of traffic congestion, air and noise pollution, and GHG emissions but also the lack of necessary green spaces and permeable soils for limiting the UHI effects and the risks due to the occurrence of ordinary and extreme weather events, such as floods or heatwaves. Consequently, the debate of these last few years has focused on the conflicting balance between a just containment of land take and optimal compactness that ensures minimum levels of urban green spaces. As a matter of fact, the loss of green space and arable land and the deterioration of ecosystems are concerns for both developed and developing countries, since by 2030 two-thirds of the world’s population will be living in cities, the urban population in developing countries will double, and the area covered by cities could triple (Un-Habitat 2016). At the
same time cities’ request of open green spaces and higher quality of life seems constantly increasing (OECD 2012). Therefore, the challenge today is to constantly assess not only that intensification processes are aimed at regenerating existing urban fabrics, providing cites with necessary services and amenities, but also that the compact city model is liveable, e.g., that ensures optimal climate conditions, liveability, public health, and good functioning of existing urban systems and infrastructures (Conticelli et al. 2017). With the SDG11 the 2030 Urban Agenda clearly recognizes the importance to promote more compact settlements. Indeed, the SDG11 stresses the need of a more efficient use of land considered as able to better provide and manage public services (water, transport, waste) at a lower cost and to consume less energy than dispersed settlements. This position gives new attention to the positive effects of more compact settlements, encouraging further investigations on understanding what are the key features of compact cities and the importance to define optimal values on what constitutes an efficient land use and indicators to measure it.
Key Features of Compact Cities Measuring Urban Compactness Measuring density and compactness is a typical task planner do to calculate specific requirements of urban services, to estimate site capacities, and to control urban development on specific sites. There are several ways of measuring urban compactness, depending on the scale under analysis (city, neighborhood, individual site, plot levels). The most common indicator is urban density, which can be expressed in different ways, varying from country to country (Burton 2002; Churchman 1999). In all cases, density is a ratio in which the numerator is a quantity of human activity, such as residents, jobs, or built form, and the denominator represents a given land base. The choice of numerator depends on the phenomenon under investigation. The most common ways of measuring density are:
Compact City as a Model Achieving Sustainable Development
• Dwelling unit density, the number of dwellings within a standard spatial unit, which is commonly used at city scale for estimating the housing needs and as reference unit by the real estate market. It is also an important parameter for estimating the minimum legal requirements of public facilities and services, such as water and sewer pipes, roads, and electricity to buildings. • Population density, the number of people within a standard spatial unit, which is commonly used by technicians for establishing the urban load of a new development and then for sizing infrastructural networks and systems. Indeed, population density is an appropriate indicator of potential transit use, to make such service viable. Population density may also provide information about urban vitality: high population density can enhance social interactions due to proximity. A similar parameter frequently used together population density is the employment density, measuring the number of jobs in any given area. • Floor area density expressed in floor area ratio (FAR) and also known as Plot Ratio and Floor Space Index – which is the ratio of the number of square meters (feet) of floor space in buildings to the square meters (feet) of the property or lot. It is commonly used at the parcel scale, is very useful for studying the link between density and urban form, and is strongly oriented to the project. All of these measures may be either net or gross: net density is calculated within a development site and excludes roads, parks, and other nonresidential land uses; gross density includes all land uses within a given area incorporating the broader network of public spaces. Although these are common measures of the same entity, they provide different information; therefore, it is important to look at all the three numbers to obtain a detailed picture of density for a given area. In fact, the relationship between population, dwelling unit, and floor area densities depends on household size and crowding. Moreover, at a wider scale, residential density based on the extent of the total amount of
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urbanized areas can give interesting information of what city expansion is going on. In fact, it registers the relationship between city expansion and population growth. Density is a quantitative indicator, therefore is very useful in describing the urban form in quantitative terms, while its usefulness to capture the qualitative characteristics is limited. Indeed, it does not control the building height; thus, it is quite possible to build high-rise low-density or low-rise high-density. In this sense density should be considered in conjunction with other indicators describing the urban form. An additional indicator completing density is the coverage, which is the ratio of the ground floor area of enclosed buildings to the area of the lot. Developments with the same FAR may have very different coverage, thus producing different urban environments in terms of building heights and open spaces. The OECD (2012) proposes additional indicators for describing urban compactness as well as densification policies. One parameter is proximity, concerning how urban functions are sprawled in a metropolitan area. It measures how much one urban activity is close to another in a metropolitan area, thus being applied both to monocentric and polycentric settlements. Proximity can be measured by analyzing the average transport distances due to commuting as well as to shopping and leisure and by mapping land cover data, to estimate how much land is used for urban purposes. Other indicators are related with the presence public transport systems which are necessary to underpin high urban densities. They can be expressed in terms of share of trips using public transport in total trips, or share of population and/or employment within a given walkable distance to public transport stops in total population. Another key parameter describing urban compactness is the mix of use, most widely used to indicate accessibility to local services and jobs, but less frequently considered and measured by urban planners. In literature mixed land use concept has not a unique meaning and finding proper indicators is a challenge. Burton (2002) identified three main indicators describing the mix of uses: varied and plentiful supply of facilities and
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services, showing the provision of public facilities and the balance between residential and nonresidential land uses; horizontal mix of uses, describing the geographical distribution of different uses throughout the city; vertical mix of uses, referring the mix of uses within single buildings. Techniques and Tools for Increasing Urban Compactness Pursuing a compact city model implies to undertake a process of making existing cities denser, encouraging more people to live in urban areas, and building at higher densities. This means to intensify cities. The term “urban intensification” is commonly related with processes that make an area more compact. It is also compared with “urban consolidation” an alternative term describing the same intensification and compaction processes, frequently used in Australian literature. Land-use planning and zoning are cities’ primary tools for increasing urban density. Land-use planning has the role of ordering and regulating land use in an efficient and sustainable way. Governments use land-use planning to manage the development of land within their jurisdictions by planning for the needs of the community while safeguarding natural resources. By doing so landuse planning typically encompasses zoning which regulates the types of activities that can be accommodated on a given piece of land, as well as the amount of space devoted to those activities, and the ways that buildings may be situated and shaped. Within this framework, specific tools can be identified as mainly dedicated to increase urban compactness. These can be grouped in two main categories: planning and incentive-based tools. Planning and Design Tools
Two main techniques applied for intensify existing urban developments are “infilling” and “redevelopment.” Both techniques are aimed at increase not only the urban density but also the mix of uses of the entire neighborhood. Infilling consists in small urban interventions on an already developed lot aimed at adding more units and regenerating the existing urban fabrics.
Although this is the most obvious strategy to increase urban density, it faces many obstacles, due to the lack of empty infill sites and the opposite need to preserve and ensure green open spaces within the city. Urban redevelopment occurs when a built-up area is totally replaced with new buildings and open spaces. In general, it happens in existing urban areas, which are underutilized or abandoned, or in brownfields and often involves a rezoning by the local government, representing a chance to build high-density buildings or urban attractors (mixed-use or commercial) thus increasing the overall density of the neighborhood. It is frequently accompanied by a provision of infrastructure improvements (mass transit, such as metro lines) that can support such up-zoning. There are additional intensification techniques affecting the density but with no particular effects on the urban form: e.g., the increase of the number of housing units due to the division of large dwelling, and the rehabilitation of vacant or underused buildings. The former influences the possibility to host an increased number of people in a given area and the latter ensues a maximization of the use of built up assets. These techniques are applied not only for intensifying built-up areas within cities but also as methods for repairing the negative effects of urban sprawl in suburbs. As a matter of fact, especially in the USA, these techniques have been included within more articulated and codified techniques aimed at undertaking a sound reconfiguration of dispersed mono-functional suburbs, comprised under the name of Sprawl repair techniques (Tachieva 2010) and methods for retrofitting suburbia (Dunham-Jones and Williamson 2009). Besides the attempt of intensifying suburban areas, these methodologies aim at redesigning and re-urbanizing elements typical of the American dispersed suburbs, such as: • Dying malls, strip malls and enclosed malls • Postwar suburban system of thoroughfares (the highway, the arterial, the collector, the local and the cul-de-sac) which are transformed into complete, multimodal streets
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• Huge and empty parking lots, which are resized and redeveloped with the introduction of new functions • Conventional single-use zoning, made of single-family houses, which are retrofitted through a rezoning creating a hierarchy of public spaces and new urban functions Incentive-Based Tools
Additional measures encouraging urban density are incentive-based tools. One example is represented by density bonuses, widely used in the United States. They allow developers to increase the maximum allowable development on a site than that normally permitted in exchange for either funds or in-kind support for specified public policy goals, such as affordable housing, additional public facilities and spaces, as well as environmental conservation. This tool works best in cities in which market demand is strong and land availability limited. Another measure is the transfer of building rights. Development rights generally refer to the maximum amount of floor area permissible on a given lot. When the actual built floor area is less than the maximum permitted floor area, the difference is referred to as “unused development rights,” municipalities can dispose (and transfer) to engage in more intensive land development (Amirtahmasebi et al. 2016). This tool is mainly applied as an incentive to intensifying cities thus avoiding urban sprawl. Landowners in peri-urban and suburban areas are encouraged to sell their development rights to private developers, realizing an economic return. Developers, in turn, have an interest in building increased density in urban areas where there is strong market demand.
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since the very beginning of the discipline and even before. In fact, there is no city without compactness. Two main ways of defining what is city have been identified at global level in the framework of the SDG work (UN-Habitat 2018). They are clearly based on city compactness and density. The former considers the urban extent, i.e., the contiguous area occupied by buildings and other impervious surfaces, which is measured in terms of extent of built-up sites within a given area thus generating three main classes: urban built-up areas, suburban built-up areas, and rural built-up areas. The latter defines cities against their degree of urbanization, which is expressed in terms of population size, density, and contiguity of settlements. This classification distinguishes three settlement types: densely, intermediate, and thinly populated areas. Moreover, the Sustainable Development Goals recognize the compact city as a good model to make cities and human settlement inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. Indeed the SDG11 considers reducing urban sprawl as one of the actions through which achieving sustainable cities and communities. This will inevitably be an important worldwide reference in the compact city debate for the forthcoming decades.
Cross-References ▶ Sustainable Urban Planning and Making Sustainable Cities ▶ Urban Mobility and Transportation ▶ Urbanization and Urban Growth: Sustainable Cities for Safeguarding Our Future
Conclusions
References
The compact city concept has evolved over time showing to be rather controversial for achieving sustainable development because there still remain many questions surrounding exactly how compact the compact city should be. However, it has been a reference model in urban planning
Amirtahmasebi R, Orloff M, Wahba S, Altman A (2016) Regenerating urban land. A practitioner’s guide to leveraging private investment. World Bank Group, Washington, DC Arbury J (2006) From urban sprawl to compact city – an analysis of urban growth management in Auckland. University of Auckland, Auckland
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Bramley G, Power S (2009) Urban form and social sustainability: the role of density and housing type. Environ Plann B 36:30–48 Breheny MJ (1992) The contradictions of the compact city: a review. In: Breheny MJ (ed) Sustainable development and urban form. Pion Ltd., London, pp 138–159 Breheny MJ (1995) The compact city and transport energy consumption. Trans Inst Br Geogr 20(1):81–101 Breheny MJ (1996) Centrists, decentrists and compromisers: views on the future of urban form. In: Jenks M, Burton E, Williams K (eds) The compact city: a sustainable urban form? E & FN Spon, London, pp 13–35 Burgess R (2000) The compact city debate: a global perspective. In: Jenks M, Burgess R (eds) Compact cities. Sustainable urban forms for developing countries. Spon Press, London, pp 9–24 Burton E (2002) Measuring urban compactness in UK towns and cities. Environ Plan B Plan Des 29(2):219–250 Burton E, Jenks M, Williams K (eds) (2000) Achieving sustainable urban form. E & FN Spon, London Calthorpe P (1993) The next American metropolis: ecology, community and the American dream. Princeton Architectural Press, New York Churchman A (1999) Disentangling the concept of density. J Plan Lit 13(4):389–411. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 08854129922092478 Commission of the European Communities (CEC) (1990) Green paper on the urban environment. European Commission, Brussels Congress for the New Urbanism (CUN) (1999) Charter of the new urbanism. McGraw-Hill, New York Conticelli E, Proli S, Tondelli S (2017) Integrating energy efficiency and urban densification policies: Two Italian case studies, Energ Buildings 155:308–323 Danielsen KA, Lang RE, Fulton W (1999) Retracting suburbia: Smart growth and the future of housing Hous Policy Debate 10(3) Duany A, Plater-Zyberk E (1991) Towns and town-making principles. Rizzoli International, New York Dunham-Jones E, Williamson J (2009) Retrofitting suburbia. Urban design solutions for redesigning suburbs. Wiley, Hoboken Gordon P, Richardson HW (1997) Are compact cities a desirable planning goal? American Planning Association. J Am Plann Assoc 63(1):95–106 Hirt S (2007) The compact versus the dispersed city: History of planning ideas on sofia’s urban form. J Plan Hist 6(2):138–165 Jabareen YR (2006) Sustainable urban forms: their typologies, models, and concepts. J Plan Educ Res 26:38–52. https://doi.org/10.1177/0739456X05285119 Jacobs J (1961) The death and life of great American cities. Random House, New York Jenks M, Burgess R (eds) (2000) Compact cities. Sustainable urban forms for developing countries. Spon Press, London Jenks M, Jones C (eds) (2010) Dimensions of the sustainable city. Springer, Dordrecht/Heidelberg/London/New York
Jenks M, Burton E, Williams K (eds) (1996) The compact city: a sustainable urban form? E & FN Spon, London Kühn M (2003) Green belt and green heart: separating and integrating landscapes in European city regions. Landsc Urban Plan 64(1–2):19–277 Mindali O, Raveh A, Salomon I (2004) Urban density and energy consumption: a new look at old statistics. Transp Res A 38:143–162 Moroni S (2016) Urban density after Jane Jacobs: the crucial role of diversity and emergence. City Territ Archit 3(13):1–8. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40410-016-0041-1 Neuman M (2005) The compact city fallacy. J Plan Educ Res 25(1):11–26. https://doi.org/10.1177/0739456X04270466 Newman P (1992) The compact city: an Australian perspective. Built Environ 18(4):285–300 Newman P, Kenworthy J (1989) Gasoline consumption and cities: a comparison of U.S. cities with a global survey. J Am Plan Assoc 55(1):24–37 OECD (2012) Compact city policies: a comparative assessment. OECD Green Growth Studies, OECD Publishing, Paris. https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264167865-en Reale L (2008) Densità, città, residenza. Tecniche di densificazione e strategie anti-sprawl [Density, city, housing. densification techniques and no-sprowl strategies], Gangemi, Rome Smart Growth Network (2006) This is smart growth. https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-04/ documents/this-is-smart-growth.pdf. Accessed 6 May 2018 Stretton H (1996) Density, efficient and equality in Australian cities. In: Jenks M, Burton E, Williams K (eds) The compact city: a sustainable urban form? E & FN Spon, London, pp 37–43 Tachieva G (2010) Sprawl repair manual. Island Press, Washington, DC Tang BS, Wong SW, Lee AKW (2007) Green belt in a compact city: a zone for conservation or transition? Landsc Urban Plan 79(3–4):358–373 Thomas L, Cousins W (1996) The compact city: a successful, desirable and achievable urban form? In: Jenks M, Burton E, Williams K (eds) The compact city: a sustainable urban form? E & FN Spon, London, pp 53–65 UN-Habitat (2016) Urbanization and development: emerging futures. World cities report 2016. United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), Nairobi UN-Habitat (2018) Tracking progress towards inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities and human settlements. SDG 11 synthesis report high level political forum 2018. United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), Nairobi Urban Task Force (1999) Towards an urban renaissance. Spon, London Williams K (1999) Urban intensification policies in England: problems and contradictions. Land Use Policy 16(3):167–178 Williams K, Burton E, Jenks M (eds) (2000) Achieving sustainable urban form, E & FN Spon, London World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) (1987) Our common future. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Contribution for Affordable and Accessible Infrastructure for Sustainable Cities
Contextual ▶ Heritage, Conservation, and Development
Contribution for Affordable and Accessible Infrastructure for Sustainable Cities Michele Rocha Reolão and Jessica Andrade Michel University of Passo Fundo – PPGENG, Passo Fundo, RS, Brazil
Synonyms Accessibility; Accessible cities; Accessible infrastructure; Affordable infrastructure; Sustainable cities
Definitions Accessibility is present in various segments of modern society and can be understood from several perspectives. The concept of accessibility deserves special attention in its use, since it has a wide use (Gould 1969; Penchansky and Thomas 1981; Järv et al. 2018). In the literature, it is possible to find the term related to the main physical components of the urban structure: people, transport, and places of social activity (Järv et al. 2018) and may also be related to the economic environment, access to care health (Fransen et al. 2018; Guagliardo 2004), and other specific segments. In this context, as an example, it can be said that accessibility is present in the efficiency of the transportation network, distribution strategies, and land use (Hansen 1959; Gutierrez and GarcíaPalomares 2008), and the economic performance of the cities (Salas-Olmedo et al. 2016; Chin and Foong 2006). In addition, the term accessibility is applied to understand social justice (Farrington
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and Farrington 2005) and spatial equality in urban areas (Lucas et al. 2016; Dai 2010; Talen and Anselin 1998), as well as many applications are being linked to health (Neutens 2015; Tenkanen et al. 2016), well-being, and quality of life of urban dwellers (Casas 2007; Lowe and Mosby 2016). Some of the definitions for accessibility are well known, such as the concept formulated by Hansen (1959), which treats accessibility as “the potential of interaction opportunities,” which in general terms means that accessibility is a measure of spatial distribution of activities around a point, adjusted for the ability and desire of individuals or companies to overcome spatial separation. Or “the freedom of individuals to decide whether or not to participate in different activities” (Burns 1979). Accessibility also contributes to the identification of the existence of food deserts (Páez et al. 2012) and access to green infrastructure (Wolch et al. 2014). Recently, accessibility has been defined as the potential to achieve spatially distributed opportunities, such as employment, recreation, social interaction, etc. (Páez et al. 2012). Accessibility may vary depending on the perspective that is observed, whether from the point of view of a place or a person (Järv et al. 2018). In Brazil, the term accessibility is defined by NBR 9050: 2015 (ABNT 2015) as the “possibility and condition of reach, perception and understanding for the use, with security and autonomy, of spaces, furniture, urban equipment, buildings, transportation, information and communication, including their systems and technologies, as well as other services and facilities open to the public, for public or private use for collective use, both in urban and rural areas, by persons with disabilities or reduced mobility.” Thus, there is a comprehensive concept that is totally related to the mobility and use of open or built space, leaving aside the economic issue and the inclusion of the less favored portion of the population. The connection between accessibility and social inclusion ideals in particular has motivated empirical and conceptual investigations that have contributed to the advancement of understanding
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mechanisms that influence accessibility, the accessibility of disadvantaged populations, and the implications of limited accessibility (e.g., Casas 2007; Casas et al. 2009; Miller 2006; Páez et al. 2012). Although the concepts are not explicitly stated, there is good reason to believe that higher levels of mobility do indeed bring benefits deriving from accessibility and lead to greater participation in activities, hence more social inclusion for various segments of the population (Fransen et al. 2018).
Affordable Infrastructure Although there is no clear definition of the values of what would be affordable, since there are different price ranges for different segments of society, it is understood that infrastructures should be available to all without distinction. The concept of affordable infrastructure in this article is based on the idea that the varieties of infrastructures of a city should be available to the population as a whole, with no exclusions by social class or income. The economic factor has a strong influence on health accessibility and has effects on individuals or low-income communities, who tend to have a poorer health condition and fewer resources for mobility and to bear the costs of treatment, making access to basic infrastructures difficult (Bissonnette et al. 2012). In addition, the economic factor also influences the perspective of social differences, as some groups in society are more vulnerable to disaster impacts due to the interaction of cultural, economic, and social factors (Stough et al. 2015) unfavorable to infrastructures. The increasing urbanization brings some questions, as the guarantee of housing to the new and already existing residents of the cities. Measures around the world are taken to contribute to this goal. In Kenya, a federation designed to help homeless people offer deposits and credits to residents of informal settlements, forming a group of more than 60,000 members scattered across the country. Its main activity is to mobilize and share
taxes. In addition, the projects include the planning of settlements, construction of new housing at affordable prices, and improvement in existing ones (Weru 2018). In Brazil, the “Minha Casa Minha Vida” program is characterized by a federal government initiative that offers attractive conditions for financing housing in urban areas for lowincome families through low interest rates. It acts in partnership with states, municipalities, and companies and non-profit entities, in housing assistance. For a large part of the world’s population, the housing challenge is in need of an affordable shelter. Sustainability has assumed an increasingly broad and central role in society, as in the consideration of human settlements, employment, transport, and urban services. Some measures can be taken by governments to support their citizens’ housing aspirations, such as building housing units and renting at subsidized rates, or delivering them to recipients. Still, measures can be taken to reduce the price of housing or even improve the functioning of the real estate market, to facilitate the purchase of real estate through low rates and can still improve the functioning of the market through facilitators such as mortgage and other home loans (Choguill 2007).
Accessible Infrastructure The way cities are planned, or the shape it takes over time, due to population increase, have a huge impact on people’s lives, even simple and small activities that gradually become major problems for the population. With the globalization, computerization, increase of vehicles, and the population, there is a reallocation of commercial activities and services to the suburbs of the city due to its rapid growth, thus it is sought in the middle of the dispute for the urban space between vehicles and people, a scenario where the concept of accessibility plays a fundamental role for social equality, in which all people, regardless of their needs and characteristics, can use the space in the best way, as comfortable and safe as possible.
Contribution for Affordable and Accessible Infrastructure for Sustainable Cities
The urban world population exceed rural, for the first time in history, in 2007, which means that more than half of the planet’s population lives in cities, and since then this projection has been growing, with an expectation of reaching a twothirds ratio in 2050, with an estimated addition of 2.5 billion people living in cities (United Nations 2015; Vojnovic 2014; Perez-Del Hoyo et al. 2016). The creation of accessible urban spaces for the growing number of people who live in cities becomes a challenge. The quality of urban environments, both built and natural, becomes determinant for the quality of life of this already existing and growing urban population (Elmqvist et al. 2015). These numbers express the need for more sustainable urban planning and infrastructure that is accessible to the different characteristics of the population. Thus, a comprehensive understanding of the dynamics of cities, from spatial, temporal, and social perspectives, is necessary to be able to plan them (Järv et al. 2018) in order to mitigate social challenges such as sociospatial inequality, public health, and segregation, in order to seek infrastructures accessible to the population as a whole. In this context, it is basic to promote spaces with possibility of use by people with disabilities, for example. Initiatives to improve accessibility are practiced in several countries, either through normative instructions and laws such as Brazil and Japan (Brasil 2000; Ohmori 2015) or by encouraging cities to become accessible to people with disabilities and the elderly, such as the Access City Award, where the most accessible cities on the European continent are recognized. To understand the concept of geographical accessibility, some conditions must be significant. In this way, it is observed that there must be some spatial separation between origins and destinations, such as between home and place of work that people need or want to move around (Weber 2006). Within the vision of sustainability, all people are equally provided with environmental, economic, and social qualities. In means of transport, this vision reflects on the ability to provide the whole of society with the same level of access to different opportunities (Casas 2007).
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Distance separates people’s homes from places where they work, shop, do business, or socially relate (Ceccato 2015). Mobility is what allows individuals to overcome distances and access to spaces of their need or interest (WHO 2002). Most of the time, these components are dynamic by nature and, therefore, the accessibility scenario changes in space and time based on mobility (Järv et al. 2018). Mobility is characterized by accessibility, availability, and the ability to reach the desired destination, providing social, physical, and psychological benefits. It differs from purely physical activity by including both sedentary and active behavior (Kolodinsky et al. 2013; Metz 2000). Accessibility in urban transport can be perceived from the perspective of the access of people with disabilities and the autonomy that the transport promotes. Thus, it must follow good practices for spatial accessibility in order to avoid physical barriers that hinder movement and use with autonomy and safety. In addition, accessibility to transport can also be understood in relation to travel possibilities, which can be defined as “the more options to reach the destinations of travelers or to carry out activities, and the less resistance to travel (time, costs) (Van Wee 2016), or, as defined by Geurs and Van Wee (2004), the extent to which use and transport systems allow individuals to achieve activities or destinations through a combination of transportation facilities. Thus, accessibility in transportation involves geographic and economic factors and aims to include people from all social classes, as well as to promote the locomotion of these people to different points of a city or region, not being restricted to attend to people with different physical characteristics (Páez et al. 2012). Since 2002, there has been a worldwide trend towards the rights of people with disabilities, culminating in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in which 177 countries are members. Space accessibility refers to both people and places. A place is not only “more” or “less” accessible, but accessible to people in all their differences (Farrington 2007). Good examples of accessibility include planning of urban circulation
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spaces, public toilets, playgrounds, parks, squares, and public offices accessible to children, the elderly, and people with disabilities Brasil. Débora Regina Possa. Ministério das Cidades (2016). Spatial accessibility, therefore, aims to provide a safe, independent and autonomous life for the population, whether it is cognitively deficient or not (Triki and Hanachi 2017). Unequal accessibility to urban green spaces becomes a cause of concern within environmental justice, given the recognized importance of these spaces, including public health (Dai 2010; Wolch et al. 2014). In health services the principle of accessibility, particularly “reasonable access to necessary and appropriate health services,” can be interpreted in several ways (Shah et al. 2016). Access to health services refers to processes that involve the entry of people and population groups into the healthcare delivery system. This access has a multifaceted concept that can be divided into five dimensions, being: accessibility in relation to the costs of use, geographical accessibility or distances between patients and providers, and also availability, acceptability, and accommodation (Penchansky and Thomas 1981; Guagliardo 2004). Of these five dimensions, geographic accessibility has gained strength, due to the sophistication of geographic information systems (GIS) and the availability of defragmented data regarding health services (Neutens 2015). Evidence shows that spatial barriers between patients and physicians contribute to reducing the use of health care and decreasing acceptance of preventive services, which in turn can lead to negative health outcomes (Dai 2010). In developing countries, the problems of spatial coverage are recurrent, but the monitoring of this coverage becomes extremely relevant in the developed world, as demographic changes in contemporary societies occur at all times (Neutens 2015). A global guideline on age-friendly cities was published by the World Health Organization (2007), where it was recommended that green spaces should be barrier-free, attractive, wellequipped, and accessible to the elderly. In this context, some guidelines have been published so that green spaces are receptive to the elderly,
through projects that include safety, natural attributes, facilities, areas for physical activities, social support network, and a composition appropriate to the age group, avoiding uncomfortable situations or even embarrassing with the younger ones (Loukaitou-Sideris et al. 2014; Wen et al. 2018). Seniors prefer open, less crowded spaces, as well as safe and protected environments (La Rosaa et al. 2018). In addition, the accessibility of the elderly to green infrastructures plays an important role in nature-based recreation (Wen et al. 2018). Mobile-oriented investments for transport infrastructure have increased levels since the second half of the twentieth century (Miller 2007). There is significant uncertainty about future needs and the complex ways in which infrastructure influences sociospatial relationships (Mcarthur 2018), and urban equipment is essential to support the projected increase in global urbanization in the coming decades, providing sustainable, accessible, and inclusive growth (UN Habitat 2016).
Affordable and Accessible Infrastructure for Sustainable Cities As a result of the rapid growth of urbanization and the potential for urban growth, the idea of urban sustainability is more important than ever. In developing countries, the city is seen as an economic center aiming development and growth. In this way, a conceptual structure of any city in development of digital resources focuses on economic sustainability. Thus, companies must be closer to the development and growth, within the three spheres of sustainable development, which in addition to the economic dimension also encompasses the environmental and social dimensions (Cheshmehzangi and Thomas 2016). Thus, promoting a more people-oriented city is fundamental and should make accessibility to health systems, public transportation, green areas, and other infrastructure in the city possible. Inadequate land use planning cause dependence on car use, uncontrolled urban expansion, and high social costs due to vehicle ownership and car accidents. Sustainable planning includes the
Contribution for Affordable and Accessible Infrastructure for Sustainable Cities
development of mixed high-density land use, rather than segregating commercial and residential districts. The city must integrate in its neighborhoods all the infrastructures that allow to the lower displacement between its daily activities. Encouraging the use of alternative transportation such as walking and cycling are the most sustainable and accessible ways to travel through cities. This type of locomotion does not cause noise or air pollution and, in addition, does not require energy and is healthy activities. Several cities can be cited as examples of encouraging the use of alternative transportation, as Copenhagen in Denmark, Amsterdam in the Netherlands, Stockholm in Sweden, among others. In Mumbai, India, improving the transportation system has prioritized vehicles by building bridges and expanding roads, thus benefiting society’s high-income group. This road widening, in fact, had a negative impact on several aspects of sustainability, including the potential increase in the ownership of private cars, the increase of large-scale and pro-development planning projects in urban areas, and a great dedication of urban environments for roads and other waterproofed surfaces (Cheshmehzangi and Thomas 2016). In contrast, there are several successful global examples where the reduction of the purchase of private cars has been promoted. These include tax incentives for environmentally friendly private cars practiced in Hong Kong (Environmental Protection Department (EPD) 2015) and carbon dioxide emission reduction (UK) (Green Fiscal Commission 2010), energy-efficient mobility through car sharing in Europe (Loose 2009), as well as increased parking fees, traffic control measures, use of electric vehicles, among others. In the case of public transport, Smith (1983) defines the possibilities of accessible public transportation as low-cost public services, with demand and cost as two primary factors that influence the capacity of a transit network. However, there are secondary factors that are often seen as insignificant, but they are factors that directly influence people’s accessibility. As an example, for any accessible transit system that leads to a sustainable development model, secondary
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factors include: availability, quality, and connectivity of the sidewalk infrastructure (Woldeamanuel and Kent 2015); network availability for various modes of transport; signage and clear information for users; availability of routes and supply of options; and catchment areas for better accessibility. For the sidewalk infrastructure, Woldeamanuel and Kent (2015) point out that the challenges that may deter the use of mass transit specifically include “walking affordability costs.” Therefore, it is argued that in order to support a transit system, priority must reach a good level of quality and accessibility, and enable integration with other, healthier travel modes such as walking or cycling. In terms of space accessibility, we can highlight the initiatives of cities such as Chester in the United Kingdom, a historic city, famous for its 3.2 km of walls that form the most complete circuit of Roman walls in the United Kingdom. Chester’s initiative aimed to bring the historic monument within reach of the disabled population. As an Ancient Monument, access to the City Walls had to be faced very carefully and sensitively, ramps and level access were introduced over many years and are now present in 11 locations. At other points where full access is not possible for heritage reasons, access has, however, been improved to the maximum, for example to provide access for people with visual impairment, these improvements have included tactile paving and additional handrails. All sections of the Elevated Rows were provided with a combination of ramps, level access routes, an elevator, and an escalator. The access points are widely publicized in panels spread throughout the city and in the leaflet of access to the city center (European Commission 2017). Following the same line of accessibility to historical sites, Salvador (BA), Brazil, shows that being old does not mean being inaccessible. Much of the historical center of the city, cultural heritage of humanity, offers visiting conditions for people with disabilities. Recessed guides, ramps, and lifts are options to avoid stairways and slopes of architecture that in the past did not consider the person with disabilities. In São Paulo, also in Brazil, there are more than 300 accessible tourist
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attractions, such as the Football Museum, where there are guided tours with audio guides for the blind, braille totems, tactile models, tactile (Brasil Ministério do Turismo 2016). Another good example is Rotterdam, Holland’s second largest city, is a relatively young city, having been extensively rebuilt after the last war. Rotterdam sees itself as a city “made for and by its inhabitants.”. The initiatives in this city are related to the creation of public spaces without barriers. The guidelines for outdoor space were developed in 2014 to improve accessibility and were created together through dialogues between the municipality and stakeholders. These define differences in height of not more than 2 cm on footpaths, in parking lots, minimum spacing of 180 cm and at least one parking space accessible for every 200 and 50 m from the main entrance of public buildings. Also in 2014, the standard for road design was modified to reflect accessibility requirements. Whenever major works are planned, accessibility specialists are involved to ensure a proposal that meets the needs and desires of people with disabilities (European Commission 2017). The city of Jūrmala, Latvia, is also notable for its accessibility initiatives, both for people with disabilities and for the elderly. Jūrmala leads the WHO Healthy City movement in Latvia, offering therapy, social and medical rehabilitation, as well as accessible tourism. Accessibility by the sea is a key goal for the city, so it worked on affordable infrastructure works, creating an accessible 850 m trail that connects the city to the seashore, accessible facilities for changing clothes, and ramp access in the famous beaches. Jūrmala also purchased tricycles for the elderly and those with difficulty of balance and bicycles for blind people. The beach infrastructure has reclining chairs, special wheelchairs for swimming in the sea, and specially trained assistants are available to help with swimming if necessary (European Commission 2017). In 2014, the city of Göteborg, Sweden, won the Access City Award 2014, for its goal to make Göteborg accessible to all. As part of this commitment, city administrations and businesses were forced to produce inventories of their buildings and public spaces in order to measure accessibility
in these places. A comprehensive approach, where all buildings and spaces considered public should be part of the inventory. This includes, for example, pre-schools, schools, homes for the elderly, museums, libraries, arenas, amusement parks, sports facilities, playgrounds, parks, etc. When each inventory is completed, the information is posted on the internet. So visitors can view the information and decide whether or not that building or public space is accessible to them (European Commission 2014). In the area of accessible housing, it is possible to cite the city of Grenoble, France. French national law sets standards for affordable housing. However, the city of Grenoble has set an ambitious goal in 2014 that is higher than recommended by national legislation, which states that 10% of the housing in each new enterprise will be accessible. Each new project adopts the principle of universal design and is studied with the involvement of organizations representing people with disabilities and end users. Usability is as important as meeting standards. This means that accessibility is not a complement but an essential element of the project (European Commission 2014). This initiative brings many benefits to cities, especially in European cities where population aging is already observed. Efforts to promote accessibility to the job market are also recognized, as is the case of the city of Milan in Italy, which in addition to its excellent and consistent space accessibility efforts has also committed itself with projects to promote the employment of people with disabilities and to support independent living. Its building standards not only support accessibility and usability but also promote universal design standards (European Commission 2015). As for politics in general, Ljubljana in Slovenia integrated accessibility by appointing a special advisory committee for the elderly and disabled, so that they were directly involved in the city’s policy formulation (European Commission 2018). Lyon is another example of an accessible city, public buses are 100% accessible and access to culture for all is also guaranteed thanks to the inclusion of accessible equipment in libraries such as reading machines, audio book readers, and magnification screens. The city has also
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developed digital tools for people with disabilities, and in terms of work integration, 7.8% of public employees are people with disabilities. This is significantly higher than the minimum legal quota of 6% required by French legislation (European Commission 2018). There are several other cities that promote the social inclusion of their inhabitants through initiatives aimed at improving the accessibility of space to employment, housing, and cultural activities. These cities are internationally recognized for the Access City Award and serve as an example to other cities around the world, demonstrating the positive results of their investments.
Conclusion Accessibility is fundamental for innovation and coexistence among people. This is one of the aims for the Sustainable Development Goals, for 2030: to ensure that all men and women have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership, and control over land and ensuring access for all to safe, adequate and affordable housing. It also provides access to safe, affordable, sustainable, and accessible transport systems for all, as well as providing universal access to safe, inclusive, accessible, and green public spaces, with particular attention to the needs of people in vulnerable situations, women, children, the disabled and the elderly. Therefore, it is possible to affirm that promoting mobility and access to public spaces is a good practice and can contribute to inclusion not only of people with disabilities but also generate inclusion of other society segments, such as the elderly, people with temporary physical limitations, people with low income and living in peripheries.
Cross-References ▶ Access to Basic Services: From Public Benefit Practice to a Sustainable Development Approach ▶ Built Environment Education for Sustainability and Climate Change Preparation
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▶ Inclusive City, Perspectives, Challenges, and Pathways ▶ Opportunities for All: Inclusive and Equitable Sustainable Development ▶ Strategies for Inclusive Urban Renewal
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Co-production ▶ Participatory Design: Participatory Urban Management
Crisis Management ▶ Business Continuity Planning
Critical Performance Variables ▶ Sustainable Municipal Management: Implementing Logic Model Concepts and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Critical Success Factors ▶ Sustainable Municipal Management: Implementing Logic Model Concepts and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
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D
Deliberative Planning
Disaster Risk Management Strategies: Building the ▶ Communicative Turn in Spatial Planning and Resilient Human Settlements Strategy Desalegn Yayeh Ayal Center for Food Security Studies, College of Development Studies, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Devastation ▶ Disaster Risk Management Strategies: Building the Resilient Human Settlements
Synonyms Cataclysm; Catastrophe; Devastation
Definition
Disaster ▶ Business Continuity Planning
Disaster Recovery Planning ▶ Business Continuity Planning
Disaster risk management can be defined as the formulation and application of policies and strategies that help reduce the impacts of existing and potential disaster risks thereby enhancing the resilience of people by reducing lose. Disaster risk management encompasses a whole set of actions and preparedness before, during, and after the occurrence of natural hazards (IPCC 2012). The concept also refers to the evaluation of disaster risk management policies and strategies so as to foster continuous learning about the nature of disasters so that preparedness, prevention, mitigation, response, recovery, and rehabilitation practices can be refined to strengthen
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human security and quality of life sustainably (IPCC 2012). In the context of SDGs, system resilience refers to the capacity of a system to absorb and adapt to the occurrence of disaster risks as well as transforming itself by anticipating the challenges and opportunities of hazards in advance. Such a kind of system resilience helps people withstand and recover from shocks while continually improving the structural setup of disaster risk management (Mitchell 2013; Mitchell and Harris 2012) and promoting social learning (Mudombi et al. 2017). The impact of hazards has got attention, and frameworks like “The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030” have been developed for the sake of understanding disaster risk and implementing proactive and reactive measures targeted to build resiliency (Goniewicz and Burkle 2019). Therefore, system resilience goes beyond the reactive capacity of people to adapt and absorb shocks from natural and human-induced disasters and includes proactive measures, a concept adopted by the United Nations General Assembly resolution that deals with the SDGs. The declaration holds that addressing future challenges requires transforming resilience. This in turn necessitates fighting against all forms and dimensions of poverty and inequality. The concept stems from the recognition that to preserve the planet, it is imperative to achieve sustainable and inclusive economic and social development as well as cultural cohesion. That being the case, transformational resilience capacity has become a key consideration of policy and practice in all walks of life. For instance, in the field of public health, transformational resilience can be achieved through changing obsolete practices in line with demographic change and medical technology breakthroughs. It can also be attained through designing new financial mechanisms and health promotion strategies to counteract potential crises (Thomson et al. 2014; Carreño et al. 2017; WHO 2016; Glonti et al. 2015; Kickbusch and Behrendt 2013). Therefore, the main point in the definition of disaster risk management relates to a holistic approach to avoid or limit the current and future disaster risks through the application of structural and nonstructural measures.
Introduction This entry elaborates concepts often used in the literature of climate change in general and disaster risk management in particular. It encapsulates the meanings, causes, consequences, and response mechanisms to natural and humaninduced disaster. This is done by appraising the phenomenon of disaster and related issues in the past, the present, and the future. In so doing, it clarifies natural disaster and its management as contingent on human activities. In this regard, special focus is given to the implications of a sustainable development goal (SDG) that specifically deals with the packages of sustainable cities and the reduction of hazards. As will be shown, the occurrence of natural disaster is a universal reality though the disaster management capacity of countries, hence the level of actual risk or damage, considerably differ depending on a country’s level of economic development. However, the level of economic development alone doesn’t indicate the likelihood and the commitment of a country to achieve all SDGs related to sustainable cities and mitigation of the effects of natural disasters. As will be shown, less developed countries can be in a better position in realizing some of the SDGs. The main thrust of this entry is bringing together pertinent issues related to natural hazards for general readership rather than presenting a finding from a fresh research undertaking.
Magnitude and Impact of Natural Disasters The concepts of terms such as affected, homeless, damage, injury, fatality, and calamities have been used interchangeably to mean different things and the same things. Understanding the concept of each term is very important to communicate stakeholders clearly for effective and efficient interventions. According to CRED (2015): 1. Fatality refers to the number of people who lost their life because of natural hazards. 2. Injured refers to people suffering from physical injuries, trauma, or an illness requiring
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medical treatment as direct consequence of a disaster. 3. Homeless stands for the total number of people whose house is destroyed or heavily damaged and therefore who needs shelter. 4. Affected refers to the total number of people requiring immediate assistance during a disaster. 5. Damage refers to the amount of damage to property, crops, and livestock. The frequency and impact of geophysical, meteorological, hydrological, climatological, biological, and extraterrestrial hazard-induced disasters have increased at global level (Guoqiang and Seong 2019; Goniewicz and Burkle 2019). For instance, the occurrence of disaster in the period between 1980 and 2015 has increased by 6.46 times from 1950 to 1979. Consequently, the number of injuries in the same period increased by 21.6% (CRED 2015). The number of deaths lacks clear trend as there are some years with many deaths and several years with a few deaths (World Bank and UN 2015). Although natural disasters are harmful to all, their heavy impact falls on the poor and vulnerable ones (Laframboise and Boileau 2012). Between 1995 and 2014, about 90% of casualties from storms occurred in poor countries although about 85% of the storms were recorded in developed countries. In the same period, more than 2.5 million people lost their life, and a financial loss of about $4 trillion was incurred due to natural hazards. The financial cost rose from $50 billion in the 1980s to $200 billion in the 1990s to $2.71 trillion (CRED 2015). About 75% of the losses were linked to extreme weather events such as drought, flood, territorial rain, temperature extremes, sea level rise, etc., and hundreds of millions of people are expected suffer from extreme poverty by 2030. As such, the effort of countries to achieve sustainable development goals is seriously threatened by the impact of natural disasters (Guoqiang and Seong 2019). In spite of its designation, “natural disaster” has human origins since it is fueled by alarming population growth (Guoqiang and Seong 2019), massive industrialization, and rapid urbanization. If the estimation of the UN materializes, by 2050
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cities would host more than two-third of the world’s population which would endanger 1.3 billion people and an asset loss of about $158 trillion due to river and coastal floods alone. Unless significant investment is made to make cities more resilient, by 2030, cities of the world would incur a financial loss of $314 billion each year. It is in view of such impending dangers that mainstreaming disaster risk management in all policies and practices is highly recommended to decrease the increasing trends of the frequency and impact of natural disasters (Benson et al. 2007). As highlighted by Goniewicz and Burkle (2019), a range of strategies should be implemented to minimize the impact of hazards at various levels of management including grassroots activities of local communities. To do so countries need to build fast and inclusive economic development so that they can minimize the impacts of disasters on livelihoods, assets, lives, and the wider environment. Unfortunately, developing countries can hardly afford the resources needed to anticipate the event and implement measures in advance as well as build transformational resilience.
Disaster Risk Management Strategies As shown in the following diagram, there are various disaster risk management strategies. Broadly speaking, such strategies can be categorized into pre-disaster risk management and postdisaster risk management approaches. Pre-disaster risk management approach includes prevention, mitigation, and preparedness. They refer to actions that aim at preventing or limiting the impacts of disasters on a short- or a long-term basis. Pre-disaster risk management measures include safety standards for industries, flood control measures, land resource management, land use regulations, poverty allocation, food security programs, provision of basic needs and services, training, organizing disaster volunteers, public awareness, implement early warning systems, etc. Pre-disaster risk management measures are multi-sectoral and multidisciplinary in nature and, hence, should be implemented through active participation of all concerned
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stakeholders. Context- and sector-specific soft and hard pre-disaster risk management measures enable people to manage the impacts of disasters and build their resilience to risk in the sustainable ways.
Source: https://www.gktoday.in/gk/disaster-managementpre-disaster-and-post-disaster-phases
Post-disaster risk management strategies deal with response, recovery, and reconstruction. Response to a disaster includes activities made during or immediately after the occurrence of a disaster. This includes searching and rescuing victims and providing victims with basic humanitarian needs shelter, water, sanitation, and health care. On the other hand, recovery activities refer to actions made once life-threatening conditions subside. The main goal of the recovery activities is regaining normalcy in the areas affected by natural disasters. The last phase of post-disaster risk management activities encompasses reconstruction and rehabilitation which deals with planning the location and building material of a lost property to be reconstructed. Construction and rehabilitation measures should be designed to fully restore victims of disaster and make at-risk people and their natural, physical assets more resilient (PwC 2013). Post-disaster risk management strategies need the harmonization of political, legal, administrative, infrastructural, and sociocultural facets while at the same time increasing the awareness of vulnerable people to influence their behavior and lifestyle.
Disaster Risk Assessment Disaster risk assessment is a broad concept developed to reduce disaster risk through building
knowledge about natural hazards and the environmental, economic, social, and physical origins of vulnerability and how such vulnerabilities and natural hazards change over time so that knowledgebased action can be taken (Hyogo Framework for Action 2005–2015). As such, disaster risk assessment deals with comprehending the delicate relationship between hazards, exposure, and vulnerability which is a critical factor for effective prevention of disaster. A clear understanding of the meaning of risk is necessary for a clear understanding of disaster risk assessment. According to the UNDP (2010), risk is an estimated damages incurred on lost livelihoods, causalities, environment, etc. because of the interaction between natural or human-induced hazards and conditions of vulnerability (UNDP 2013; Ismail-Zadeh and Susan 2015; UNISDR 2011, 2013). Hence, assessing risk involves identification of the nature of the risk and determination of the magnitude of risks by estimating the harm impending hazards can bring about in light of existing conditions of vulnerability and existing adaptive capacity. Hence, data on the frequency and nature of the hazard, magnitude of the hazard, degree of vulnerability of element at risk for certain types of hazard, and available resources and capacities should be collected using standard tools. In the broader sense, risk assessment, besides analyzing the likelihood and scale of risks, strives to offer a good understanding of the causes and impacts of losses from natural and human-induced hazards. It is, therefore, obvious that risk assessment has to be part and parcel of policy decision-making and implementation which necessarily requires seamless collaboration among various stakeholders. Comprehensive risk assessment is vital to produce sound knowledge and understanding which in turn is critical in implementing plans and periodically assessing the progress of risk management. Without periodic evaluation of disaster risk interventions, it is difficult to measure their effectiveness and to make corrective measures accordingly (UNDP 2013; Alik and Susan 2015). A comprehensive risk assessment model developed by the UNDP consists of seven steps.
Disaster Risk Management Strategies: Building the Resilient Human Settlements
Step 1 is making situation analysis. This involves appraising current conditions, needs, and gaps through identifying what already exists, building on existing information and capacities, and avoiding redundant commitments. This step can be carried out through the scientific risk assessment studies, data, information, and existing institutional profiles. Step 2 is concerned with assessing hazards by estimating the likelihood, nature, magnitude, and location of hazards. Step 3 is devoted to assessing the population groups and asset types that are potentially more exposed to risks so that areas prone to disaster could be delineated (UNDP 2010). Step 4 is conducting vulnerability analysis by determining how existing conditions can withstand a certain hazard scenario. Step 5 is about impact/loss analysis which is estimating the probable harms which could be brought about on people, property, livelihood, services, and environment exposed to hazards and its overall impact on communities. Step 6 is conducting risk profiling and evaluation activities so as to design cost-effective risk reduction options in accordance with the social and economic conditions of the people. The last step deals with formulating or revising disaster risk reduction strategies and action plans which involves setting priorities, allocation of resources, and initiation of disaster risk reduction programs (UNDP 2010).
Disaster Risk Management and SDG 11 A critical factor that scholars seemed to have neglected in pondering on the future of disaster risk management is what is called SDG 11. As part of the sustainable development goals, the SDG 11 attaches especial emphasis on the future of urbanization and its management. There are sound rationale put in place to give urbanization due consideration. Urbanization happened to be the most significant megatrend since the twentieth century resulting that more than half of the global population lives in urban area. The figure is expected rise to about 65% by the mid-twentyfirst century (UNDESA 2014). Being the chief economic power houses, cities generate more
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than 80% of the global GDP. Nevertheless, urban areas are locations of social problems such as shortage of housing, extreme poverty, illegal activities, unplanned and slum settlements, and resultant environmental degradation. Moreover, urban areas suffer from air pollution as well as waste increment mainly from industrial and domestic sources as well as conversion of the natural environment. About 80% of urban areas have a level of air pollution exceeding WHO Air Quality Guidelines thereby jeopardizing international health (Zinkernagel et al. 2018; UN ECLAC 2014). Urbanization is intimately connected with the problem of climate change since about 70% of greenhouse gas emission has its origin in urban settlements. In view of this, tackling climate change can’t be separated from the planning and management of urbanization. The main sources of greenhouse gas emissions and hence air pollution are transport industry, domestic energy consumption, street lighting, and densely concentrated industrial plants (IPCC 2007, 2014). Therefore, it is a foregone conclusion that massive urbanization is bound to increase disaster risks both to urban and rural area livelihoods, health, and other aspects of life. Some of the manifestations of disasters related to urbanization are coastal sea level rise, acid rain, flooding, urban heat waves, and the like (IPCC 2014). Therefore, building safe, resilient, and sustainable cities requires well-thought and smart urban planning whereby land use planning and physical infrastructure development can last for decades and encore huge amount of capital (Romero-Lankao et al. 2016). In view of the above considerations, the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit prepared a new framework in 2015 to inform development endeavors for the next 15 years. The framework entitled “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” has 17 SDGs and 169 targets. Goal 11 of SDGs aspires to make human settlements and cities more inclusive, resilient, sustainable, and safe. As such city growth and urbanization are recognized by the international community as a transformative force for development. In other words,
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it is not a globally accepted norm that a critical factor for sustainable development is sustainable urban development (Zinkernagel et al. 2018; UN-Habitat 2016). Like other SDGs, Goal 11 aspires to carry out the socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental dimensions of development in an integrated manner. This is envisioned to be realized by building effective implementing institutions and through the deployment of technology, finance, capacity building, etc. The goals appeals to the top political leadership be committed and systematically inspect of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Governments are expected to discharge their responsibility of reviewing and following up the implementation on the basis of voluntary, regular, and inclusive countrywide approach. National level of reviews should be customized to feed into reviews at regional and global levels. This is because the seamless coordination of national and local authorities is critical for the sound implementation, monitoring, and reporting of the SDG internationally. This in turn will capacitate national statistical systems to measure local, national, regional, and global targets and indicators with greater accuracy and reliability. If national systems are to ably discharge such functions, they need to make use of area-specific conventional and modern data collection tools which can yield accurate information for knowledgebased decision-making (UN-Habitat 2016). What are the targets of SDG 11? SDG 11 has got seven clearly stated targets. The first target is that by 2030 there shall be access to safe, adequate, affordable housing and basic services to all. This target also aims to upgrade slums which will be measured in terms of the proportion of urban population living in slums, informal settlements, or inadequate housing. The second target deals with providing access to safe, affordable, accessible, and sustainable transport systems for all. This target also aims at enhancing road safety and expanding public transport whereby the needs and wants of vulnerable groups are given due consideration. The realization of this target will be weighted in terms of the proportion of the population that enjoys easy access to public transport as disaggregated by
age group, sex, and persons with disabilities (PwC 2013; UN-Habitat 2016). Goal 3 holds that by 2030 there shall be inclusive and sustainable urbanization and better capacity for participatory, integrated, and sustainable human settlement planning and management in all countries. The realization of this target shall be assessed in terms of the percentage of cities having civil societies with direct, regular, and democratic participation in urban planning and management. Goal 4 is dedicated to strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage. The realization of this target shall be assessed in light of the proportion of budget dedicate to preservation, protection, and conservation of cultural heritages (UN-Habitat 2016). Goal 5 seeks to significantly reduce death rate and the number of people affected. It concomitantly aspires to substantially decrease the direct economic losses caused by disasters on global gross domestic product with special emphasis given to the protection of poor and vulnerable people. The realization of this target shall be weighted in terms of the number of deaths, missing people, injured, relocated, or evacuated due to disasters per 100,000 people. Goal 6 is dedicated to the reduction of the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities with special focus on air quality and waste management. The achievement of this target will be assessed from the vantage point of the percentage of urban solid waste regularly collected and adequately discharged relative to the total waste. The last goal envisages providing universal access to safe, inclusive, accessible, and green public spaces, especially for women and children, aged people, and persons with disabilities. The achievement of this target will be measured based on the proportion of builtup area of cities relative to open spaces for public use as disaggregated by age group, sex, and persons with disabilities (Zinkernagel et al. 2018; UN-Habitat 2016). It is useful to recognize that Goal 11 is not a standalone provision since some of the targets are included in other SDGs (Cities Alliance 2015). For instance, Goal 1 envisages no poverty. It shows that rapid informal settlements with high
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concentration of extreme urban poverty endanger the poor for climate risks and disasters. In other words, the goal makes the establishment of resilient cities key to poverty reduction. Goal 3 provides for good health and well-being through the reduction of air pollution which is responsible for stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, and both chronic and acute respiratory diseases, including asthma. Goal 6 is concerned with clean water supply and sanitation which is undermined by growing populations, informal settlements, and pollution. Goal 9 is dedicated to industry, innovation, and infrastructure since effective municipal service is impossible without effective design of buildings and physical infrastructure. Goal 12 envisions responsible consumption and production. Cities being centers of concentrated economic activity and major consumers of resources are at the same time the main producers of emissions, pollution, and waste. Therefore, cities can’t be sustainable without sustainable consumption and production. In general, understanding and implementing of Goal 11 could ensure to transform the well-being of the urban poor who are most vulnerable to various natural and humaninduced disaster risks. There are mechanisms stated for the implementation of Goal 11. It is necessary to harmonize national and regional development planning so as to create positive social, economic, and environmental linkage between urban, semi-urban, and rural areas. By 2020 there should be more number of cities and human settlements that adopt and implement integrated policies and plans for inclusive, resource-efficient mitigation and adaptation to climate change. At the same time, least developed countries should be supported technically and financially in their endeavor to build sustainable and resilient buildings using local materials (Koch and Ahmad 2018). However, in spite of awe-inspiring goals set by the international community and accepted by national governments, the performance observed so far and the probable performance in the future leave no doubt that particularly climate changeinduced hazards will continue to be a threat. Suffice to look at the result of studies on a few aspects of Goal 11. For instance, countries considerably
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differ in their potential of reducing the adverse per capital environmental impacts of cities particularly in addressing air pollution and waste disposal. A study revealed that North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Russia, Australia, and Southern Africa would have relatively good performance in achieving the target. To the contrary, central, western, northern, and eastern African countries, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, India, and China would have poor performance. It could be surmised that the said goal is achievable or not depending on the level of a country’s economic development. Besides, the level of performance could also be determined by national government commitment to apply the suggested Goal 11 implementation mechanisms. The case of India and China could be explained by their big population size and the economic cost of building environmentally friendly industrial economy. In the same way, the performance SDG goals and targets (SDG 11 Indicator Profile: PM2.5 in urban areas) differed from country to country. The top ten strong performers were Australia, Norway, Madagascar, Uruguay, Panama, Finland, Nicaragua, Iceland, Sweden, and Mozambique. Top ten countries with medium implementation performance were Swaziland, the USA, Lesotho, the UK, Bolivia, Gabon, Jamaica, Denmark, Kenya, and Suriname. The top ten countries with weak implementation performance of SDG 11 were Cote d’Ivoire, Azerbaijan, Cameroon, Afghanistan, Thailand, Liberia, Lebanon, Sierra Leone, Togo, and Vietnam. Therefore, the potential of courtiers in performing the first three goals of SDG 11 (concerned with urban standards) depends on intricate factors, not just economic development. However, it is clear that most of the least-performing countries are poor African countries. The performance of countries in ensuring improved water source (pipe) shows considerable difference. The top countries with strong performance (100%) were Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Israel, Luxemburg, Malaysia, Malta, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden,
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Switzerland, Turkey, the UK, and Uruguay. Many countries performed at medium level 97.9–75.9%. The ten least performer countries were Nigeria, CAR, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Togo, Haiti, Madagascar, Congo, Dem. Rep, and Myanmar. This reinforces the conclusion made before; world’s leading economies such as the USA, Germany, France, Britain, Japan, etc. performed lesser than countries with a relatively weak national economy. It can be, therefore, concluded that developed countries do not necessarily have a better potential in realizing SDG 11 though they certainly have clear advantage in realizing most of them.
Conclusions So long as mankind has no control on the consequences of natural and human phenomena, it is imperative to live with due preparedness. Disaster risk management can’t succeed without the concerted effort of all stakeholders: knowledge producers, decision-makers, donors, and the wider local community. At the heart of disaster risk management lie a sober mapping of current conditions and assessment of future events, and both tasks are extremely difficult. That being the case, there can’t be a disaster risk management blueprint that is a panacea of all challenges. This makes continuous learning about the pros and cons of attempted disaster risk management efforts necessary to improve the effectiveness of natural disaster risk management. As predicting nature is a difficult thing, so is designing flawless disaster risk management schema. It is not therefore surprising that global disaster management endeavors are characterized by diversity and innovation. However, more and more concern and action on disaster risk management were not accompanied by lower incidences of disasters. Such being the case, disaster risk management would continue to be a topical agenda for academic, government, and the grassroots people. No amount of research on disaster risk management could be exhaustive enough to safeguard humanity from the wrath of nature and
the consequences of human activities. This explains why most often than not local and national governments can’t design a reliable system of preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery from major natural disasters. Unlike the old days when response to natural disaster was made after the incidence, the international community has acknowledged the importance of a proactive system of natural disaster risk management. Nowhere is this determination reiterated than the SDGs which are accepted by national governments. In this way, disaster risk management is streamlined to be the collective tasks of researchers, policy makers, and other stakeholders at local, national, regional, and global levels. There is consensus that future urbanization should be aligned with the prevention, mitigation, and recovery potential of victims of natural hazards, and the key to that is collective action and continuous learning and innovation.
Cross-References ▶ Early Warning Systems and Geospatial Tools: Managing Disasters for Urban Sustainability ▶ Resilience in the Context of Climate Change ▶ Resilient and Green Building Design/ Construction ▶ Risk Management in Cities
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Disruption ▶ Business Continuity Planning
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Early Warning Systems and Geospatial Tools: Managing Disasters for Urban Sustainability S. Yekeen1, A. Balogun1 and Y. Aina2 1 Geospatial Analysis and Modelling (GAM) Research Group, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UTP, Seri Iskandar, Perak, Malaysia 2 Department of Geomatics Engineering Technology, Yanbu Industrial College, Yanbu, Saudi Arabia
objective of an early warning system is to provide warnings to vulnerable people on a predicted natural or anthropogenic hazard or disaster to reduce possible harm or loss (United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction 2006; Action Practical 2008). A geospatial tool is a decision-making support instrument for planning and management of resources, disasters, and hazards through its capability to input, retrieve, process, analyze, and produce georeferenced data. A geospatial tool can also be referred to as a comprehensive toolset which is capable of and embedded with the ability to store, edit, query, analyze, and display geospatial information.
Definition An early warning system (EWS) is a disaster prediction information tool, used in different fields to acquire and communicate timely and useful warning information for predicted severe events or disasters. This could be as a result of natural factors, geophysical or biological hazard, sociopolitical factors, industrial hazard, and personal health risk factors, among other related disasters or hazards. The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction defines EWS as a framework which enables the generation and dissemination of timely and meaningful warning information to the likely areas to be faced by any form of disaster to facilitate preparedness and timely and appropriate response (United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction 2006). The
Introduction The population of urban inhabitants in the world, which is 4.2 billion in 2018, is projected to be around 7 billion by 2050 (United Nations 2018). The African continent is currently experiencing an unprecedented level of urban expansion, with explosive increments occurring in approximately 40% of urban areas, and by 2030 half of its population will be in the cities (Grierson 2016). Cities are seen as the control room for social and economic development in a country because of the various amenities offered (Grierson 2016; Mourshed et al. 2016). Urban centers provide more employment opportunities, superior infrastructure, and quality living conditions (Mourshed
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et al. 2016), thereby triggering urban migration, which is projected to intensify population growth in developing countries at the rate of 54% by 2030 (United Nations Procurement Division 2005). Despite the opportunities in urban centers, they may pose negative environmental problems globally, if not properly managed. Environmental problems such as pollution from gas emission, land use conflicts, nonrenewable energy usage, high water consumption, waste generation, poor environmental sanitation, and decayed infrastructures are common occurrences in many urban centers (Clarke and Ramalingam 2012; Ameen et al. 2015). Environmental hazards are the consequences of human activities, and they are most often harmful to the ecosystem, which could be local, regional, or global (Adedeji and Eziyi 2010). Aside from the immediate ecological impact, urban activities also contribute significantly to climate change. For example, approximately 23 million people were rendered homeless, 14 million were injured, and 700,000 lost their lives in different climate change-induced disasters in the last 10 years (Nuha et al. 2018). A comprehensive assessment and understanding of disasters are thus essential for fostering sustainable cities. Disasters are horrible events caused by nature, which could be geological, hydrometeorological, or biological or human activities that cause environmental degradation or technological hazards (Guha-Sapir 2016). They are calamities that result in severe damage and loss and destruction to human settlements, properties, and economic activities (Pérez-Pereira et al. 2013). Similarly, the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) considered disasters as disruptive events that cause serious displacement of humans, materials, and economic activities of a society (UNISDR 2009). Kofi Annan, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, identified rapid growth of urban centers and land use conversion, globalization, socioeconomic/financial poverty, global earth warming, and climate change as major causes of natural disasters. The occurrence of disasters spread across different countries and regions, irrespective of their economic status. For instance,
Japan experienced massive earthquakes in 2011, causing damages estimated at approximately US$125 billion (Gencer 2013). Economy loss of US$154 billion affecting 564.4 million people were recorded in 342 natural disasters in 2016 (De Oliveira Silva et al. 2019). It is projected to be at US$300 billion by the year 2050 (Guha-Sapir et al. 2012). Hence, the human and monetary loss caused by disasters has far-reaching implications on countries globally, which lead to the development of Sustainable Development Goals. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030 were introduced by the United Nations to address the challenges of achieving sustainability. With respect to urban disaster, goal number 11 entails “making cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.” Specifically, target 11.5 focuses on “reducing the adverse effect of natural disaster” (Economic and Council 2016). Similarly, the UN General Assembly approved the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) 2015–2030 to be implemented in 187 countries as a 15-year voluntary, non-binding agreement with the aim of reducing disasters/hazard risks and losses in life, livelihoods, and health (Nuha et al. 2018). In achieving these disaster reduction and management goals, geospatial tools and early warning systems have proven to be useful (Krishnamoorthi 2016). Geospatial tools and infrastructure provide insights and support for decision-makers through data interpretation and information dissemination to reduce the level of disaster occurrence (Albano and Sole 2018). The ability of geospatial tools to handle varieties of data on disaster causative factors provides timely and accurate geographical information, which is essential for reducing disaster risk impacts on the urban populace (Aydinoglu and Bilgin 2015). Early warning systems play an important role in disaster risk reduction. According to the Hyogo Framework for Action (2005–2015) and Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015–2030), EWS enable sustainable development and livelihoods by communicating timely and accurate information to the vulnerable community (Kafle 2017). For instance, an early warning system has been implemented in Saudi Arabia to provide citizens with timely information about
Early Warning Systems and Geospatial Tools: Managing Disasters for Urban Sustainability
severe weathers, thereby reducing losses of life and property (Aina et al. 2019). Thus, the overarching aim of EWS is to reduce the possibility of harm or loss by the projected hazard or disaster. Considering their respective merits, the integration of geospatial technology with EWS can foster sustainable urban development through disaster impact reduction.
The Role of Geospatial Technology and Early Warning Systems in Disaster Management Disaster management refers to various means by which affected communities respond to disasters to minimize its impacts (Abella 2002). It is a cyclical process with the aim of reducing the effects of disasters through timely organization and management of resources and responsibilities for dealing with emergencies by preparedness, response, and recovery (Musyoki and Wagithi 2015). It involves the systematic observation and analyses of disaster preparedness in order to offer measures that are capable of aiding disaster prevention, mitigation, response, and recovery (Abella 2002). Basically, disaster management comprises of four phases, which are preparedness, prediction, damage assessment, and rehabilitation (Manikiam 2003). Verma et al. (2019) further divided the management phases into primary and secondary. The primary phase comprises of Early Warning Systems and Geospatial Tools: Managing Disasters for Urban Sustainability, Fig. 1 Elements of a geospatial system. (Source: Authors)
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mitigation and introduction of corrective action, while the secondary phase encompasses mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery (See Fig. 3). Geospatial tool or technology, as defined above, is a collection of multidisciplinary tools used in collecting, storing, managing, organizing, and processing geographically referenced data to produce meaningful information for decisionmakers (Ding et al. 2014). The output comes in different forms such as paper and web-based maps, in-car navigation system, and decision support models and systems with a unique attribute of geographical orientation (Erden and Coskun 2010). Geospatial technology plays significant roles in disaster management by providing risk modeling and vulnerability analysis, which enable effective early warning and damage assessment (Krishnamoorthi 2016). For effective disaster management, there is a need to incorporate technologies that are capable of handling and contributing to every stage independently. Hence, the need for geospatial tool and early warning system for disaster management is important.
Elements of Geospatial Tools Elements in this context connote the interrelated components that make geospatial tools functional (See Fig. 1). For a geospatial system to be reliable and functional, the following elements must be present:
Software
Hardware
Geo-Spatial System Elements
Data
People Methods
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Hardware, software, data, people, and method (Manson et al. 2015): 1. Hardware: This comprises of the platform or computer on which a geospatial tool operates. There are varieties of hardware, ranging from centralized computer system server to network configure or stand-alone desktop computer that enables the operation of geospatial tool. 2. Software: This comprises of the tools that aid the storage, analysis, and display of geospatial information. Geospatial software packages are sophisticated designated tools, which give room for the storage, processing, and analysis of geospatial data like satellite imagery and GPS data for the production of maps (De Smith et al. 2007). Examples of these software packages include ArcGIS, QGIS, ERDAS Imagine, ENVI, and SNAP. 3. Data: Data are forms of a table, satellite image, and vector, among others that geospatially represent a scenario. Geospatial data are divided into location and attribute data. The location data describes the geographical position of a phenomenon, while the attribute data describe the characteristics of the event (Manson et al. 2015). Data for disaster management are majorly derived from remote sensing satellite which could be optical (an example is Landsat) or microwave (an example is RADARSAT) (Bello and Aina 2014). 4. People: Geospatial tools are incomplete or unfunctionable without the people who manage the system and develop plans for applying it to real-world problems. Geospatial tool users range from technical specialists who design and maintain the system to those who use it to help them perform their everyday work. 5. Method: The plan that aids the successful operation and implementation comprises the method. It represents the design model and the unique functioning system. Hence, the absence of one of these elements affects the functionality of the tool. For a geospatial apparatus to be useful, the hardware to accommodate the software must be present with the technical specialist to determine the data
and methods that need to be used in achieving the proposed goal. In essence, for a geospatial tool to be useful, the GIS software needs a platform to run on for the acquisition, storage, display, manipulation, and analysis of data that depends on the methods to be used by the technical specialist which indicates the interrelationship and dependence of the elements. There exists a close link among these elements because the absence of one leads to the failure of others. Elements of Early Warning Systems According to the United Nations, for an early warning to be more effective, the following key elements must be present: risk knowledge, monitoring and warning, dissemination of information, and response capabilities (United Nations 2009): 1. Risk Knowledge: This is an element of an early warning system which gives important information about the disaster that an area is prone to in order to set a goal for preventive strategies and mitigation. This element helps in motivating people and identifying the need for an early warning system and preparation guide for disaster prevention and responses. Integrating geospatial tool to risk knowledge helps to identify and give information on the various factors that contribute to disaster occurrence (Singh et al. 2019). This element answers the following questions: Are the people well informed or knowledgeable about the disaster they are vulnerable to? What are the factors responsible for and the pattern of the disaster? Are there widely available risk maps and data? 2. Monitoring and Warning Service: Reliable EWS should have the ability to monitor and predict in time the potential risk to be faced by communities, environment, and economies. For disaster like flood, manual monitoring and warning process of early warning system should have a trained community reader for potential flood risk, by registering the river levels (Smith et al. 2017). Although natural disaster might not be preventable, the capability of an integrated geospatial technology provides information through prediction and susceptibility mapping to serve as an advance
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Monitoring and Warning Services
Risk Knowledge
Early Warning System
Response Capacity
Information Dissemination
Early Warning Systems and Geospatial Tools: Managing Disasters for Urban Sustainability, Fig. 2 The interrelationship among the elements of an early warning system. (Source: Authors)
warning for the vulnerable people (Merrett and Chen 2013). This element also provides answers to the following: Are the right variables being monitored? Is there a sound scientific basis for making forecasts? Is there a possibility of generating an accurate and timely warning? 3. Information Dissemination: For an early warning system to be effective, communication systems are paramount, which serve as a means of delivering warning messages to the likely vulnerable areas as well as to alert local and regional governmental agencies. The communicated messages must be reliable, synthetic, and simple to be understood by the receivers. Haworth (2016) asserted that the use of volunteered geographical information has helped in fostering ubiquitous geographical information through web maps and social media. This element answers the following: Are there proper dissemination of warning to the people at risk? Is there a proper understanding of the risks and warnings? Are the warning information clearly communicated and usable by the vulnerable people? The advancement in information technology has improved the ways in which information are transmitted. 4. Response Capacity: This section involves the provision of coordinated appropriate action plans with good governance. Corps and Action (2010) established that plans for disaster management should be in place to sort responsibilities and resources in the event of a natural disaster. Well-defined plans of response should build upon local abilities and knowledge to
assist the disaster management at both local and national levels. These plans should be frequently tested through mock trails to educate the locals for appropriate action in the event of a flood (Smith et al. 2017). Based on the wide range of geospatial data coverage, its integration with an early warning system provides a quick estimation of an area of damage through high-resolution satellite imagery (Voigt et al. 2016). The element also answers the following questions: Are the prepared responses plans up to date and tested? Are local capacities and knowledge made use of? Are the vulnerable people prepared and ready to react to warnings? The development and use of early warning systems are not limited to human security but also useful for the protection of amenities that enhances human livelihood (Santos-Reyes 2019). The importance of these different elements of an early warning system cannot be overemphasized because of their cyclical nature (Garcia and Fearnley 2012) making it dependent to each other (Fig. 2) (Basher 2006). Although the monitoring and warning service elements have been indicated to be the most recognized aspect of EWS (Basher 2006), this cannot be achieved if the vulnerable populace is not well educated. Twigg (2003) indicated that the successful awareness of the vulnerable people on a disaster determines the success of its emergency communication after prediction and failure of the policy institutions to provide recovery plans limits the impact of the monitoring and warning services.
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Response Preparedness
Disaster Event
Recovery Mitigation
Early Warning Systems and Geospatial Tools: Managing Disasters for Urban Sustainability, Fig. 3 The life circle of the disaster management process. (Source: Adapted from Erden and Coskun 2007)
In another instance, when a disaster occurs, the aim of the policymakers is to provide appropriate lasting solutions. To achieve this, all contributory factors both short and long terms are identified, making it possible to easily educate and inform the vulnerable community. This creates a synergy to provide information to aid the forecasting of and easy communication of the phenomenon to the people, in turn creating a quick response capability for the disaster occurrence. When all the enlisted elements are complete, these tools will serve as an instrument in accomplishing the following stages of disaster management in the following ways (Fig. 3). Mitigation Since most disasters cannot be prevented, most especially those that occur naturally, this phase of disaster management focuses on the development of activities that eliminate or reduce the impacts. At this point, geospatial technology helps to predict areas vulnerable to disaster by understanding and knowing areas where the disasters can happen in order to provide early mitigation measures (Vijay et al. 2013). Yi et al. (2015) posited that geospatial data are used in the mapping of environmental condition(s), which influence the
development and communication of pathogens, habitats for vectors and hosts, and human exposures. They further indicated that geospatial tools provide information on potential disasters through measurement from parameters which include rainfall, vegetation greenness, soil moisture, and surface water. Similarly, early warning systems include the monitoring of pre-occurred events, projection of a probability of occurrence of an event, and the notification of a warning or an alert if catastrophic events occur (Villagran de Leon and Janos 2006). As a real-time tool for disaster reduction, it gives prior information to the relevant authorities and the at-risk communities, highlighting the predicted disaster in the area, level of community vulnerability and likely risk, warning messages, as well as building and mobilizing the disaster response team (Kafle 2007). Preparedness In the case that the disaster cannot be prevented, this stage provides measures that allow for the emergency planning for disaster occurrence. Geospatial tools help in creating emergency routes that aid short-distance rescue. Albano and Sole (2018) posited that for the last decades, geospatial tools have given access to timely data that have been useful to scientists and engineers in producing an emergency plan for disaster. Krishnamoorthi (2016) indicated that geospatial tools such as earth observation system (EOS) or remote sensing (RE) and GIS technology-based tools help in acquiring different data over a short period of time to rapidly detect and monitor disasters. Similarly, early warning systems can help to reduce casualties and damages by providing the people who are prone to disaster with timely information ahead of the hazard. It provides a quick analysis of the information and delivery to the at-risk communities. Response This phase of disaster management handles the provision of immediate assistance to the affected community or people (Verma et al. 2019). Based on the dynamic nature of early warning system and geospatial tools, they are capable of providing a decision support system (Balogun et al. 2018)
Early Warning Systems and Geospatial Tools: Managing Disasters for Urban Sustainability
that tracks victims and route for the transferring of movable items to safer grounds (Erden and Coşkun 2010). These infrastructures also aid the mobilization of resources and emergency response agency. Furthermore, geospatial and early warning systems are incorporated to provide models that reveal the condition of the event (Erden and Coşkun 2010). Recovery This phase of disaster management encompasses the analysis of affected areas for recovery back to its previous state before the disaster (Verma et al. 2019). Aside from the pre-disaster vulnerability and susceptibility prediction, geospatial tools and early warning systems are capable of providing post-disaster relief and rehabilitation planning through the provision of maps and information that help in providing better resettlement and rehabilitation (Erden and Coskun 2010). The presence of smart mobile phones with GPS enabled has made it easy for real-time scenario communication, thereby giving the decision-makers better chance to allocate resources for the restoration of the affected area (Adam et al. 2012).
Classification and Case Studies of Implemented Geospatial and Early Warning System Tools for Disaster Management Geospatial tools and early warning systems are capable of notifying the concern authorities and aid communication of information directly to the general public (Fuchs 2009). Bell et al. (2010) classified geospatial and early warning systems into data collection, monitoring, and expert and alarm systems but made the emphasis that a sharp system classification is not convenient. Even if there is no distinct classification of geospatial and early warning systems, this entry will classify them into single-hazard and multi-hazard. Single-hazard criteria are those with focus on one type of disaster, for example, flood and earthquake, among others. This can be used either on a global, local, or regional level. On the other hand, multi-hazard EWS are those which can be used for
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different disasters as long as it has been provided with the right information needed. Multi-hazard early warning system can be used on a global, regional, and local level, but they are mostly used on the global level because of their scale of operation. Tables 1 and 2 show the different examples of implemented case studies of geospatial and early warning systems to aid more understanding on the areas in which the different categories have been applied and the concept behind individual frameworks based on disaster type.
Challenges of Implementing Geospatial Tool and Early Warning System Despite the fact that geospatial tools and early warning systems have been in existence for decades, the interrelationship in their functionality and implementation indicates similar challenges. A high percentage of the existing geospatial tool and early warning system are one-way communication processing. Gwimbi (2007) identified that lack of evacuation plan and too much dependence on one source of information hinder the implementation of an early warning system. Oroda (2013) revealed that part of the several factors that affect geospatial and early warning system implementation includes lack of facilities and equipment; limited well-trained personnel; limited data; inadequate budget, infrastructure, and manpower. Aleem and Aina (2014) identified that despite the capabilities of geospatial technology, there is a limitation in its deployment in developing countries for disaster management. According to Kafle (2017), the nonexistence of policy and legal frameworks has weakened the efforts put in place for the establishment and strengthening of an effective and functional geospatial and early warning systems. Furthermore, lack of adequate financial investment, lack of effective and efficient monitoring and evaluation, absence of responsible national early warning centers, inadequate dissemination of information to the community, inability to develop appropriate mechanisms for communication, weak capacity for early response, lack of coordination among various agencies and
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Early Warning Systems and Geospatial Tools: Managing Disasters for Urban Sustainability, Table 1 Case studies of early warning system for disaster management Classification of early warning system Multi-hazard system
Disaster type and location Two mosquito-borne diseases in West Nile
Single hazard
Horn East African countries (Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda)
Single hazard
Installing of flood early warning system in ten states in Nigeria
Single hazard
Earthquake warning in Mexico
Single hazard
Community-based smart hydroinformatics flood inundation early warning system for Taiwan
Early warning framework application The early warning system was developed through the use of EASTWeb software. The system was aimed at providing and updating the environment-centered database to aid early warning system for West Nile virus and malaria outbreaks. R software environment was used for the creation of model, forecasting, and generation of risk maps Between the year 1995 and 2000, there was funding from the Netherlands government to carry out an early warning system which was known as Regional Famine Early Warning System (REFEWS) which sees to the partnership between the RCMRD and the Environmental Analysis and Remote Sensing (EARS) consultants of the Delft. As a result of this project, a methodology for monitoring vegetation growth condition and crop yield seasonal estimation was created. This early warning system was used to estimate the end of season crop yield in order to understand the food situation before the end of a season Due to the increasing number of flood disasters in many cities of Nigeria, the Ministry of Environment in partnership with the Erosion and Watershed Management Project installed an automated flood early warning system in the coaster area of ten states of the country. This was the aim of providing timely information to the community and the vulnerable people The west coast of Mexico happens to be an area of subduction earthquakes. An early warning system was station along this area to provide Mexico City warning at about 320 km inland before strong shake arrives. The system as the ability to identify earthquake of M>6 and provide detailed information to the likely affected people As a result of the devastating effect of the flood in the urban center of Taiwan, a geospatial web-based intelligent hydroinformatics integrated early warning system was created. The system is cable of providing online forecasting of regional flood depth. The system was developed with a holistic framework of the hydroinformatics integrated platform which comprises of five layers which are data access, data integration, servicer, functional subsystem, and end-user application
References Yi et al. (2015)
Oroda (2013)
Ahon (2018)
Suarez et al. (2009)
Li-Chiu et al. (2018)
(continued)
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Early Warning Systems and Geospatial Tools: Managing Disasters for Urban Sustainability, Table 1 (continued) Classification of early warning system Single hazard
Disaster type and location Drought early warning system for Karamoja, Uganda
organizations, absence of legal and institutional framework, and the lack of ability to provide adequate training courses, research, and study activities are the major factors confronting geospatial and early warning system. Inadequate timing and infrastructure for safe evacuation have been identified as factors affecting the implementation of geospatial and early warning system (Smith et al. 2017). However, according to Brown et al. (2014), the challenges of implementing geospatial and early warning system can be grouped into the following area: 1. Lack of role and responsibility definition: It was identified that there has been a serious overlapping gap in the role of the concern agencies and organizations in charge of disaster management making it difficult to set up several disaster management tools. 2. Inadequate financial budget: The study identified that there is a shortage of financial budget for the implementation of geospatial and early warning system leading to the overlapping and
Early warning framework application Karamoja is a subregion of northeast Uganda. Being a pastoralist society, the inhabitants of the area depend majorly on climate-sensitive resources which include pasture and water. It was identified that drought was the major natural disaster in the area, and in 2008 under the aegis of the Drought Preparedness Consortium led by the DanChurchAid (DCA), drought early warning system was established and was also supported by the European Commission’s humanitarian aid and civil protection office (echo) This early warning system operated through household data collection and analysis from 10 households per parish which equates 75 parishes. The data collected are analyzed and served as a monthly predictive measure for drought risk. The information predicted is then published in a bulletin which is made available to the communities
References ACTED (2013)
disorderliness in the implementation of a disaster management strategies and tools. 3. Lack of legislative policy: Availability of policies determines the level of success of many disaster management tools. Due to lack of local or national policy, the successful implementation of the disaster management geospatial and warning system is not guaranteed. 4. Political instability: The change of government from different hands has highly affected the implementation of a geospatial and warning system, as every government wants to be unique in its development, thereby abandoning the already started project by creating a new one. In conclusion, managing urban disaster is crucial to achieving Sustainable Development Goals. As such, the use of early warning system and geospatial technology cannot be discounted because of their ease to applicability and costeffectiveness with the effective capabilities in disaster mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. Also, in order to achieve the
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Early Warning Systems and Geospatial Tools: Managing Disasters for Urban Sustainability, Table 2 Case studies of implemented geospatial tool for disaster management Classification of geospatial tool Multi-hazard
Disaster type and location Different disasters at different locations
Single hazard
Post-hazard refugee settlement siting
Multi-hazard
Automatic search for geospatial information for disaster management
Single hazard
Geospatial-based real-time notification tool for fire disaster
Multi-hazard
Sentinel Asia satellite remote sensing for disaster management
Single hazard
Sudan drought geospatial disaster warning system
Geospatial framework application In order to create a reliable platform that links decision-makers, emergency operation centers, and operational resources for disaster management, a framework called DECATASTROPHIZE (DECAT) was developed. This platform aids the creation of information that will provide early preparation and strategic decision-making before and during the response to any form of disaster Due to the increase in the number of refugees in the Mediterranean since 2014, there has been a complex supply chain management and operational logistics site location problem. This framework was developed through the use of geospatial multi-agent system and multi-criteria decision-making methods for a decision support system for refugee settlement planning So as to provide the needful geospatial information to an emergency response team for proper disaster management, a geospatial semantic web technology and natural language interface was developed. This framework was capable of providing desirable geospatial features from different semantic sources to aid quick response time The need to maintain real-time awareness and effective decision-making through continuous monitoring leads to the creation of a geospatial framework capable of providing quick real-time notification for fire disaster. This interactive framework was able to provide location-based fire incidents through the use of GPS emergency access and metrological observation of wireless sensors To assist in disaster management of the Asia-Pacific Region, in 2006 a partnership was established between the regional space agencies and disaster management agency to integrate satellite remote sensing and web geographical information system technology. Based on its implementation for the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake, it was able to effectively provide a spacebased response to support the relief effort Over the last 36 years, Sudan as an African country has suffered from the reoccurrence of drought and water scarcity. This crisis was recorded to have occurred four different times within this period which were the years 1983, 2000, 2011, and 2013. This disaster was linked to the reduction on the level of rainfall in the area which has led to the death and displacement of people. It was also identified to be difficult to acquire rainfall data. In order to provide a lasting solution to this problem, a climatic early warning system was developed through a partnership in June 2013 with the RainwatchAfClix. The system makes use of a GIS-based Rainwatch platform which transfers rainfall and temperature climatic data into detailed information for monsoon season
References Damalas et al. (2018)
Drakaki et al. (2018)
Zhang et al. (2010)
Liang and Gao (2010)
Kaku (2018)
AfClix (2013)
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predetermined goals of sustainable urban development, challenges highlighted must be adequately taken care of through regular education on vulnerability to disaster and the capacity of early warning systems and geospatial tool, clear definition of the roles of concerned agencies, regular training of disaster management officers for manpower development, and adequate funding for disaster management tools.
Cross-References ▶ Disaster Risk Management Strategies: Building the Resilient Human Settlements ▶ Resilience in the Context of Climate Change ▶ Risk Management in Cities ▶ Spatial Resilience in Planning: Meanings, Challenges, and Perspectives for Urban Transition ▶ Urban Mitigation and Adaptation for Climate Change
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Liang S, Gao Y (2010) Real-time notification and improved situational awareness in fire emergencies using geospatial-based publish/subscribe. Int J Appl Earth Obs Geoinf 12(6):431–438 Li-Chiu C, Fi-John C, Shun-Nien Y, I-Feng K, Ying-Yu K, Chun-Ling K, Ir. Mohd Zaki M (2018) Building an intelligent hydroinformatics integration platform for regional flood inundation warning systems. Water 11:9 Manikiam BJM (2003) Remote sensing applications in disaster management. MAUSAM 54(1):173–182 Manson SM, Bonsal DB, Kernik M, Lambin EF (2015) Geographic information systems and remote sensing Merrett HC, Chen WW (2013) Applications of geographical information systems and remote sensing in natural disaster hazard assessment and mitigation in Taiwan. Geomatics Nat Hazards Risk 4(2):145–163 Mourshed M, Bucchiarone A, Khandokar F (2016) SMART: a process oriented methodology for resilient smart cities. Proceedings of IEEE International Smart Cities Conference (ISC2), Trento, pp 775–780 Musyoki J, Wagithi WJ (2015) Factors influencing effective disaster management in the hospitality industry, a case of selected hotels in the great rift region Nuha E, Charles E, Virginia M (2018) Building urban resilience for disaster risk management and sisaster risk reduction. Procedia Eng 212:575–582 Oroda AS (2013) Application of remote sensing to early warning for food security and environmental monitoring in the horn of Africa. Int Arch Photogramm Remote Sens Spat Inf Sci XXXIV(6/W6):66–72 Pérez-Pereira M, Tinajero C, Rodríguez MS, Peralbo M, Sabucedo JM (2013) Academic effects of the prestige oil spill disaster. Span J Psychol 15:1055–1068 Santos-Reyes J (2019) How useful are earthquake early warnings? The case of the 2017 earthquakes in Mexico city, International journal of disaster risk reduction. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2019.101148 Singh D, Pandey D, Mina U (2019) Earthquake-a natural disaster, prediction, mitigation, laws and government policies, impact on biogeochemistry of Earth crust, role of remote sensing and GIS in management in India-an overview. J Geosci 7(2):88–96 Smith PJ, Brown S, Dugar S (2017) Community-based early warning systems for flood risk mitigation in Nepal. Nat Hazards Earth Syst Sci 17:423–437 Suarez G, Novelo D, Mansilla E (2009) Performance evaluation of the Seismic Alert System (Sas) in Mexico City. Seismological and social perspective. Seismol Res 80:707–714 Twigg J (2003) The human factor in early warnings: risk perception and appropriate communications. In: Early warning systems for natural disaster reduction. Springer, Berlin United Nations (2009) UNISDR terminology on disaster risk reduction
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EbA (Ecosystem-Based Adaptation) ▶ Implementation of Green Infrastructure in PostDisaster Recovery
Eco-DRR (Ecosystem-Based Disaster Risk Reduction) ▶ Implementation of Green Infrastructure in PostDisaster Recovery
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Ecological Footprint: Pragmatic Approach to Understanding and Building Sustainable Cities Nana Bortsie-Aryee1 and Cle-Anne Gabriel2 1 Global GreenTag Pty Ltd., Brisbane, QLD, Australia 2 UQ Business School, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Synonyms Ecological impact
Definitions Ecological footprint is an approach used to measure the impact of human activities on the natural environment (Van den Bergh and Verbruggen 1999; Wackernagel and Rees 1998). It is a common indicator of the quantity of natural environment resources needed to support human systems. These systems can range in specificity from individuals to whole economies (Hoekstra 2009; Wackernagel and Rees 1997). Users of ecological footprinting techniques emphasize that ecological footprint can be differentiated from other sustainability indicators in two important ways (Hoekstra 2009). Firstly, it expresses the impact of humanity with a single unit and, secondly, it expresses human impact in relation to Earth’s carrying capacity (i.e., Earth’s ability to support life). Ecological footprint has been popularized due to concerns about Earth’s declining carrying capacity; the footprint proved to be an effective baseline to acknowledge and quantify the current impact of human activity on our natural environment, before devising solutions that might improve this impact. Ecological footprint has since been used as a benchmark as well – to quantify and communicate recommended consumption norms for societies. Monfreda et al. (2004) consider certain functions
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of bioproductive land area in their estimation of the ecological footprint of cities and communities. These functions include the use of arable land (related to food and other agri-based products), use of pastureland (for animal farming systems), potential use of forestlands (related to timber products), built land use (e.g., housing), productive sea space (related to fisheries), and forestland used to absorb the CO2 emissions produced by human activities (Monfreda et al. 2004). In recent times, with rapid advancement in technology and trade, it is likely that the ecological footprint of human systems will increase due to the increased load exerted by humans and the economy on Earth’s stocks of natural capital. Ecological footprint is therefore a relevant indicator not only to consider and monitor the impact of our changing societies and economies but also to devise solutions and benchmarks that will help mitigate the anticipated negative impacts on the natural environment.
Ecological Footprint for Sustainable Cities and Communities Introduction In this entry, ecological footprint is discussed in relation to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically SDG 11 – Sustainable Cities and Communities (United Nations 2017). The concept is discussed with reference to how major activities in cities add to the magnitude of the human population’s physical metabolism and how those activities impact the ecosystem of the Earth (Galli et al. 2016). The entry presents aspects of life in cities and communities as they relate to and increase the ecological footprint of cities and communities. These aspects include factors such as human life, food systems, energy consumption, mobility (transportation), the built environment (e.g., housing), and the provision and use of goods and services. An overview of these aspects is presented in the context of research, education, decision-making, and policy in the twenty-first-century sustainable development agenda. It has become imperative that cities and communities understand the baseline for their
development agenda. As a quantifiable concept and tool, ecological footprint is a starting point to help cities meet their sustainability objectives. This indicator may serve as a proxy to understand the baseline pressures associated with sustainable development and as a tool for improvement and sustainable planning for SDG 11. Ecological Footprint Ecological footprint began as a concept crafted by William Rees in 1992 in an academic publication (Rees 1992). Under Rees’ supervision, Mathis Wackernagel then developed the concept further in his PhD thesis (Wackernagel 1994). Ecological footprint is an indicator that compares the level of consumption of natural resources with the amount of bioproductive land and sea area available to support this consumption (Wiedmann and Barrett 2010). It illustrates the dependence of human populations (from individual, national, and global perspectives) on the natural environment (Monfreda et al. 2004; Wackernagel and Rees 1998). The unit of measurement is global hectares, which refers to adjusted hectares that represent the average yield of all the Earth’s bioproductive areas (Wiedmann and Barrett 2010). Wackernagel and his colleagues chose land as an indicator because of its usefulness as a proxy for understanding the many resource flows and life supporting services that it provides. In addition, ecological footprint’s focus on land area is based on the notion that land and space are easily relatable concepts both across different cultures and traditions and in the context of the finite amount of space available around the world. Wackernagel et al. (1999) explained the choice of land area as primary indicator by emphasizing that the area in each ecosystem category is roughly proportional to its photosynthetic potential for low entropy biomass production (Wackernagel et al. 1999). In summary, land, as an indicator of ecological footprint, illustrates the functional integrity of Earth’s ecosystems. Ecological footprint is used with biocapacity to measure the impact of humans on the natural environment. The concept of biocapacity is an important contextualizing factor for the concept of ecological footprint (Hoekstra 2009). The Earth’s biocapacity represents the biologically
Ecological Footprint: Pragmatic Approach to Understanding and Building Sustainable Cities
productive land area needed to produce an ongoing supply of natural resources and absorb and filter emissions from the atmosphere (Huijbregts et al. 2008). The concepts of ecological footprint and biocapacity can be related to Daly’s sustainability principle, which mentions that within a closed system, the harvest rate should not exceed the regeneration rate and the waste production rate should not exceed the rate of assimilation (Daly 1990). In the same manner, the rate of use of land area by activities related to expanding cities and communities should not exceed the available land area needed to support those activities and manage or assimilate the waste generated by those activities. Recent estimates show that the average footprint is about 2.2 global hectares per person (Global Footprint Network 2018a). Earth’s biocapacity is about 1.7 productive hectares available per person (Global Footprint Network 2018b). This means that humans have exceeded the biocapacity of the Earth by over 20%; this is referred to as an overshoot scenario, as humans are using the Earth’s natural resources faster than the rate of regeneration. There exist different approaches for estimating ecological footprint. These different approaches are distinctively grouped as either componentbased or compound footprints (Simmons et al. 2000). The component-based approach involves the summation of the ecological footprint of all relevant sectors of the system under investigation (e.g., crop cultivation and livestock production), as well as the waste production associated with the component sectors. The compound footprint approach uses aggregated data instead of fragments of data from various sectors (e.g., agriculture). When using either of these approaches, specialists must decide whether to use consumption data from the system under investigation or production data from the various components of the system to enable the estimation of ecological footprint. There have been criticisms of these methods of estimating ecological footprint. One of the major criticisms is the concern for capturing the demand for ecosystem services related to cities and communities using one aggregated indicator. This
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concern is summed up by Galli and his colleagues, who state that “in its insistence to capture the big picture with just one number, the ecological footprint puts itself at odds with the community of scientists concerned with a responsible use of quantitative information in sustainability science” (Galli et al. 2016, p. 226). In advocating for the ecological footprint method, proponents argue that its consideration of carrying capacity or biocapacity as a defined limit is an advantage over other potential indicators, which do not place their results in context of specific biophysical limits. Humans and Ecological Footprint
From the perspective of the SDGs, discussion of humanity’s influence on ecological footprint has focused on population pressures and improving standards of living (Toth and Szigeti 2016). It is estimated that cities in the developing world will be responsible for 95% of the world’s urban growth by 2030 (Habitat 2006). The Earth’s population is expected to grow from 7.6 billion to 8.9 billion between 2018 and 2050. It is projected to stabilize at nine billion in 2050 (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs 2017). With this projected rise in population, it is expected that the ecological footprint of humanity will also increase (Hubacek et al. 2009; Jorgenson 2003). At current population levels, ecological footprint patterns differ across income levels and communities (Moran et al. 2008; Van Vuuren and Smeets 2000). In higher income countries, ecological footprint has increased per person; this has been attributed to lifestyle changes that depend on increased consumption of resources (Van Vuuren and Smeets 2000). Urban sprawl is a major concern for environmentalists. It is associated with increasing human populations as well as changing demographics due to rising income levels. Increasing wealth in cities leads to demand for spacious living, and this tends to create rapid growth of the suburbs around cities. The proliferation of suburbs consumes a considerable amount of the Earth’s natural resources and leads to increases in waste generation resulting from activities happening within sprawling suburbs. Prime examples of this include
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the New York metropolitan area which is noted to have grown more than 60% in surface area, compared to only a 5% growth in population within the metropolitan area (Girardet 2004). In lower- and middle-income countries where the population is increasing rapidly, the per capita ecological footprint has declined (Jorgenson 2003). However, assuming that low- to middleincome countries will follow similar growth patterns as high-income level countries (i.e., industrialization), it is expected that the ecological footprint of communities in these societies will increase, putting additional pressure on Earth’s biocapacity (Galli et al. 2012). In China, where income levels are increasing rapidly alongside population growth, it was projected that the total ecological footprint of China on an average per person basis will increase by 20% from 2001 to 2020 at an average growth rate of about 1.3% per year (Hubacek et al. 2009). Cities experiencing similar dynamics with income level and population growth will observe that these upward trends reflect negatively on their ecological footprint. In an increased population scenario, cities and communities will need to develop policies and programs that encourage technology and behavior changes that will lead to decreased use of the bioproductive capacity of the city and effectively reduce its ecological footprint. Failure to take measures to cope with the effect of population increase on ecological footprint will lead to pressures on the bioproductive capacity of the city and affect the supply of services such as utilities and housing. Impact of Food Systems on Ecological Footprint
Food systems are important as a source of energy for the growth and development of cities and communities (Roy et al. 2009). Roy et al.’s (2009) article on the life cycle impacts of food products emphasizes that food systems also affect the environment through the release of greenhouse gas emissions and waste, the use of natural resources (especially land), and its negative impact on biodiversity. From a sustainable cities and communities’ perspective, food systems are responsible for about 30% of the total pressures from human populations on the
natural environment (McLaren 2010). These anthropogenic pressures are also indirectly related to the growing population trend and the increase in wealth of urban dwellers around the world. Growing populations mean increasing demand for food resources, which in turn leads to increased food production and the land area needed to produce food (Tilman 1999). From an ecological footprint perspective, an increase in the land area needed to produce food puts pressure on the available finite bioproductive land area. Crop production uses about 23% of the world’s agricultural land and animal production uses about 77% (Ritchie 2017). Together, both uses demand a sizable portion of the Earth’s bioproductive land area (about 28 billion acres (Global Footprint Network 2018a; Ritchie 2017). These food production systems require not just land, but also other resources extracted (both directly and indirectly) from the land, such as energy and water (Tilman et al. 2002). Fossil-based products such as diesel and gasoline are used to grow food in expanding cities and communities. Apart from the release of emissions and the waste generated, the impact of extracting these fossil fuels in relation to growing population and the ability to feed the population is an important consideration. Food systems driven by cities and communities’ growing population affect the health of water systems and biodiversity (Tilman et al. 2002). Animal production systems are resource intensive in terms of energy use and land area per kilogram of meat (Herrero et al. 2015). Increases in the income levels of populations in developing countries lead to an increase in red meat consumption, which leads to a potential increase in livestock production numbers (Van Vuuren and Smeets 2000). Rising income levels also lead to increases in food waste. In sum, the changing dynamics of cities and communities lead to changes in food systems. These food system changes lead to pressures on the bioproductive land area available and ultimately to an increase in the ecological overshoot of Earth’s cities and communities.
Ecological Footprint: Pragmatic Approach to Understanding and Building Sustainable Cities
Impact of Energy on Ecological Footprint
Energy is central to the development of communities and cities (Sorrell 2010); it affects the sustainable development of cities and communities positively. Indeed, the aim of SDG 11 is to ensure that growing cities and communities that rely on various sources of energy are incentivized to generate this energy sustainably and use it in sustainable ways. Currently, most of the world’s energy sources are still fossil-based (World Energy Council 2016). Data shows that the three major fossilbased fuels – coal, oil, and natural gas – make up 87% of the world’s total energy consumption (Ritchie and Roser 2018). Although this shows a major reliance on these energy sources, it also underlines the use of renewables as an alternative in the quest to replace fossil-based fuels. Currently, the contribution of renewable energy sources to the global share of energy used by cities and communities stands at 11% (Ritchie and Roser 2018). Sources of renewable energy, such as wind and solar, are not associated with the extensive release of anthropogenic gases that lead to warming of the Earth. However, resources such as land area are needed for the generation of some of these renewable energies (Nonhebel 2005; Pimentel et al. 2002). It is estimated that a land area of 2800 hectares is needed to install and produce one billion kWh from photovoltaic systems (Pimentel et al. 2002). Similarly, Pimentel et al. (2002) estimates that a land area of 1.8 ha is needed for the installation of a 50 kW capacity wind turbine. Together with fossilbased energy, this leads to an increase in ecological footprint. However, the overall impact of low-carbon renewable energy sources on the ecological footprint of human systems has been estimated to be better than conventional fossilbased sources of energy (Stöglehner 2003). The onus is on governments and policymakers to encourage growing cities and communities to decrease their demand on energy services. Reducing energy demand will have the effect of reducing the ecological footprint of cities and communities. With the world’s increasing population, the energy demand of cities and
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communities is expected to increase. However, a decrease in per capita energy consumption will mean a decrease in the natural resources, including land area, needed to generate energy. Decreasing energy demand in growing cities and communities will mean an increase in behaviors and technology that lead to improvements in energy use and efficiency. The development of infrastructure that uses less energy, as well as incentivizing the use of public, shared, or nonmotorized transportation, will also indirectly improve the ecological footprint of growing cities and communities. Impact of Housing Sector on Ecological Footprint
About 50% of global greenhouse gas emissions can be traced to the built environment (Heinonen et al. 2011). The housing sector in particular is a major contributor to the human population’s increasing ecological footprint (Jouaneau et al. 2016). The housing sector uses diverse types of resources, including energy, to transport and transform the raw materials used in the development and maintenance of infrastructure (Jouaneau et al. 2016). It is estimated that as the world’s population increases to nine billion (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs 2017), there will be even more urbanization, which places additional pressure on land and other resources (Glaeser and Kahn 2010). Glaeser and Kahn (2010) emphasize that increases in both population and housing in the built environment also lead to an increase in emissions (waste and anthropogenic). There is therefore a need for policies that improve the impact of the housing sector on the natural environment, especially in relation to the continued growth and sustainable development of cities and communities. Much of the impact of the housing sector on the growing ecological footprint of cities and communities comes from new constructions, maintenance, and residential housing (Agrawal et al. 2005; Holden 2004). Indeed, housing requires the use of various natural resources and energy, which all contribute to an increase in the ecological footprint of a city or community (Ding 2008). New constructions in developing cities are
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catering for population growth and the infrastructure pressures associated with the demand for improved living conditions are an increasingly important consideration. In particular, population increases and rising income levels mean greater requirements for bigger living spaces and thus increase in the land area required to sustain populations (Hubacek et al. 2009). This also means increasing the demand for more dwelling spaces. New constructions lead to increased land use (Holden 2004) and, as ecological footprint is expressed in terms of the finite bioproductive land area available, new constructions have a direct impact on the increasing ecological footprint of human populations. Similarly, the maintenance of existing buildings during the expansion of cities and communities also leads to increased demand for energy and Earth’s natural resources, which directly increases ecological footprint (Agrawal et al. 2005; Ding 2008). This situation is compounded in developing countries where the demand for expansion is heavily driven by rising income levels and migration from rural to urban areas (Hubacek et al. 2009; Van Vuuren and Smeets 2000). The dynamics of housing expansion in cities in developing countries is affected significantly by demand from changes in lifestyle and income levels. These shifts are also leading to an increased rate of carbon emissions globally (Rees 1999; Wei et al. 2015). Increased demand for energy, carbon emissions, and land will contribute to an increased ecological footprint overall. Policies to reduce the ecological footprint of cities and communities should consider housing sector improvements aimed at reducing energy demand, carbon dioxide equivalent emissions, and demand for land area. Simultaneously, in terms of encouraging energy use and demand in ways that will have lower impact on the ecological footprint of cities and communities, policies should focus on the development and use of renewable energies that demand less space/land, produce fewer emissions, and generate less waste. Impact of Mobility on Ecological Footprint
Mobility refers to the movement of people, goods, and services within, in, and out of a geographical
region (Han et al. 2017; Muñiz and Galindo 2005). It is related to personal transport, as well as the associated energy and the built area footprint of infrastructure and services. Mobility is considered a major contributor to the ecological footprint of cities and communities (Wackernagel and Rees 1998), due to the energy resources used to transport people, goods, and services (Holden and Høyer 2005). Mobility results in high fuel demand and consumption through passenger cars and trucks, motorcycles, buses, passenger rail, passenger air, and passenger boat transportation (Agrawal et al. 2005; Holden and Høyer 2005). The amount of fuel consumed and the energy and emissions associated with consumption by all forms of transportation are important for evaluating the impact of mobility on ecological footprint. Ecological footprint takes into account the direct and indirect impacts of the energy consumed, as well as energy consumption levels related to providing transportation services and the land occupied by transport infrastructure. Direct energy consumption includes taking into account trip distance, frequency, and mode of transport (Muñiz and Galindo 2005). On one hand, mobility has a more significant impact on ecological footprint in sprawling cities (Kenworthy 2006; Muñiz and Galindo 2005; Newman 2006). City sprawl leads to longer commuting distances, which mean higher demand and consumption of fuel (Kenworthy 2006; Muñiz and Galindo 2005). City sprawl also means use of resources to develop mobility infrastructure to cater for the growth of cities and communities (Newman 2006). These developments affect ecological footprint in relation to the finite bioproductive land area consumed per kilometer travelled (Han et al. 2017; Muñiz and Galindo 2005). For communities and cities, dealing with population growth in sprawling cities means increase in frequency of transportation, which reflects in resource use as well as the emissions and waste associated with mobility. On the other hand, densely populated areas may experience a decrease in ecological footprint associated with transportation fuel if appropriate policies limit motor vehicle transportation within certain areas of the city.
Ecological Footprint: Pragmatic Approach to Understanding and Building Sustainable Cities
The methods used by experts to estimate the impact of mobility on ecological footprint have evolved over time. Consideration is now given to various methods including calculating the forest land area needed to sequester the CO2 emissions linked to mobility (Rees and Wackernagel 1996). In addition, experts have also considered the estimated land area required to rebuild natural capital at the same rate of fossil fuel consumption by various forms of transportation (Muñiz and Galindo 2005). However, the most widely used approach is to focus on the amount of forested land area needed to sequester the CO2 emissions that result from various modes of transport. There are three approaches, relevant for the sustainable development agenda, which are useful to reduce the impact of mobility on energy-related ecological footprint. They are the efficiency approach, the substitution approach, and the reduction approach (Holden and Høyer 2005). The efficiency approach relies on the premise that, through the use of more efficient transportation and combustion technologies, cities and communities could improve their mobility-related ecological footprints. The premise for the efficiency approach is that the advantages derived from newer efficient technologies will outdo the disadvantages presented by the old technologies in terms of resource use and emissions. The substitution approach focuses on changing the means of transport (e.g., choosing to cycle or take the bus, instead of drive a car). For growing cities and communities, this may means adopting transportation systems that impact the environment less than the conventional system already in place in terms of emissions and also energy efficiency. These first two approaches have been criticized for ignoring the fundamental solution of reducing mobility. The reduction approach offers itself as a solution to ensuring that the criticisms labelled at the first two approaches are dealt with. The reduction approach presents the proposition that individuals should travel less and similarly freight should be moved around less. The reduction approach emphasizes that neither substitution nor efficiency offers real benefits in terms of reducing impacts associated with footprint and emissions and ultimately sustainable development.
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Impact of Goods and Services on Ecological Footprint
The goods and services used in cities and communities are needed to support the lifestyles of the inhabiting population (Van den Bergh and Verbruggen 1999; Wackernagel and Rees 1998). Appliances, furniture, computer and electrical equipment, clothing and shoes, cleaning products, paper products, tobacco, and a host of other goods used by the human populations in cities lead to the utilization of resources and energy during manufacturing and while they are used by consumers (Agrawal et al. 2005; Van Vuuren and Smeets 2000). The emissions and waste produced by the provision and use of goods also contribute to an increasing ecological footprint (Huijbregts et al. 2008). The increase in economic spending ability is also driving the thirst for certain goods and services that contribute significantly to increasing the ecological footprint of cities and communities (Hubacek et al. 2009; Van Vuuren and Smeets 2000). Services such as water and sewerage, telephone and cables, solid waste, financial and legal, medical, real estate, rental, entertainment, and other services all increase the pressure on natural resources (Agrawal et al. 2005) as well and increase the ecological footprint of cities and communities. Like goods, increasing purchasing power is also associated with an increase in demand for services (Hubacek et al. 2009; Jorgenson 2003). Together, goods and services are ultimately rapidly increasing the ecological footprint of cities and communities. It is important that growing cities and communities consider goods and services as major contributors to ecological footprint. For policymakers, the challenge is to understand and manage demand for goods and services in order to reduce overall ecological footprint and impact on natural resources. Going Forward Humanity’s ecological footprint has increased substantially over the years (Hoekstra and Wiedmann 2014; Szigeti et al. 2017). There is increasing pressure on cities and communities resulting from population growth and other
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factors such as mobility, energy, food systems, and goods and services. The persistence of these activities means global ecological overshoot is expected to continue increasing in the near future (Galli et al. 2015). For cities and communities, this will lead to declining biodiversity, which will invariably affect other contributors to the achievement of sustainable development outcomes. For SDG 11 to be achieved in the face of all the contributing factors discussed in this entry, actors who play prominent roles in sectors such as food systems, housing, energy, mobility, and goods and services must be engaged in policy-making activities aimed at reducing the ecological footprint of cities and communities. In addition, sector-specific frameworks for assessing the context and effectiveness of solutions for reducing ecological footprint should be developed taking into consideration local regional biocapacity. In future, there is also the need to integrate other footprints, such as water and carbon footprints, to enhance the effectiveness and validity of ecological footprints. Taking this holistic approach will better and more accurately inform policy-makers about the complex interrelations between different kinds of natural resources and human activities. Indeed, a more holistic approach would also better inform inhabitants about the impact of their activities and demands on Earth’s natural environment and potentially incentivize behavior changes that result in the enhanced sustainability of cities and communities.
Conclusions Ecological footprint is a valuable tool for cities and communities. It serves the multiple purposes of quantifying, informing, and illustrating the current impacts of human activities on the natural environment. Ecological footprint is also a valuable decision-making tool. Policy-makers and individuals alike may use ecological footprints as a means of benchmarking their own impact on the natural environment and identifying major activities that contribute to overshoot of local biocapacity. This information can then be used to decide on future behavior changes, incentives,
and policies to address the issue of ecological overshoot. Indeed, the impact of human activities on the natural environment is increasing at an alarming rate; ecological footprint allows us to quantify and communicate this trend and make informed decisions about the corrective interventions needed to improve the sustainability of the world’s cities and communities.
Cross-References ▶ Urban Ecological Footprints ▶ Urbanization and Urban Growth: Sustainable Cities for Safeguarding Our Future
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Ecological Footprint: Pragmatic Approach to Understanding and Building Sustainable Cities Habitat UN (2006) The state of the world’s cities report 2006/2007. Millenium Dev Goals urban Sustain. 30 Han TT, Vale B, Vale R (2017) Sustainable transport: a comparison of ecological footprint and travel patterns in three cities in Vietnam, New Zealand and Finland. In: Sustainable building and built environments to mitigate climate change in the tropics. Springer, Cham, pp 71–89 Heinonen J, Säynäjoki A, Junnila S (2011) A longitudinal study on the carbon emissions of a new residential development. Sustainability 3:1170–1189 Herrero M, Wirsenius S, Henderson B, Rigolot C, Thornton P, Havlík P, De Boer I, Gerber PJ (2015) Livestock and the environment: what have we learned in the past decade? Annu Rev Environ Resour 40:177–202 Hoekstra AY (2009) Human appropriation of natural capital: a comparison of ecological footprint and water footprint analysis. Ecol Econ 68:1963–1974. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2008.06.021 Hoekstra AY, Wiedmann TO (2014) Humanity’s unsustainable environmental footprint. Science (80–) 344:1114–1117 Holden E (2004) Ecological footprints and sustainable urban form. J Housing Built Environ 19:91–109 Holden E, Høyer KG (2005) The ecological footprints of fuels. Transp Res Part D Transp Environ 10:395–403 Hubacek K, Guan D, Barrett J, Wiedmann T (2009) Environmental implications of urbanization and lifestyle change in China: ecological and water footprints. J Clean Prod 17:1241–1248 Huijbregts MAJ, Hellweg S, Frischknecht R, Hungerbühler K, Hendriks AJ (2008) Ecological footprint accounting in the life cycle assessment of products. Ecol Econ 64:798–807 Jorgenson AK (2003) Consumption and environmental degradation: a cross-national analysis of the ecological footprint. Soc Probl 50:374–394 Jouaneau C, Dupuis M, Grunewald N, Ouellet-Plamondon C, Network GF (2016) Ecological footprint analysis of Canadian household consumption by building type and mode of occupation. Paper presented at Sustainable Built Environment (SBE) Regional Conference. June 15-17 2016. Zurich, Switzerland. Kenworthy JR (2006) The eco-city: ten key transport and planning dimensions for sustainable city development. Environ Urban 18:67–85 McLaren SJ (2010) Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of food production and processing: an introduction. In: Environmental assessment and management in the food industry. Elsevier, pp 37–58 Monfreda C, Wackernagel M, Deumling D (2004) Establishing national natural capital accounts based on detailed ecological footprint and biological capacity assessments. Land Use Policy 21:231–246 Moran DD, Wackernagel M, Kitzes JA, Goldfinger SH, Boutaud A (2008) Measuring sustainable development – nation by nation. Ecol Econ 64:470–474 Muñiz I, Galindo A (2005) Urban form and the ecological footprint of commuting. The case of Barcelona. Ecol Econ 55:499–514
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150 United Nations (2017) The sustainable development goals report 2017. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations. New York. USA Van den Bergh JCJM, Verbruggen H (1999) Spatial sustainability, trade and indicators: an evaluation of the ‘ecological footprint. Ecol Econ 29:61–72 Van Vuuren DP, Smeets EMW (2000) Ecological footprints of Benin, Bhutan, Costa Rica and the Netherlands. Ecol Econ 34:115–130 Wackernagel M (1994) Ecological footprint and appropriated carrying capacity: a tool for planning toward sustainability Wackernagel M, Onisto L, Bello P, Linares AC, Falfan ISL, Garcia JM, Guerrero AIS, Guerrero Ma GS (1999) National natural capital accounting with the ecological footprint concept. Ecological Economics 29 (3):375–390 Wackernagel M, Rees WE (1997) Perceptual and structural barriers to investing in natural capital: economics from an ecological footprint perspective. Ecol Econ 20:3–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0921-8009(96)00077-8 Wackernagel M, Rees W (1998) Our ecological footprint: reducing human impact on the earth. New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island Wei Y, Huang C, Lam PTI, Yuan Z (2015) Sustainable urban development: a review on urban carrying capacity assessment. Habitat Int 46:64–71 Wiedmann T, Barrett J (2010) A review of the ecological footprint indicator – perceptions and methods. Sustainability 2:1645–1693 World Energy Council (2016) World energy resources 2016. World Energy Council, London, UK.
Ecological Impact ▶ Ecological Footprint: Pragmatic Approach to Understanding and Building Sustainable Cities
Ecological Sustainable Design ▶ Built Environment Education for Sustainability and Climate Change Preparation
Ecology ▶ Green Cities
Edible Landscaping ▶ Urban Farming and Its Role in Enhancing the Sustainability of Cities
Ecological Impact
Educating Society in an Inclusive Way ▶ Education for All: Education for a More Inclusive Society
Education for All: Education for a More Inclusive Society José Luis Borau Jordán, Carlos Sánchez Martín and Marian Palánquex Valles Built Environment Accessibility Department, ONCE Foundation, Madrid, Spain
Synonyms Educating society in an inclusive way
Definitions In this entry, the importance of education is analyzed as a human right for the evolution of the person and his/her fulfillment as part of the society. This education has to be based on the respect among all citizens and between these and the environment. In consequence of this awareness, these attitudes will penetrate in the different layers of society, and cities will represent in the physical environment the mind set evolution considering the Sustainable Development Goal 11 principles: inclusiveness, safety, sustainability, and resiliency.
Introduction Education is the essential element of all the goals set by United Nations (UN), as it is a human right and an agent for change since it is able to shape the knowledge and behavior of present and future generations, who are responsible of the path of humanity and the planet. The Convention on the Rights of the Child and Education in 1989 extended the right to education
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concept, basing itself in four fundamental principles. These are “non-discrimination, the best interests of the child; the right to life, survival and development of the child to the maximum extent possible; and the right of children to express their views.” In this way, rights of access to education, quality education, and respect in the learning environment were recognized. In the article 29, the abovementioned convention refers to education as: “education needs to address the development of the child to his or her fullest potential and promote respect for human rights, the child’s own culture and the natural environment and to promote values of understanding, peace, tolerance, equality and friendship. In other words, education must not be limited to the basic academic skills of writing, reading, mathematics and science.” Thus, as it is developed by UNICEF and UNESCO in the document “A Human RightsBased Approach to Education for All,” education must be based on human rights, adopting a lifecycle approach, providing available and accessible schools, removing the economic barriers, promoting inclusion, and eliminating discrimination. From that it can be drawn that education right is a result of the previous recognition of other human rights just as being education right recognized fosters the implementation of other human rights. However, nowadays, education is still being a pending issue as not all the children of the world actually have access to education in adequate conditions. In 2015 an assessment of the progress of the “Education for All” strategy set from 2000 to 2015 and supported by the Dakar World Forum identified inequalities depending on the circumstances in which children lived. Some of these collected situations are: poor children were five times less likely to complete primary school than richest, a child in sub- Saharan Africa was 15 times more likely to die before being 5 years old, those children who lived in rural areas were twice more likely to no go to school, in middle- and lowincome countries a third of teenagers did not finish the lower secondary courses, 36% of children who were not enrolled in school were living in conflictaffected areas. Although it was registered a progress from 2000 to 2015, it could be perceived that some
countries, especially in the sub-Saharan Africa and Southern and Western Asia and other developing countries, had high levels of non-enrollment and early school leaving. However, half of the countries achieved universal primary enrollment, and 10% were closer to get it. In 2012 the number of children out of school was less than it was in 1999, but it was still 121 million. Despite the fact that most of the countries destined a higher amount of their GNP to education, being considered for 64% of them as a priority, only one third of the countries achieved all the established goals. As a consequence, the illiteracy rates in adult population did not reduce in a half as it was established in the goal. In relation with the equity in access to education, certain progress was detected, but problems like teenage marriage and pregnancy and gender violence remain. Related to education quality there were advances, even though, in 87 countries the ratio of students per teacher was lower than 30:1. Although the total fulfillment of the established goals was not achieved, undoubtedly, the set strategy for the period 2000–2015 improved the education situation worldwide. A greater monitoring of the state of each country education was started and a big effort to improve it was made by all countries. Once this education strategy finished, in the Incheon Declaration a new one was designed, set as one of the Sustainable Development Goals. The Goal 4 sets for the period 2015–2030 new guidelines to improve the world population’s education. This new approach is focused especially on the developing countries and the marginalized groups, due to belonging to ethnic minorities, nomadic communities, being worker children, affected by HIV or AIDS, living in slum areas, or having a disability. To this purpose, special efforts are dedicated to improve the survival and nutrition conditions, to universalize education in all the different stages, understanding it as a continuous process along life, to guarantee schools as safe and inclusive spaces to empower students through knowledge, and to inculcate respect values for the rest of the people and for the environment. To meet these aims, education’s quality has to be increased, improving the teaching staff training and the educational materials. To do so, governments have to continue their efforts,
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strengthening the politics, plans, and legislations to foster education in the different levels and types of population, to ensure free access to education and equal opportunities to study in all the different stages and good facilities´ conditions and offering funding contributions for those countries with fewer possibilities. Progress in education is unstoppable, and it is the only way of transforming lives but as it is said by the UNESCO members “success can only be declared when it can be declared for everyone.” The prior understanding and awareness will end in the respect among citizens, regardless their cultural, capabilities, gender or age differences, and respect for environment, which will definitely influence in the way of acting, governing, leading, enterprising, and in general, the way of interacting with the environment we are surrounded by. Education is the most effective tool to fight against inequalities, include everybody in the society and recognize their rights, above all, of those in risk of exclusion, and to create opportunities for all in the present and the future. The importance of cities and the necessity of guaranteeing their sustainability, inclusiveness, safety, and resiliency come from data like the following provided by the UN “Half of humanity – 3.5 billion people – lives in cities today and 5 billion people are projected to live in cities by 2030.” Cities are the most common habitats of current societies, so these are required to meet the needs of all its inhabitants and to ensure their welfare. This goal includes the fulfillment of seven targets between 2020 and 2030, focused on including and recognizing the rights of everyone, using the existing resources in the most efficient way to prevent catastrophic situations, whether natural and climatic or social and economic (poverty, unhealthiness, or social exclusion). These targets are structured in specific actions embracing housing, means of transport, urbanism, natural and cultural heritage, and rural areas. Multiple reasons are cause of inequalities. These can be intrinsic, due to the person characteristics or situation, or extrinsic because of the lack of a proper design of the physical and virtual
environment that eases a major participation of certain collectives. For that purpose, the biases set by the shared beliefs of the society have also to be overcome. Thus, the goal has to be understood and focused as the city adaptation to meet the population needs and its preparation to face the trends at which it will be exposed. These trends comprise the climate change and the resulting consequences of it, the technology advance, aging population, and the society mindset evolution toward the inclusion of everybody, regardless the culture, age, gender, religion, nationality, capabilities, or economic opportunities. Undoubtedly, education’s role is essential to introduce sustainability and inclusion approaches. UNESCO identifies the importance of education in this field, highlighting some of its benefits in the report “Sustainable development begins with education: how education can contribute to the proposed post-2015 goals.” The population concentration in urban areas fosters, knowledge exchange, what results on productivity increases and more initiatives to fight the urban expansion challenges. The imprisonment and crime numbers tend to be reduced in cities where education levels grow. Education would also solve the city disparities between neighborhoods due to the immigrant concentrations. To these benefits should be added other effects of the education, such as better health conditions, women empowerment, educational equity among the different social classes, and inclusion in social life of persons with disabilities, among others. According to the “2015 Global Monitoring Report: Education For All,” disability is a greater barrier to access to education than the socioeconomic status, the rural environment, or gender, and it is closely linked to poverty. Education in relation with disability is very important from different perspectives. The training of people with disabilities provides them the necessary tools and knowledge to increase their opportunities and take part in society through employment. The awareness of the rest of the society is also necessary to guarantee an adequate integration of those persons with disabilities. And finally, the training of the professionals in charge
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of designing and creating the built environment will result in inclusive spaces that ease the autonomy of all citizens. Once education is recognized as a human right, it is necessary that this education helps to recognize and to create awareness about other rights to the society. Being cities the environment where most part of humanity are living and developing, education has to be able to reflect on them the conditions that a society needs to grow as a whole, and specifically of each citizen and their circumstances. To see how education may influence urbanism, increasing its sustainability, inclusiveness, resiliency, and safety, different concepts will be analyzed below, such as social geography, universal design, and urban planning, focusing on the currently developed Smart City models.
2100, rising from 962 million globally in 2017 to 2.1 billion in 2050 and 3.1 billion in 2100.” On the other hand, the World Health Organization says: “Over a billion people, about 15% of the world’s population, have some form of disability. Between 110 million and 190 million adults have significant difficulties in functioning. Rates of disability are increasing due to ageing population and increases in chronic health conditions, among other causes.” This data exceed the estimations made by the same institution in 1970 of a 10% of population. Even though, disability has to be understood as the result of the person’s interaction with the environment and the influence of many other factors as: poor legislation which does not consider the actual needs of persons with disabilities and its compliance is not strictly required; negative attitudes from some society members produced by the ignorance; adequate products and services scarcity or delivery problems, an example is the amount of persons who cannot have adequate medicine services because of the high costs or the difficult access to this service in less developed countries caused by the low education levels and less funding; lack of accessibility in the physical environment and the information, which stops many persons with disabilities doing their daily activities; limitation of consultation and participation, when the will and own decisions of many persons with disabilities are not taken into account; and the lack of information registration makes impossible to reflect the real situation and, as a consequence, to make decisions to improve it. Fortunately, the society awareness is rising, thanks to education largely. Education is an important tool able of reducing and modifying the discriminations present in cities. Since children are educated in a respectful environment toward everyone, their attitude will be of celebration of diversity, in their day-to-day life, contributing in their own way to making cities more inclusive places and eliminating the barriers caused by their distribution. Among these citizens are not only included persons with disabilities and people aged over 60 but also those with temporary circumstances like pregnant women, persons who are injured and/or using crutches, different
Education to Adapt Cities to their Population Needs Along history, cities were built in a very generic way based on specific profiles and standards, what made of them limiting spaces for those who did not meet the mentioned standard. Neither sustainability was a considered as a requirement, the settlement requirements were only possibilities of provision and employment, although if the best location for these resources was near the sea, or in the middle of a watercourse what implied a higher risk and dependence of the climatology. Thus, cities have to be adapted and actualized to society’s current knowledge and trends. Present world society is subject to changes, not only climate change and evolution of technology, but also some trends that are modifying the population composition and, as a consequence, its needs. On the one hand, an increasing trend is aging population because of the life expectancy, fertility rates, and the medical progress. The “World Population Prospects” of 2017 estimated “the number of persons aged 60 or above is expected to more than double by 2050 and to more than triple by
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language speakers, children, etc. All these circumstances compromise the citizens’ abilities, and in these situations, the city has to be able to meet all their needs, easing and enabling their inclusion and participation in the society. Undoubtedly, cities and its morphology have been changing along history, representing the characteristics of the social groups which were inhabiting them. The study field which analyzes these trends is the social geography, defined by the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences as: “To understand the geography of a place means to understand the social organization of those who inhabit it, their mentality, their beliefs, their representations.” “The spatial pattern is, in the last analysis, a reflection of the moral order.” Social geography studies among many other concepts, the morbidity and mortality of the population, mapping and investigating the possible inequalities and conflicts. Thus, eventually, the social awareness toward the inclusion of all citizens will be represented in the built environment of cities. According to the Accessibility European Concept, accessibility is defined as “. . . a basic feature of the built environment. It is the way in which houses, shops, theatres, parks and places of work can be reached and used. Accessibility enables people to participate in the social and economic activities for which the built environment is intended.” Accessibility also implies that the built environment must be respectful with the human diversity, safe, healthful, functional, understandable, and aesthetical, so it includes in itself some of the targets established in the Goal 11. As a complement and a consequence of accessibility, the need of universal design arises. Universal design is defined by the United Nations in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as “the design of products, environments, programmes and services to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design.” This means that products and services have to be designed for everybody, regardless their characteristics, so accessibility needs to be integrated since the beginning to get a more efficient and inclusive result.
Universal design is subjected to seven principles, developed in 1997 by a working group of architects, product designers, engineers, and environmental design researchers in the North Carolina State University. First of them is the equitable use of goods and services, supplying identical or similar conditions to meet the needs of everybody, and ensuring their privacy and safety. The second is the flexibility in use, letting the users choose the specifications and a way of using the products depending on their preferences or abilities. The third principle is the simple and intuitive use so it can be understood by the user, independently of his knowledge or focusing level, abilities, or language skills, for which unnecessary complexity should be eliminated. The fourth is the provision of perceptible information, no matter the environment or the user conditions, through alternative formats, legibility, contrast, and compatibility with different methods or devices. Fifth says that universal design must arouse tolerance for error, minimizing the possible errors that may happen and their consequences. The sixth principle establishes the effort reduction, in order to minimize the movements and fatigue of the user, so the product or service can be used in the most efficient, safe, and comfortable way. The last principle sets that size and space have to be adequate for approach and use for any user, independently of his/her characteristics. In this way, universal design looks for the benefit and satisfaction of the whole population, taking into account the needs of the different cases allowing everybody to access, use, orientate, get information, and enjoy the products and services in the most autonomous and dignified way. When these considerations are taken into account in the previous design, sustainability and efficient use of resources are being guaranteed at the same time, as the reforms made a posteriori imply a greater investment. A city designed for all its citizens has to involve each of them and make them part of its construction. To meet the targets established to reach the goal of building and managing cities in a safe, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable way, educative strategies have to be implemented to modify at first the mindset and way of doing, through
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awareness and training. In the first stages of education, children should get the awareness and acceptance of everybody regardless of their characteristics, the respect to the environment, and the view of a global society in a continuous growing and developing environment. But these concepts and conducts are not enough. These have to be complemented by the higher education, providing the future professionals with the practical knowledge to make inclusive, resilient, sustainable, and safe cities a reality. The specific goal targets address different products and services and the importance of making them inclusive. Some of them are: 11.1 referring to housing, 11.2 means of transport, 11.3 urban spaces in general, 11.4 natural and cultural heritage, and 11.7 green areas, guaranteeing, above all, the safety and preventing the risks the population may face because of the current trends. Housing, being one of the fundamental rights, has a great importance, so determined conditions have to be guaranteed, with an affordable price, healthiness, and accessibility. Architects and designers, who are in charge of making cities and houses livable by everybody, need to have a wider knowledge and training about the needs of the people who are designing for. Sustainability training is equally important to design houses with low power consumption and polluting emissions, as well as safety training to be able to anticipate potential disasters that may happen or climate situations whose consequences can be prevented. All the basic services have to meet these requirements a fortiori, so this awareness and education have to get to both, public and private sectors. Transport is another indispensable service, so proper access to it and accessibility chains connecting the different means of transport with the different spaces and points of the city will allow and ease mobility to all citizens. Likewise, all those professionals involved in the design and management of the different means of transport need specific training to know the actual characteristics of the population, to provide an adapted service to the needs of everybody. Once again, sustainability is another pendent and necessary issue to make cities more efficient.
Cities and its elements as a whole have to provide a good ambulation conditions. These conditions involve wide enough sidewalks with appropriate pavements to enable vertical and horizontal shift, taking also into account the way in which slopes are solved. Apprehension may also be considered to allow everybody to get and manipulate the elements like doors, or any other devices like ATMs. Location is a necessary concept to help people to know their exact position and to make the decisions to find the place they need to get. Signs are very useful to give information, but these signs have to present different formats, so people with different abilities are able to get the same information. In other cases, the interaction with employees may solve some accessibility deficiencies, so all the staff of every organization have to be trained to be able to replace adequate physical or sensorial accessibility conditions in case they lack. Cultural and natural heritage is the main resource that attracts and encourages people to travel and visit different countries, which is the base of touristic movements and takes an important part of the population’s cultural rights. Thus, the access to it has to be guaranteed through a specific training that provides professionals not only with the knowledge to adapt and build taking into consideration the needs of all the population but also to do it respecting the cultural value and the specificities of it. In addition, tourism is the engine of many countries’ economy, and the attractiveness and interest on these resources is what ensures its conservation. The disaster prevention and reduction are other approaches of the goal. To this aim is also necessary that all the population is considered, especially the most susceptible ones, so professionals in charge of elaborating prevention, action, or evacuation policies need to be trained and aware of the different casuistries that the population may present. Eventually, all the transformation and evolution that cities will experience will undoubtedly converge with technology. The ultimate goal of technology is to improve and ease people’s dayto-day life. If this goal is kept in mind, cities will be able to give an answer to the needs and
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ambitions of their citizens in a more efficient and sustainable way. A city model which considers the concerning terms and would use information and communication technologies to face the different trends and circumstances that are happening nowadays is the smart city model. Smart city concept can be defined in different ways: the definition provided by UN is “smart (intelligent) physical, social, institutional and economic infrastructure while ensuring centrality of citizens in a sustainable environment.” In this definition, different requirements of the sustainable development goal can be found, and through technology, the interaction between the citizen and the city can be met. With the interaction of the different elements in a city, the citizen needs could be previously detected, providing a more effective and quick answer, with the ultimate purpose of getting population wellbeing. However, to finally get this dynamic, the city has to offer these chances to all the population, not excluding any citizen because of his/her characteristics or situation, so smart cities conception has to consider the Human-Centered Design. Human-Centered Design consists of design taking into account the needs of the people we are designing for, and collaborating with them. In this way, through empathy, design will really meet their needs, adjusting to the society current situation, ensuring the possibility of use to all the citizens, who are going to make use of the different elements. Sustainability is one of the major aims that smart cities will work in, as it can be detected in the smart sustainable city definition provided by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)’s Focus Group on Smart Sustainable Cities (FG-SSC): “A smart sustainable city is an innovative city that uses ICTs and other means to improve the quality of life, efficiency of urban operation and services, and competitiveness, while ensuring that it meets the needs of present and future generations with respect to economic, social and environmental aspects.” And, it can be deducted that sustainability and inclusion are two
concepts to be worked in consonance, to ensure the respect of rights and opportunities of the current generations, and of those future ones. Thus, Smart Human City arises as a term in ONCE Foundation as a need to ensure to all inhabitants equal opportunities, creating alternatives through flexibility within the dynamic and complex system called city. To that, it is not only necessary innovation, but also accessibility principles in both, infrastructure, products and services, and also in the institutions, as main actors of cities. In this way, accessibility will be guaranteed in private and public sector, improving the competitiveness, job opportunities, sustainability, energy efficiency, social inclusion, and poverty reduction as a result. Therefore, the ultimate aim of smart cities is to achieve the resilience, sustainability, inclusion, and safety that Goal 11 suggests. Undoubtedly to get the successful expected outcome of smart cities is necessary the adequate education to guarantee that all the advances and implementations are made taking into account the attitudes that foster the social responsibility and sustainable development. The fast advance of cities could lead to an increasing risk of differences and inequalities, here lies the importance of the education, awareness, and training of the present and future professionals in charge of designing and implementing this model in cities; this is the only way in which the attainment of the abovementioned goals will be successful.
Conclusions Education is a recognized human right for everyone, not only because of the developing opportunities that it may provide, but also because of the advance that suppose to the society as a whole, fostering its development toward more inclusive and respectful societies toward the environment they are surrounded by. Cities are facing changing moments caused by different factors that may affect people in their daily lives, and in a more general vision, to the structure and composition of the society and the
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environment conditions in which they are developed. This is the reason why society has to be able to face the challenges that these new situations may provoke, and it is in its hands to reverse the situations that are actually damaging the citizens´ well-being. Thus, resilience, inclusion, sustainability, and safety help to the prevision of the situations that societies might experience because of the befallen changes, and facilitate the capability of creating solutions in advance to this, prioritizing all citizens´ well-being and their satisfactory participation in society against other interests. Institutions and governments have to be able to detect the necessity of the awareness in this field, encouraging the education, and governing and performing exemplifying actions, fostering attitude changes to respect and include everybody and the environment.
Cross-References ▶ Built Environment Education for Sustainability and Climate Change Preparation ▶ Inclusive City, Perspectives, Challenges, and Pathways ▶ Mapping Social and Spatial Practices in Human Settlements ▶ Opportunities for All: Inclusive and Equitable Sustainable Development
References Buttimer A (1968) Social geography. Macmillan’s revised international encyclopedia of the social the social sciences, vol 6. Macmillan, New York, pp 134–145. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305082762_ Social_Geography. Accessed 20 June 2019 Centre for Excellence in Universal Design (2019) The 7 principles. http://universaldesign.ie/What-is-Univer sal-Design/The-7-Principles/. Accessed 23 June 2019 EDUCA4ALL (2019). http://www.educa4all.es/. Accessed 10 July 2019 ESMARTCITY (2015) Smart human city – Hacia una ciudad inteligente para todas las personas, 24 Apr 2015. https:// www.esmartcity.es/comunicaciones/smart-human-city-
157 hacia-ciudad-inteligente-todas-personas. Accessed 3 July 2019 UNESCO (2014) Sustainable development begins with education: how education can contribute to the proposed post-2015 goals. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ ark:/48223/pf0000230508. Accessed June 2019 UNESCO (2016) Education 2030: Incheon declaration and framework for action for the implementation of sustainable development goal 4: ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/ pf0000245656. Accessed 18 July 2019 UNESCO, Global Education Monitoring Report Team (2015) Education for all 2000–2015: achievements and challenges. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/ pf0000232565. Accessed 15 June 2019 United Nations (2018) Sustainable cities: why they matter. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/wp-content/ uploads/2018/09/Goal-11.pdf. Accessed 6 June 2019 United Nations (2006) Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities and optional protocol. https://www.un. org/disabilities/documents/convention/ convoptprot-e.pdf. Accessed 28 June 2019 United Nations (2016) Habitat III issue papers 21 – smart cities, 31 May 2016. https://unhabitat.org/wp-content/ uploads/2015/04/Habitat-III-Issue-Paper-21_SmartCities-2.0.pdf. Accessed 1 July 2019 United Nations Children’s Fund, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (2007) Human rights-based approach to education. https:// www.unicef.org/publications/files/A_Human_Rights_ Based_Approach_to_Education_for_All.pdf. Accessed 23 July 2019 United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2017) World population prospects: the 2017 revision. Key findings and advance tables. https://population.un. org/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2017_KeyFindings.pdf. Accessed 17 June 2019 World Health Organization (2011) World report on disability. https://www.who.int/disabilities/world_report/2011/en/. Accessed 25 June 2019 World Health Organization (2018) Disability and health, 16 Jan 2018. https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/ detail/disability-and-health. Accessed 17 June 2019
Efficient Energy Use ▶ Energy Conservation
Emergency ▶ Business Continuity Planning
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Energy Conservation Kathleen Parrott Department of Apparel, Housing and Resource Management, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA
Synonyms Energy management; Managing energy use; Sustainable energy use; Energy use reduction; Efficient energy use; Saving energy
Definition Energy conservation, especially as applied to the built environment, can be simply defined as deliberately choosing to use less purchased energy, particularly electricity, natural gas, and fuel oil (Huelman 2012). Energy conservation in the built environment is generally accomplished through (1) modifications to, or management of, the equipment within a building (such as adjusting thermostat settings for heating and cooling), (2) improvements in the structure and envelope of the building (such as increasing insulation or installing more efficient lighting), and/or (3) lifestyle and building usage changes (such as dressing in layers of clothing to allow lower thermostat settings within the building or managing window treatments to allow control of sunlight during the changing seasons). Energy conservation as an important tenet in building design and construction has increased in importance since the 1970s. The reduction of energy use in the built environment is critical due to the amount of energy used in this sector. For example, approximately 40% of energy use in the United States is in buildings (How much energy. . . 2017). During the post-World War II era of the 1950s and 1960s, increasing energy consumption was generally equated with a growing and strong economy. Emphasis on increasing electrical energy use was particularly tied to developing
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technology and a rising standard of living. However, especially in the United States, growing tensions and conflict in, and with, the oil-producing regions of the Middle East became important factors in an increasing concern for energy conservation. More recently, concern about increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, from the burning of fossil fuels, and the impact on climate change and global warming has again put greater focus on energy conservation. Greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere allow the transmission of sunlight but absorb outgoing infrared radiation. The gases function much like glass does in a greenhouse – thus the term greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases raise the temperature of the earth and, in fact, contribute to the planet’s habitability. However, since the midnineteenth century, the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the earth’s atmosphere has been increasing and dramatically rising in the last 30–40 years. CO2 is a by-product of burning of fossil fuel and is considered the most influential greenhouse gas (Kutscher 2007). The result of increasing greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere includes rising sea levels from thermal expansion of the water and melting glaciers, also contributing to higher sea levels. Changing climate patterns from rising atmospheric temperatures contribute to higher temperatures, drought, and increased storm severity (Kutscher 2007).
Introduction Energy conservation is deliberately using less energy. It is an important goal to especially limit the use of the finite supply of fossil fuels. Conservation is generally considered an economic advantage as the supply of energy tends toward rising and/or volatile costs. Energy conservation provides benefits of efficient use of energy sources, increased national security, environmental restoration, and the opportunity for sustainable prosperity (Krigger and Dorsi 2012). Nevertheless, energy conservation can also be seen to limit economic growth, especially in the development of energy-intensive products and technologies.
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Energy conservation is generally the most direct and cost-effective policy to reduced energy use (Huelman 2012; Krigger and Dorsi 2012). Typically, conservation applications can be implemented with the lowest cost compared to other approaches to reducing total energy use, such as technological innovation. Energy conservation can be mandated. Examples of this approach include thermostat controls in public buildings and the phasing out of incandescent lighting in the US marketplace. However, change is not easy, and conservation policies can be politically unpopular. Energy conservation is often a personal choice that can affect comfort, cost, and convenience and require personal commitment. Energy conservation, particularly in buildings, requires changes in habits, lifestyle, and building operation (Huelman 2012). Energy conservation can be accomplished through education which inspires voluntary reduction in energy use. Choices can be made to increase energy conservation by opting to function at minimum levels of energy intensity and specifically to cut back, or reduce, energy use patterns (Emmel 2003b). While voluntary conservation is admirable, it is not a consistent and dependable path toward a broad implementation of energy use reductions. Energy conservation can also be accomplished through various governmental policies and controls. However, political issues and conflicting priorities can interfere with the successful implementation of conservation policies and controls.
Alternative Terms and Ideas There are alternatives to addressing energy issues other than to just use less. Concepts related to energy conservation include energy efficiency, energy management, and sustainability. Energy efficiency goes beyond conservation through increased function and performance to more effectively use energy (Emmel 2003b). Energy efficiency in the built environment can be increased by energy-conserving design and construction and choosing the most efficient materials, construction methods, lighting, and
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equipment (Emmel 2003b). Energy efficiency can also provide greater comfort for the same energy input. Energy efficiency has been referred to as wise energy use as emphasizing efficiency emphasizes economic benefit (Krigger and Dorsi 2012). The net result of energy efficiency is less energy used (input) for the same functions (output) (Huelman 2012). Energy efficiency tends to require a larger upfront investment as compared to conservation (Huelman 2012). However, an important concept to consider, related to energy efficiency, is life cycle cost (Emmel 2003b). Life cycle cost is considering the total cost to purchase, operate, and maintain a building or piece of equipment over its expected period of operation or usefulness. Energy efficiency, therefore, takes on a more critical role. An initial investment in a more expensive but energy-efficient choice may, in fact, be less expensive to own and operate over its intended lifespan. Thus, making energy-efficient choices can actually result in energy conservation. Energy management is a corollary to both energy conservation and energy efficiency. Energy management involves developing strategies to maximize energy efficiency while minimizing (or conserving) energy use (Emmel 2003a). Typical strategies of energy management include practicing energy conservation. Energy management in the built environment is more proactive in that it includes design and construction of the built space to minimize energy use, plus equipment choices that will achieve energy efficiency. Sustainability is a future-reaching concept related to energy use. There are multiple definitions of sustainability, but all encompass the concept of using resources (energy) today within appropriate limits that will not deplete these resources for future generations (Emmel 2003b). The increasing emphasis on sustainability, over the more direct approach of energy conservation, emerged in the 1980s, particularly as applied to the built environment (Kibert 1999). Many discussions of sustainability reference the Seventh Generation Principle and credit it to the Great Law of the Haudenosaunee or the Iroquois Confederacy (Murphy 1997;
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Kayanerehkowa n.d.). There are numerous translations or wordings that say, in essence, in our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations. Although the law of the Iroquois Confederacy was developed hundreds of years before the current concerns about energy conservation, its respect for future generations is a model for thinking about sustainability. The concept of sustainability today has become much broader, especially with respect to the built environment. Among the ideas or issues that are frequently included in the goal to be sustainable are increased use of renewable energy, reductions in waste and pollution, limits on greenhouse gas emissions, protection of natural areas and biodiversity, and population stabilization (Kibert 1999). Today there is much emphasis on sustainable planning, design, and construction in the building industry. However, energy conservation, or energy management, remains a critical component (Davis and Fisher 2015; Orr 1999).
Energy Use Trends Energy use has changed since the 1970s. Key trends in the United States show changes in energy use and influence thinking, planning, and opportunities for energy conservation: • Total energy use in the residential built environment has stayed about the same, while the total number of housing units has increased. • Proportionally, use of energy for space heating has decreased, while energy use for air conditioning has increased. • Energy use for appliances and electronics has increased dramatically as a proportion of total energy use (Huelman 2012). However, in the typical American home, space heating is the largest energy use, followed by electrical technology (appliances, lighting, and electronics) and water heating (Huelman 2012). The United States uses a variety of energy sources: petroleum (36%), natural gas (28%), coal (18%), renewable energy (10%), and nuclear
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electric power (8%) (Monthly Energy Review 2018). In the last 5–10 years, consumption of petroleum and natural gas has increased, whereas coal consumption has decreased. There has been a small increase in renewable energy use, while nuclear electric power use has been stable (as a percentage of the whole). Many factors effect energy consumption trends, including political issues in the home country as well as internationally, population growth (or decline), technological developments, economic growth, and environmental concerns. For example, the trends discussed above are certainly influenced by the greater development of shale oil, especially through hydraulic fracturing (fracking), and oil sands. Electricity Electricity is a secondary energy source that is generated from another energy source, such as coal, petroleum, or wind. In the United States, 63% of electricity is generated from fossil fuels (What is US electricity. . . 2018). The major sources of fuels for electricity generation are coal (43%), natural gas (22%), petroleum (less than 1%), and renewable energy, particularly hydropower and wind (13%) (What is US electricity. . . 2018). As with the total energy supply, the use of coal for electricity generation has decreased in recent years, while natural gas has increased. Renewable energy for electricity is slowly increasing. Electricity as an energy source for the built environment needs to be considered differently than other fuel primary energy sources such as petroleum or coal. Electricity is a generated secondary energy source. The efficiency of this generation process is typically 30% or less, especially if transmission losses are included (Emmel 2003b; Huelman 2012; Krigger and Dorsi 2012). However, most electrical equipment and appliances used in the built environment are approximately 100% efficient. Electrical heating/cooling systems, such as heat pumps, can be upwards of 150% efficient (Emmel 2003b). Renewable Energy Renewable resources generally include solar, wind, hydropower (water), geothermal (heat sources
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underground or in the earth), and biofuels (biomass or fuels from plant matter). Many believe that increasing use of renewable energy sources is the most important energy policy and the future for energy security. Increasing use of renewable resources is highly compatible with energy conservation and efficiency. The more efficient we are in using energy and successful in reducing overall demand for energy, the more successful and sustainable we can be in using renewable energy sources. Therefore, energy conservation can be seen as a critical policy in bridging the gap between dependence on fossil fuels to primary use of renewable energy (Krigger and Dorsi 2012). The demand for, and availability of, renewable energy resources has increased for multiple reasons including:
One advantage to using renewable energy is that there are multiple sources and opportunities to develop renewable sources. The successful implementation of renewable resources depends on using what is available in a location to full advantage. The Climate Reality Project identified 11 countries that are making and implementing a major, long-term commitment to renewable energy. These top countries were (in descending order) Sweden, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Scotland, Germany, Uruguay, Denmark, China, Morocco, the United States, and Kenya (Follow the leader 2016). Located around the world, these countries capitalized on the various renewable resources in their locations, including solar, wind, geothermal, and hydropower.
• Technological developments that have improved renewable energy generation and lowered costs, thus increasing overall efficiency in the use and availability of renewable energy. • Concern for the impact of energy use on the environment has increased, especially as it relates to issues of the burning of fossil fuels or the development and placement of pipelines to transport oil and gas. However, renewable energy resources are not without environmental controversy. Examples include the destruction of natural habitat resulting from damming waterways to produce hydropower and the threat that wind turbines can bring to migratory birds. • Renewable resources are generally localized. For example, generating electricity from wind, water, or sunlight occurs where these sources are found. Therefore, greater use of renewable resources can increase a country’s national security and positively affect their international trade balance. If a country is more self-sufficient in their energy supply, they are less dependent on other countries for energy purchases. This is particularly important if the country selling the energy is unstable or hostile to the purchasing country. It also means that the energy-purchasing country is sending less money out of their country.
Energy Conservation in the Built Environment As previously discussed, voluntary energy conservation requires personal commitment and can be difficult to accomplish across society. As a result, various mandatory governmental policies have been put in place to increase energy conservation and efficiency (Huelman 2012). In tandem with government mandates, nonregulatory programs have also been developed with the goals of increasing energy efficiency and promoting energy conservation. These policies and programs include standards, codes, product labeling, certifications, and other similar strategies. There are multiple reasons for the growth of these policies and programs since the 2000s, including cost savings as energy prices increased, growing concern about the environmental impacts related to energy use, and public health concerns (Turcotte 2012). Additionally, programs and policies for energy conservation became more proactive in approaching energy conservation by greater focus on building design and technological solutions to reduce energy use and the integration of renewable energy (Turcotte 2012). The policies and programs related to energy conservation are critical to establish safety and performance levels, to assist in consumer decision-making, and to specifically identify
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energy-conserving and energy-efficient products (Emmel 2003c). A standard is prepared by a recognized standard setting organization (Emmel 2003c). Standards, such as those typical in the design and construction industries, are usually prepared by qualified and recognized professionals. A written standard would be extensively reviewed by experts knowledgeable on the topic as well as people from the public and businesses potentially affected by the standard. Standards developed by recognized organizations are often used as the basis for the development and updating of building codes. A well-known example of a standard-making organization is the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). This organization dates to the nineteenth century and is international in its membership (About ASHRAE 2018). Examples of ASHRAE standards that relate to energy conservation in the built environment are: • Standard 62.1-2016 Ventilation for Acceptable Indoor Air Quality. • Standard 90.2-2007 Energy Efficient Design of Low-Rise Residential Buildings. • Standard 100-2018 Energy Efficiency in Existing Buildings. • Standard 189.1-2014 Standard for the Design of High Performance Green Buildings. Another important standard related to energy conservation is the Residential Energy Services Network (RESNET). The Home Energy Rating System (HERS) of RESNET is used for rating home energy use with a standard numerical scale that evaluates factors in home energy use and is based on the International Code Council’s (ICC) energy code (About HERS 2018). A new home built to the code would be evaluated as 100. Ratings less than 100 are more energy efficient, exceeding the code requirements; greater than 100 signifies a less energy-efficient home. The HERS rating system has been recognized by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) as a national standard for rating energy efficiency.
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The ICC’s International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) requires an energy rating index, and HERS is the primary index used in the residential building industry. The HERS index is also used extensively in the mortgage lending industry. Projected energy usage of a home, based on the HERS score, could influence availability of mortgage funds, with more efficient, lower energyusing homes possibly qualifying for a better mortgage rate or amount. Codes are legal requirements adopted within a specific political jurisdiction (Emmel 2003c). Codes will define what is acceptable in structural design and construction of buildings within the jurisdiction. Codes may be written as specification codes that detail specific requirements. For example, a code might specify the minimum height of a ceiling, the width of a stairway tread, or the size of a window. Codes may also be written as performance codes which gives options in how to achieve the end results. Examples of performance codes include the R-value required in a wall structure (but not specify the type of insulation or design of the wall system to achieve the Rvalue) or the air exchange rate required for ventilation in the structure (but not specify the design, size, and type of ventilation equipment required). Model codes represent the consensus of expert professionals and are similar to standards in their development and purpose. A model code developed by a qualified professional association is often adopted into a jurisdiction’s legal code. Model codes are generally considered minimum standards with the expectation that the municipality adopting the code will make additions or changes to reflect needs, goals, and issues related to the locality. For example, climate issues such as wind, storms, and snow loads are common reasons for adapting model codes. The International Code Council (ICC) develops model codes for the design and building industry with the goal of construction of safe, sustainable, affordable, and resilient structures (About ICC 2018). Most jurisdictions in the United States now use one or more of the model ICC codes as the basis for their mandated codes. While the code development process is ongoing,
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major codes are typically revised and updated on a 3-year cycle. Two of the ICC model codes relate specifically to energy conservation: the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) and the International Green Construction Code. Labels are designed to assist with purchase decisions by providing standardized and impartial information about the product (Emmel 2003c). Labels provide a visible identification that can help consumers compare energy usage among types and models of products. As with standards and codes, the development of standardized labels involves professionals and industry experts in the design, writing, and review of the labels. A well-known label that relates to energy conservation is the EnergyGuide label for appliances and similar equipment (Emmel 2003c). The EnergyGuide label was introduced by the US Federal Trade Commission in 1980. It is a mandatory program for designated appliances and equipment that are identified as having variation in energy use among models. The bright yellow EnergyGuide label on a specific piece of equipment provides comparisons to energy use of other similar models and gives a basis for choosing a product that is more energy efficient. Similar programs are found in other countries, such as Canada’s EnerGuide. A certification involves an independent, thirdparty verification that a product (or building) meets specific standards or performance measures. Certification can provide documentation that a product contributes to energy conservation and efficiency and that claims made about the product are valid. Many certification programs use product labels to create visible and identifiable information about the product certification. Energy Star is voluntary certification program for residential equipment and structures that provides a certified product with a recognizable logo and label (Emmel 2003c; About Energy Star 2018). This well-known and extensive program is a partnership of two agencies of the US government: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Energy. Energy Star requires third-party testing and certification of energy consumption and performance in a facility recognized
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by the EPA. To achieve Energy Star certification, there must be evidence of significant contribution to energy savings. Any increased cost for energy efficiency features of the tested product must be recoverable in a reasonable time from energy savings. Over 70 product categories are eligible for Energy Star certification. There are numerous programs that certify buildings for energy use. Most of these certifications include environmental factors in addition to energy use in the certification program, such as water efficiency, waste management, indoor air quality, and site development. Taken as a group, these certifications are promoting the development of green buildings. There are many similar definitions of a green building, including using a set of design, construction, and maintenance techniques and practices that minimize a building’s total environmental impact (Kruger and Seville 2013). It is critical to note that a green building cannot be developed and certified without prime attention to energy conservation and efficiency. Increasingly, green building also encompasses the use of renewable energy (Turcotte 2012). Certification programs for green buildings are available from a variety of organizations at the local, national, and international level. Increasingly, municipal governments are codifying that a green building certification is required for new or remodeled construction. Examples of green building certifications at the international, national, and regional level include: • ICC/ASHRAE 700-2015 Green Building Standard™ of the National Association of Home Builders • Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) of the US Green Building Council • Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) of the Building Research Establishment (founded in England) • Energy Star Certified Homes • Living Building Challenge of the International Living Future Institute • Earthcraft of the Southface Energy Institute
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Strategies for Implementing Energy Conservation in the Built Environment The policies and programs discussed suggest multiple choices and opportunities to increase energy conservation and efficiency. An overall strategy is needed to guide choices and implementation. Obviously, mandatory programs must be accomplished. Yet, what are the most efficient and costeffective approaches? Implementing strategies for energy conservation and efficiency improvements in a building can refer back to the idea of wise energy use, with the following ordered recommendations: • Make thermal improvements in the building shell or envelope to address unwanted heat loss or gain and air leakage. • Where possible, replace older energy-using devices (such as heating/cooling systems, appliances, and lighting) with new and more efficient equipment. • Repair and adjust existing energy-using equipment and distribution systems, including furnaces, boilers, air conditioners, and water heaters. • Educate building occupants/users about energy-efficient behavior and practices (Krigger and Dorsi 2012). For greatest success, implementing energy conservation measures should begin with an energy audit, such as might be provided by a utility company or an advocacy organization (Huelman 2012). The energy audit can help determine where there are specific opportunities for energy conservation and efficiency measures as well as helping to determine what might be the most cost-effective strategies. Negative Consequences of Energy Conservation One end result of the implementation of energy conservation changes in a building is to reduce uncontrolled ventilation and decrease air changes between inside the building and outside. This is desirable to control unwanted heat loss and to improve overall building energy efficiency. However, as buildings get “tighter” to conserve energy
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use, an unfortunate by-product is an increase in indoor air quality issues. Reduced building ventilation also results in increased concentration of moisture and toxins in indoor air (Emmel 2003a; Juzych 2003; Parrott 2003; Parrott and Atiles 2018). These toxins can include carbon dioxide from human breathing; off-gassing from cleaning products, chemicals, materials, and furnishings; incomplete venting of combustion by-products (backdrafting); and biological pollutants, including molds, animal dander, and insect residue (Parrott 2003). Minimizing the problem of indoor air quality while conserving energy and increasing energy efficiency requires a multipronged approach: • Reduce the need for ventilation by greater control of indoor pollutants, including venting all combustion sources direct to the outside, selecting products and materials that minimize off-gassing of pollutants, controlling moisture production, and reconsidering behavioral choices and activities within the indoor environment that produce pollutants. • Use cost-effective heat recovery mechanical ventilation when appropriate to the building use, season, and climate. • Use controlled exhaust ventilation appropriate to locations and activities within the building, such as providing a ventilation fan over a gas range. • Increase natural ventilation in climates and seasons not requiring use of heating or cooling systems (Parrott 2003). Energy conservation behavior is not always popular and can be considered as requiring a sacrifice. Following the energy shortages of the 1970s, many short-term changes in energy management resulted in buildings that were uncomfortable and had moisture and/or other indoor air quality problems. The result was a perception that energy conservation equated to being in buildings that were too hot or too cold, depending on the season. People’s clothing were not always appropriate to the building environment, and needed changes in clothing behavior were often resisted.
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In the 1980s, when energy prices dropped in the United States and other countries, the shortterm public perception was that the “crisis” was over because energy was now more affordable. People would no longer have to adapt to uncomfortable interior environments. Energy conservation behavior and choices were now less acceptable. This pattern has occurred over time as conservation and increased efficiency has reduced demand for energy sources and prices have dropped. Then a period of increasing energy demand and use follows, and increasing energy prices and energy conservation are once again more palatable (Swisher 2007).
Summary/Conclusion What Is the Future of Energy Conservation? Today, the talk is often more about sustainability and green buildings, then just conserving energy. Yet more than ever, there is a need for conserving and reducing the use of fossil fuels and for using all sources of energy as efficiently as possible. Energy conservation, especially for the built environment, has moved beyond simply putting more insulation in the walls, caulking the windows, and turning down the thermostat. Today, the conversation about energy conservation and efficiency is including newer topics that reflect technological developments and greater public concern and awareness. Life cycle costing for energy efficiency in the built environment includes the total cost to design, build, operate, maintain, and occupy a building over its expected useful life (Kellert 1999). Life cycle is a more complex but perhaps more realistic measure of the energy efficiency of a building. As more complex technological equipment and appliances are in buildings, hidden energy use also becomes important. Standby losses in equipment with instant-on features, remote controls, clock displays, and other features are not obvious, yet are constantly using energy and are part of total energy consumption in a building (Davis and Fisher 2015; Emmel 2003b; Kellert 1999; Krigger and Dorsi 2012; Kruger and Seville 2013).
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In evaluation of the energy consumption, and potential for conservation, in the built environment, the concept of embodied energy in building materials is also of growing importance and concern (Davis and Fisher 2015; Kellert 1999; Krigger and Dorsi 2012; Kruger and Seville 2013). Embodied energy looks at the total energy involved “cradle to grave” of a building product. Embodied energy is a complex concept, but involves the idea that the energy used to develop (and transport) a product from the raw resource to its installation in a building through its useful life and disposal is part of the energy use attributed to a building. Therefore, building material and product choice to reduce embodied energy becomes part of the energy conservation equation for efficiency in the built environment. Embodied energy is typically measured in energy expenditure (MJs, megajoules, or BTUs, British thermal units) per weight or volume of the material. Another concept that applies to the future of energy conservation is the idea of net-zero energy use buildings. A net-zero building is one that produces as least as much energy as it uses and has no carbon emissions from the use of fossil fuels (Laquatra 2018). A net-zero home would have a HERS score of 0. Net-zero buildings do still use some energy, such as for lighting, appliances, and ventilation. At the same time, they generate energy, such as from solar thermal, photovoltaic arrays, and/or wind turbines. Net zero is not necessarily the same as energy independent. A final thought about energy conservation does not consider technology or policies and programs. Ethical consumption is a behavioral choice that can be applied to energy conservation (Newholm and Shaw 2003). People and households who practice ethical consumption typically espouse environmental priorities and practice socially responsible consumption of energy sources. More common in affluent countries, ethical consumers tend to make lifestyle choices, such as in housing, transportation, products, and eating habits, that seek to reduce their use of energy, particularly fossil fuels.
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Cross-References ▶ Circular Economy and Urban Mining: Resource Efficiency in the Construction Sector for Sustainable Cities ▶ Green Cities ▶ Housing Policies and Sustainable Development ▶ Low Carbon City: Strategies and Case Studies ▶ Public Transportation for Children ▶ Renewable Energy and the Sustainable Development Goals ▶ Resilience in the Context of Climate Change ▶ Resilient and Green Building Design/ Construction ▶ Urban Pollution and Emission Reduction
References About ASHRAE (2018) American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-conditioning Engineers. Atlanta. www.ahsrae.org. Accessed 18 June 2018 About Energy Star (2018) US Environmental Protection Agency and US Department of Energy, Washington, DC. www.energystar.gov. Accessed 18 June 2018 About HERS (2018) Residential Energy Services Network. www.hersindex.com. Accessed 18 June 2018 About ICC (2018) International Code Council, multiple locations. www.iccsafe.org. Accessed 18 June 2018 Davis A, Fisher R (2015) Kitchen and bath sustainable design: conservation, materials, practices. Wiley, Hoboken Emmel J (2003a) Energy and home usage. In: Miller J, Lerner R, Schiamberg L, Anderson P (eds) The encyclopedia of human ecology, vol 1. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, pp 221–225 Emmel J (2003b) Energy efficiency in the home. In: Miller J, Lerner R, Schiamberg L, Anderson P (eds) The encyclopedia of human ecology, vol 1. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, pp 225–228 Emmel J (2003c) Energy: standards, codes and labels. In: Miller J, Lerner R, Schiamberg L, Anderson P (eds) The encyclopedia of human ecology, vol 1. ABCCLIO, Santa Barbara, pp 218–221 Follow the leader (2016) The Climate Reality Project. Washington, DC. www.climaterealityproject.org. Accessed 18 June 2018 How much energy is consumed in US residential and commercial buildings? (2017) US Energy Information Agency. Washington, DC. www.eia.gov/tools/faqs. Accessed 15 June 2018 Huelman P (2012) Energy conservation. In: Carswell A (ed) The encyclopedia of housing, vol 1, 2nd edn. Sage, Thousand Oaks, pp 162–166
Energy Conservation Juzych N (2003) Air quality. In: Miller J, Lerner R, Schiamberg L, Anderson P (eds) The encyclopedia of human ecology, vol 1. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, pp 46–50 Kayanerehkowa. The Great Law of Peace (n.d.) www. ganienkeh.net/thelaw. Accessed 18 June 2018 Kellert S (1999) Ecological challenge, human values of nature, and sustainability in the built environment. In: Kibert C (ed) Reshaping the built environment: ecology, ethics and economics. Island Press, Washington, DC, pp 39–53 Kibert C (1999) The promises and limits of sustainability. In: Kibert C (ed) Reshaping the built environment: ecology, ethics and economics. Island Press, Washington, DC, pp 9–38 Krigger J, Dorsi C (2012) Residential energy: cost savings and comfort for existing buildings. Saturn Resource Management, Helena Kruger A, Seville C (2013) Green building: principles and practices in residential construction. Delmar, Cengage Learning, Clifton Park Kutscher C (2007) The science and challenge of global warming. In: Kutscher C (ed) Tracking climate change in the US. American Solar Energy Society, Boulder, pp 165–172 Laquatra J (2018) Sustainable housing. In: Anacker K, Carswell A, Kirby S, Tremblay K (eds) Introduction to housing, 2nd edn. University of Georgia Press, Athens, pp 341–355 Monthly Energy Review (2018) Office of Energy Statistics, US Energy Information Agency. Washington, DC. www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/mer.pdf. Accessed 15 June 2018 Murphy G (1997) About the Iroquois Constitution. National Public Telecomputing Network. https://source book.fordham.edu/mod/iroquois.asp. Accessed 18 June 2018 Newholm A, Shaw D (2003) Consumption, ethical. In: Miller J, Lerner R, Schiamberg L, Anderson P (eds) The encyclopedia of human ecology, vol 1. ABCCLIO, Santa Barbara, pp 148–151 Orr D (1999) Architecture as pedagogy. In: Kibert C (ed) Reshaping the built environment: ecology, ethics and economics. Island Press, Washington, DC, pp 212–218 Parrott K (2003) Healthy indoor air. In: Miller J, Lerner R, Schiamberg L, Anderson P (eds) The encyclopedia of human ecology, vol 1. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, pp 350–353 Parrott K, Atiles J (2018) Home environments and health. In: Anacker K, Carswell A, Kirby S, Tremblay K (eds) Introduction to housing, 2nd edn. University of Georgia Press, Athens, pp 316–340 Swisher J (2007) Overall energy efficiency. In: Kutscher C (ed) Tracking climate change in the US. American Solar Energy Society, Boulder, pp 39–50 Turcotte D (2012) Green building. In: Carswell A (ed) The encyclopedia of housing, vol 1, 2nd edn. Sage, Thousand Oaks, pp 250–255
Environmental Ethics and Justice for Sustainable Cities What is US electricity generation by energy source (2018) US Energy Information Agency. Washington, DC. www.eia.gov/tools/faqs. Accessed 18 June 2018
Energy Efficiency ▶ Renewable Energy and the Sustainable Development Goals
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Environmental Justice refers mainly to the distribution of environmental equity otherwise put as fair distribution of negative and positive effects (Schlosbergh 2004). It rests on the principle that all people and communities are entitled to equal protection of environmental and public health laws and regulations (Bullard 1996).
Introduction
Energy Management ▶ Energy Conservation
Energy Use Reduction ▶ Energy Conservation
Environmental Ethics and Justice for Sustainable Cities Carla D. Aceves-Avila University Center of Economic and Management Sciences, University of Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Mexico
Synonyms Ethical cities; Equitable cities; Urban ethics; Urban justice
Definitions Environmental Ethics is concerned with the study of the moral relationship between the human species (Homo sapiens) and the environment, of human responsibility toward nature and its elements, and of the intrinsic value of nature and its nonhuman components (Shrader-Frechette 2015; Brennan and Lo 2016).
Do Sustainable Cities Embed Environmental Justice? The continuous growth of cities poses enormous challenges as urban sprawls imprint consequences both in the lives of their dwellers and in the lives of the rest of the population that does not live in cities. Constant increase in population tends to generate greater pressures on natural resources as these do not replenish nor increase as population continues to grow. Poorly planned urbanization tends to contribute to the scarcity of resources as well as to diminishing quality of life as it may not consider the environmental impacts of poorly built infrastructure and the overall conditions created for living. Water of sufficient quantity and quality for all, adequate air quality, sufficient and adequate living space for preserving the dignity and safety of those living in the city, and constant supply of food required for the urban population are a few of the everyday pressures of any city. Social equality is another source of concern in urban spaces. Inequalities in cities and other human settlements are a great source of concern as millions of city dwellers live in slums that do not support human rights-based living conditions. Equality is an underlying principle of human rights incorporating nondiscrimination, inclusion, gender equality, and priority to vulnerable and marginalized social groups. On the other hand, social equity refers to the distribution of opportunities in a fair and just manner for everyone. Both equity and equality are fundamental for guaranteeing access to opportunities with a rights-based approach. Sustainable cities must strive for equitable opportunities for all.
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There is a wide array of urban problems which can be observed in cities around the world such as increased air pollution, inadequate or nonexistent basic services, nonexistent, insufficient or deficient urban infrastructure, and unplanned urban sprawl all of which also make cities more prone to disasters. Even though inhabitants of an urban area may live in the same city, these problems, as many of the benefits and opportunities accessible in the city, do not necessarily affect or benefit everyone the same way. Frequently, the most marginalized social groups tend to have lesser opportunities and benefits and more burdens or disadvantages than others. Sustainable cities must strive for a fair and equitable access for opportunities for all and must take assertive measures in order to reduce this social gap of inequality and promote environmental equity and Environmental Justice. Access to adequate and equitable living conditions is a great concern within the cities as the poorer population tends to live in areas not safe for living creating even greater disparity gaps among the dwellers of the same city. Even more, although cities occupy nearly 3% of planetary surface, they represent between 60% and 80% of total energy consumption in the planet, and they generate nearly 75% of global carbon emissions. Cities exert a major environmental pressure on the ecosystems of the planet as other ecosystems and persons outside from the city area tend to be the providers of those living in the cities. Also, as cities are great energy consumers and great pollution generators, they may generate unfair conditions for the regions in which they are located because they tend to extend their ecological footprint through pollution, scarcity of resources, or unfair social conditions. People living in the peri-urban areas of cities may experience poor living conditions created by the urban area. The great ecological cost that cities create for the rest of the planet has to be leveled in order to reduce the pressure that cities generate on planetary ecosystems. Besides affecting those living in the city, energy consumption, carbon emission generation, as well as the generation, removal, and disposal of solid waste generated by urban populations are the
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issues which concern all humanity given that emissions, land pollution, and different types of environmental degradation have effects both in the local and global environment, but they are problems that need to be faced and tackled locally as they tend to be a municipal responsibility. Environmental, social, and economic burdens created by urban areas must not be transferred to other communities. Sustainable cities and human settlements must ensure equal access and opportunities for all while respecting, and even enhancing, the availability of natural resources, both within the city and outside of it, considering ecologic, economic, and social effects or urban spaces. The study and research of sustainable cities must further explore human relationship and responsibility toward environment within the city and outside of it. Hake et al. (2016) proposed an integrated assessment approach that combined an ethical derivation with participatory accounting tools in order to derive an integral picture of the challenges in these nexus. Observations as proposed by Hake et al. must help us revalorize our interactions with the natural environment within urban spaces. We must question the intrinsic value of nature, the true value of the built environment and relational aspects between natural systems and urban systems. Impacts created by urban areas must be moderated, and we must rethink the human relationship with nature, particularly in cities. Environmental Ethics must advance and innovate in order to rethink the value of nature within the urban spaces and possibly even reconsider the possibility of new environmental values thought within the urban spaces. Jenerette et al. (2011) developed an ecosystem service trade-offs approach to assess the urban heat risks cape, defined as the spatial variation in risk exposure and potential human vulnerability to extreme heat. New technological assessments such as this one focused on the biophysical and social dynamics, to better understand patterns of urban vegetated cooling, the potential water requirements to supply these services, and differential access to these services between residential neighborhoods, may help us to better understand the environment and possibly reassess the value of
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nature and reset our ethical relationship with nature. In addition, given the foreseen climatic uncertainty and unstableness of the Anthropocene, evolution and advancement of Environmental Justice and equity will most likely go beyond the current view of Environmental Justice. The equal entitlement to the protection of environmental and health regulations which tended to be the typical scope of Environmental Justice very possible will to evolve to climate justice possibly encompassing aspects as equitable access to energy and climatic resilience. Toward Nature-Based Urban Environmental Ethics The birth of the academic discipline of Environmental Ethics is largely recognized toward the late 1960s. Such emergence has been linked to the environmental crisis caused by the effects of chemical pesticides and bioengineering practices in public health and the environment. The alarm caused on the misuse and overuse of great technological inventions and the environmental degradation they produced triggered reflections on the intrinsic value of nature (Pojman 2001). Problems such as evident signs of pollution and environmental degradation caused the questioning of the unequal interaction and relationship between human beings and the environment. Recognizing the intrinsic value of nature has been of central importance in Environmental Ethics given the fact that it may directly conflict with the anthropocentric views of most western cultures, which tend to give an instrumental value to nature and its elements. Environmental Ethics has been largely polarized by anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric views. Currents of thought within the field range from extreme biocentric ethics, ecocentric ethics, deep ecology, animal rights, ecofeminism, and ecological sustainability, as well as the social issues related to sustainable development, interand intragenerational justice, ecological justice, Environmental Justice, and ultimately climate justice among the most common ones (Pojman 2001; Gardiner and Thompson 2015; Smith 2018). While the greater discussion in Environmental
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Ethics continues to gravitate around nature, environment, wilderness, and the reasons for its conservation, cities, the built environment, and urban issues have been scarcely included in the Environmental Ethics debate, and they must be significantly explored by contemporary and future environmentalism if we aspire sustainable cities and communities. Gunn (1998) introduced the idea of a humane city and proposes that environmental ethicists should concern themselves with urban environmental restoration. He reasons his affirmation over several facts that go from population in cities, rate crimes, and environmental quality within the urban space. He sustained that the obligation to make cities habitable is a matter of environmental health and justice and he claimed that conditions that degrade the natural environment also degrade the people who live in it, making it a social issue rather than an ecological one. He identified a link between Environmental Ethics and Environmental Justice although he did not give any theoretical basis to sustain such affirmation. Gunn may be one of the earliest researchers to identify the important “urban gap” in Environmental Ethics that has not yet been completely explored up to date. Urban environment has not been thoroughly exhausted in the Environmental Ethics debate. Some researchers affirm that ecologically and socially responsible environmentalism must not overlook the importance of urban issues even sustaining that cities can serve as a unique sites for ecological citizenship. The proposal of the city as a source of environmental value is based on the necessity to recognize the city and urban matters as elementary drivers for ecological renewal. The failure to do so may result in the inability of making a lasting contribution to the pursuit of long-term environmental sustainability (Light 2001). Similarly Flanagan (2000) established that cities are environmental spaces and proposes an environmental consideration of urban spaces. Interestingly, these authors propose a deliberation of the urban environment considering the particularities of the urban space. There are views that defend that the design of the built environment should be a field of
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Environmental Ethics. King (2000) sustained that an environmentally responsible culture should be one in which citizens take responsibility for the domesticated environments in which they live as well as for their effects on nature. King sustained that constructions and contrivances as well as the way that humans build (or intervene) their environment also constrain the possibility of a lifestyle with a greater integration with wild nature. An environmentally responsible culture should require a built world that reflects and projects care and respect toward nature (King 2000). Even though King evidenced a strong anthropocentric view based on the domination of nature (expressions such as “domesticated environments,” “built world,” or “wild world” give clear evidence), the discourse on responsibility and effects of the actions of citizens propose a different interaction with nature through the built environment. Taylor (2012) provided an overview of ethical viewpoints on the planning and designing of the built environment focusing on the application of utilitarian ethics. Taylor also described a virtue ethics approach as applied to urban planners and architects and briefly commented on Environmental Ethics. Finally, Fox (2000) posed a debate on the ethical dimension of building. Mega (2010) identified urban spaces as theatres of values or beacons of culture and proposed that cities must go through a meaningful farreaching change through several dimensions such as environmental well-being and social inclusion in order to overcome the crisis of values and engage in a sustainability path. Mega analyses visions and actions of cities proposing dimensions and drivers that purportedly will induce sustainability in urban areas. Having identified certain aspects related to growth, governance, environmental sustainability, and social inclusion, among others, which represent challenges for sustainable cities, the question of whether we can find different ethical values within urban environments remains. Finally, Chan (2019) proposed that the design of the city and the urban process could produce new ethical categories, shape new moral identities and relations, and bring about consequences that are morally significant. Chan proposed that the
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urban environment and processes could shape contemporary ethics based on relations and realities of the urban. The possibility of different and even new ethical values based on urban realities is certainly provocative and gives room for new debate within an urban sustainability context. Even though interventions to natural environment and the built environment itself may seem contrary to most accepted view of Environmental Ethics, the consideration of new ethical perspectives based on the possibilities of the urban environment is necessary. Also the possibility of the consideration of new urban values or the reconsideration of already accepted values based on the new possibilities that urban spaces offer now or will offer in the future gives a new opportunity to rethink urban spaces from a new ethical perspective as well as the proposal to look forward to a differentiated set of values based on the paradigm of sustainable cities. Toward Environmentally Ethical Cities
Sustainable development demands a serious and profound consideration of our relationship with nature and its elements. Our planetary reality cannot be currently understood without considering the contributions that cities and built environment sum or subtract to the environment and to quality of life of all population, whether within a city or beyond it. The consideration of the built environment, the interventions to the natural environment whether through urbanization or significant interventions that alter its composition, as well as the pressures, pollution, and possible degradation of the environment or any of its natural elements and its possible limits in regard to the ecosystem in which it is embedded have only been superficially discussed by Environmental Ethics researchers and by a few researchers of urban issues. A further understanding of the intrinsic value of nature and its processes within the built environment is needed in order to promote a systemic view of the relationship of natural and urban processes and the ethical challenges and opportunities that it may pose. Also further discussion is needed in order to address the possible limits to growth based on the possibilities of the ecosystem in which the urban settlement is embedded.
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It is well understood that cities and the built environment in general pose a great challenge for sustainability given their effect on the quality of life of their dwellers, and the effects of cities on the global environment, making it an issue of collective, even global, interest. In the context of the UN-Habitat approach of defining the prosperity of cities, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat 2016) defined the scope of environmental sustainability in an urban context as one that values the protection of the urban environment and natural assets, seeks ways to use energy more efficiently, minimizes pressure on surrounding land and natural resources, and minimizes environmental losses by generating creative solutions to enhance the quality of the environment. Barrett et al. (2016) proposed the rationale for the ethical city as response to urgent urban challenges. The ethical city proposed by Barret et al. encompassed decarbonization as concurrently tackling issues of inequality in cities and accountability in urban governance. The consideration of how an ethical city framework influences urban development explored the extent to which ethical approaches have been adopted by cities. Based on these approaches, urban researchers need to take serious consideration of the current and future interactions among urban synergies and their effects on regional and global environment as this has proven to be a gap in our Environmental Ethics knowledge and may have room for interesting opportunities ahead. Also, a more detailed and serious consideration of the intrinsic value of the natural environmental characteristics of the urban areas should be considered in order to protect, enhance, and preserve elements that may naturally improve the quality of life of all within urban areas and outside of them. There is still scarce exploration from the ethical standpoint on the necessity to respect, preserve, and enhance original environmental traits through the interventions and transformations through the built environment. The assertive consideration of native species, regional natural cycles, or the preservation of unique environmental characteristics of the territory poses an important and yet unresolved consideration for Environmental
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Ethics. Human dependence on natural resources should address from an Environmental Ethics standpoint, the intrinsic value of unadulterated natural resources within human settlements, as well as the challenging of dominant preconceptions in order to enhance and strengthen or even restore original ecosystem and its natural processes. These are another significant gap in the Environmental Ethics debate regarding cities and the built environment. Environmental Justice in Urban Areas The concept of Environmental Justice has expanded significantly in recent decades mainly given the hindering of human rights in human settlements everywhere around the world. There is a wide scope of definitions of the term that range from procedural aspects to a broader scope that links it to social justice evidencing the complexity of its understanding and application. As it was born from a civil rights strategy in defense of the effects of hazardous waste facilities, the most accepted definition derived from the principle that all people and communities are entitled to equal protection of environmental and public health laws and regulations (Bullard 1996). Haughton (1999) identified linkages between sustainable urban development and the principles of sustainable development as evidence of Environmental Justice. Given the extraordinarily ample scope of dimensions that it may encompass, Environmental Justice has been largely defined identifying injustices but not clearly defining what should be the ideal through its effects on human individuals or collectives (Jamal and Hales 2016). In the past its most frequent dimensions as applied to an urban context encompassed health and environmental inequality (Stephens 1996; Mitchell 2011; Stephens 2012, Wolch et al. 2014). The fact that Environmental Justice has been defined through the identification of injustices as opposed to a clear identification of what ought to be evidences the unfair and unfit challenge for those whose rights have been hindered since the defense of their right implicated that it had already been impaired. Thus an environmental injustice, inequity, or inequality may have an ample identification. If we are to base our ideal in an equitable
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city, in accordance to the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC 2016), it must guarantee universal access to all inhabitants of the urban space to basic services such as water, sanitation, waste management, energy, food, and mobility. Accessibility of urban spaces that guarantee quality of life for all and the accessibility to environmental elements that enable livable conditions and quality of life in urban areas are only a few examples of the application of social equality in cities. The equitable access to resources that are considered as environmental goods establishes a clear link to the Environmental Ethics discussion since the instrumental value of natural resources of the urban space tends to prevail over the intrinsic value of natural elements and environment in general. Given their treatment as environmental goods, Nesbitt et al. (2018) suggested that the interactions with urban vegetation should be subjected to equity analyses to determine the fairness of such interactions. The evaluation of these interactions with urban forests considered the spatial distribution of urban vegetation, and the recognition in urban vegetation decision making, introduced a participative variable in its consideration. Wolch et al. (2014) also identified access to green space as an Environmental Justice issue. Paradoxically they also observe that while the creation of new green space can make neighborhoods healthier and more esthetically attractive, it also could increase housing costs and property values ultimately leading to gentrification and a displacement of the original residents. Heynen et al. (2006) also identified that spatially inequitable distribution of urban trees in relation to race and ethnicity was an instance of urban environmental inequality. The example of access to urban vegetation is emblematic because it evidences both the access to physical common urban spaces (or physical natural resources) and the access to intangible goods such as livable conditions and quality of life through the environmental and spiritual services provided by vegetation and forests. This reasoning could be similarly applied to other natural resources or services which tend to be specifically considered for the case of urban equality. Such is the case of access to water regarding water as an
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elementary resource, as well as the infrastructure for potable water or sanitary services, or any other type of pervasive inequality in the access to any other environmental service, such as quality air and carbon flows in the urban space, resilience, climate justice, or even concrete inequalities of specific urban spaces such as the rural-urban fringe interface, among others (Schlosbergh 2013; Selthi and de Oliveira 2015; Sharma-Wallace 2016; Allen et al. 2017; Nygren 2018). In the case of human settlements and cities, urban systems such as water and sanitation services, energy systems, food provision, mobility, and energy generation generate synergies among natural services and processes. Unfortunately scarce literature has been found in which these complex interactions and synergies are observed and measured. This is highly significant for Environmental Justice application within the urban context. Environmental Justice has been traditionally concerned with the distribution of environmental quality among social groups (Bullard 1996; Schlosbergh 2004, 2007; Mitchell 2011, Vanderheiden 2016). The fair or equitable distribution or allocation of resources, the equitable allocation of burdens, as well as the inclusive and equitable access to physical spaces, intangible benefits, or ecological services are part of the conception of fair or equitable environmental distribution as an evidence of Environmental Justice. Since Environmental Justice is also a distributive issue, it relies heavily on the participatory approach recognized to groups and individuals. Those who benefit, but mostly those who carry the most inequitable burden, must have the possibility to participate, to be heard, and to be assertively considered in any decision that affects them (Schlosbergh 2004; Mitchell 2011; Nesbitt et al. 2018). United Nations Global Compact (UNGC 2016) proposed that an ethical and just city has to be active and inclusive in community engagement. That is, participation would be fostered, expected, and respected. Also, such city would be socially inclusive providing choice and opportunity for everyone to participate in social, economic, cultural, and civic expressions; would eliminate all physical, spatial, and sociological
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forms of segregation and exclusion; and would promote accessibility honoring equality, equity, and inclusion. Containing these social traits, the city as proposed by UNGC (2016) would be environmentally and socially just. Toward the Ethical and Sustainable City Urban spaces in the Anthropocene are to address assertively environmental challenges as well as successfully bridge the growing social gap. Environmental Ethics has room for advancement in the consideration of new environmental values, and new urban environmental realities based on the crossroads posed by technology, new forms of participation and governance, and the reinterpretation of well-known values based on nature. Environmental Justice also has room for improvement and reinterpretation as old and new challenges lie ahead such as those based on climate uncertainty. Climate justice will need to address equity and equality issues not yet resolved by Environmental Justice as well as being able to redress social justice in cities. Technology and social innovation pose new possibilities and opportunities for further knowledge and understanding of our reality. New possibilities and opportunities lay ahead in the building, restoration, and reconstruction of urban settlements, cities, and possibly ecosystems. New knowledge and interpretation of the synergies between urban and natural systems also exhibit new opportunities for exploring contemporary Environmental Ethics as applied to new realities of urban spaces. Environmental Justice will very likely be reinterpreted in the urban context in the times of climate uncertainty.
Cross-References ▶ Green Cities ▶ Inclusive City, Perspectives, Challenges, and Pathways ▶ Liveable City: Toward Economic, Social, Cultural, and Environmental Well-Being ▶ Opportunities for All: Inclusive and Equitable Sustainable Development
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▶ Participatory Design: Participatory Urban Management ▶ Planning Small Cities Toward Being Inclusive, Safe, Resilient, and Sustainable: The Case of a City in Rio Grande Do Sul, Brazil ▶ Public and Green Spaces in the Context of Sustainable Development ▶ Spaces of the Commons ▶ Sustainable Urban Planning and Making Sustainable Cities ▶ Sustainable, Fair, and Democratic Water Management ▶ Urban Ecological Footprints ▶ Urbanization and Urban Growth: Sustainable Cities for Safeguarding Our Future
References Allen A, Griffin L, Johnson C (2017) Environmental justice and urban resilience in the global south. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1137-47354-7 Barrett BFD, Horne R, Fien J (2016) The ethical city: a rationale for an urgent new urban agenda. Sustainability 8(11):1–14. https://doi.org/10.3390/su8111197 Brennan A, Lo YS (2016) Environmental ethics. In: Zalta EN (ed) The stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. (Winter 2016 ed) Available via https://plato.stanford. edu/entries/ethics-environmental/ Bullard RD (1996) Environmental justice: It’s more than waste facility siting. Soc Sci Q 77(3):493–499. Available via https://www.jstor.org/stable/42863495 Chan JKH (2019) Urban ethics in the Anthropocene. The moral dimensions of six emerging conditions in contemporary urbanism. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0308-1 Flanagan MA (2000) Environmental justice in the City: a theme for urban environmental history. Environ Hist 5 (2):159–164. https://doi.org/10.1093/envhis/5.2.159 Fox W (ed) (2000) Ethics and the built environment. Routledge, London Gardiner SM, Thompson A (eds) (2015) The Oxford handbook of environmental ethics. Oxford University Press, Oxford Gunn AS (1998) Rethinking communities. Environmental ethics in an urbanized world. Environ Ethics 20(4): 341–360. https://doi.org/10.5840/enviroethics1998 2043 Hake JF, Schlör H, Schürmann K, Venghaus S (2016) Ethics, sustainability and the water, energy, food Nexus approach – a new integrated assessment of urban systems. Energy Procedia 88:236–242. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2016.06.155
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174 Haughton G (1999) Environmental justice and the Sustainable City. J Plan Educ Res 18(3):233–243. https://doi. org/10.1177/0739456X9901800305 Heynen N, Perkins HA, Roy P (2006) The political ecology of uneven urban green space. The impact of political economy on race and ethnicity in producing environmental inequality in Milwaukee. Urban Aff Rev 42(1):3–25. https://doi.org/10.1177/1078087 406290729 Jamal T, Hales R (2016) Performative justice: new directions in environmental and social justice. Geoforum 76:176–180. (critical review). https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.geoforum.2016.09.014 Jenerette GD, Harlan SL, Stefanov WL, Martin CA (2011) Ecosystem services and urban heat riskscape moderation: water, green spaces, and social inequality in Phoenix, USA. Ecol Appl 21(7). https://doi.org/10.1890/101493.1 King RJH (2000) Environmental ethics and the built environment. Environ Ethics 22(2):115–131. https://doi. org/10.5840/enviroethics200022230 Light A (2001) The urban blind spot in environmental ethics. Environ Polit 10:7–35. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 714000511 Mega VP (2010) Sustainable cities for the third Millennium: the Odyssey of urban excellence. Springer, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6037-5 Mitchell G (2011) Environmental justice: an overview. In: Nriagu JO (ed) Encyclopedia of environmental health, pp 449–458. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-44452272-6.00704-2 Nesbitt L, Meitner MJ, Sheppard SRJ, Girling C (2018) The dimensions of urban green equity: a framework for analysis. Urban For Urban Green 34:240–248. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2018.07.009 Nygren A (2018) Inequality and interconnectivity: urban spaces of justice in Mexico. Geoforum 89:145–154. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2017.06.015 Pojman LP (2001) Environmental ethics. Readings in theory and application. Thomson learning, Wadsworth Schlosbergh D (2004) Reconceiving environmental justice: global movements and political theories. Environ Polit 13(3):517–540. https://doi.org/10.1080/096440 1042000229025 Schlosbergh D (2007) Defining environmental justice: theories, movements and nature. Oxford University Press, Oxford Schlosbergh D (2013) Theorising environmental justice: the expanding sphere of a discourse. Environ Polit 22(1):37–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2013. 755387 Selthi M, de Oliveira JP (2015) From global ‘north–south’ to local ‘urban–rural’: a shifting paradigm in climate governance? Urban Clim 14(4):529–543. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.uclim.2015.09.009 Sharma-Wallace L (2016) Toward an environmental justice of the rural-urban interface. Geoforum 77:174–177. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2016.11.002
Environmental Planning Shrader-Frechette K (2015) Environmental ethics. In: La Follette H (ed) The oxford handbook of practical ethics. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/ oxfordhb/9780199284238.003.0009 Smith KK (2018) Exploring environmental ethics. An introduction. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/ 978-3-319-77395-7 Stephens C (1996) Healthy cities or unhealthy islands? The health and social implications of urban inequality. Environ Urban 8(2):9–30. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 095624789600800211 Stephens C (2012) Urban inequities; urban rights: a conceptual analysis and review of impacts on children, and policies to address them. J Urban Health 89(3). https:// doi.org/10.1007/s11524-011-9655-5. Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine Taylor N (2012) Built environment, ethics and the. In: Chadwick R (ed) Encyclopedia of applied ethics, 2nd edn. Elsevier, London, pp 345–353 The UN Global Compact – Cities Programme (2016) Ethical cities: locking in liveability. World Vision. RMIT University. Melbourne, 16 Feb 2016. Available via https://www.wvi.org/sites/default/files/Ethical%20Cit ies%20UTC%20Final%20Report.pdf. Accessed 20 Sep 2018 UN-Habitat (2016) World Cities Report 2016: urbanization and development – emerging futures. UN-HABITAT. Available via https://unhabitat.org/books/world-citiesreport/. Accessed 20 Sep 2018 Vanderheiden S (2016) Environmental and climate justice. In: Gabrielson T, Hall C, Meyer JM, Schlosberg D (eds) The Oxford handbook of environmental political theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford Wolch JR, Byrne J, Newell JP (2014) Urban green space, public health, and environmental justice: the challenge of making cities ‘just green enough’. Landsc Urban Plan 125:234–244. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. landurbplan.2014.01.017
Environmental Planning ▶ Spatial Planning and Sustainable Cities and Communities
Environmental Sustainable Design ▶ Built Environment Education for Sustainability and Climate Change Preparation
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Equality of Opportunity
Equity
▶ Opportunities for All: Inclusive and Equitable Sustainable Development
▶ Opportunities for All: Inclusive and Equitable Sustainable Development
Equitable Cities
Ethical Cities
▶ Environmental Ethics and Justice for Sustainable Cities
▶ Environmental Ethics and Justice for Sustainable Cities
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Food Safety ▶ Food Security
Food Security Issa Ibrahim Berchin1, Wellyngton Silva de Amorim1 and José Baltazar Salgueirinho Osório de Andrade Guerra2,3 1 Research Center for Energy Efficiency and Sustainability (Greens), Universidade do Sul de Santa Catarina (Unisul), Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil 2 Centre for Sustainable Development/Research Group on Energy Efficiency and Sustainability (Greens), University of Southern Santa Catarina (UNISUL), Florianopolis, SC, Brazil 3 Cambridge Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance (C-EENRG), Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Synonyms Food safety; Nutrition security; Zero hunger
Definition The definition of food security within the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is based on
the statement from the Rome Declaration on World Food Security and the World Food Summit Plan of Action: FAO’s formal definition of food security is “when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (FAO 1996). Aiming to ensure food security for all, at all times, the World Food Summit (FAO 1996) declared seven commitments: • We will ensure an enabling political, social, and economic environment designed to create the best conditions for the eradication of poverty and for durable peace, based on full and equal participation of women and men, which is most conducive to achieving sustainable food security for all. • We will implement policies aimed at eradicating poverty and inequality and improving physical and economic access by all, at all times, to sufficient, nutritionally adequate, and safe food and its effective utilization. • We will pursue participatory and sustainable food, agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and rural development policies and practices in highand low-potential areas, which are essential to adequate and reliable food supplies at the household, national, regional, and global levels, and combat pests, drought, and desertification, considering the multifunctional character of agriculture.
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• We will strive to ensure that food, agricultural trade, and overall trade policies are conducive to fostering food security for all through a fair and market-oriented world trade system. • We will endeavor to prevent and be prepared for natural disasters and man-made emergencies and to meet transitory and emergency food requirements in ways that encourage recovery, rehabilitation, development, and a capacity to satisfy future needs. • We will promote optimal allocation and use of public and private investments to foster human resources, sustainable food, agriculture, fisheries and forestry systems, and rural development, in high- and low-potential areas. • We will implement, monitor, and follow up this plan of action at all levels in cooperation with the international community. FAO also identifies four main dimensions of food security, physical availability of food, economic and physical access to food, food utilization, and stability of the other three dimensions over time (FAO 2008, 2009). National availability to food signifies that there should be enough food supply for a determined population to guarantee that people have access to adequate and sufficient nutrition. Households’ access to food can be categorized into two pillars: economic and physical. Economic availability is determined by income, food prices, and through access to social assistance. Physical access is already related to availability and quality of infrastructure which guarantee access to nutrition. Thus, the concept of stability can also be categorized into two pillars: vulnerability and shocks. Both relate to the risks of climate change, international trade oscillation, and political instability, which are all capable of jeopardizing food security. Stability has a fundamental role to promote and maintain food security. This has been increasingly discussed in the past few years when searching for the forces which cause variation in food availability. Food stability relies on matters of climate and weather, technologies, and methods of production (Anderson 2018). Although the increasing knowledge of the four pillars of food security have served to a facilitate
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better understanding of availability, access, utilization, and stability within food systems, it seems that the notion of “pillars” brought a misleading representation that these dimensions were statistics, separating ones from the others. However, these pillars are interdependent, and to measure food security, one can attribute particular weights and values (e.g., 25% for each), varying according to the particularities of each community, country, or region (Berry et al. 2015). Food insecurity exists when there are problems in food production and/or consumption. The most affected by food security are those whose living conditions are most precarious and exposed to natural and/or anthropogenic stresses (Gould 2017). Thus, food insecurity can be chronic, when it persists for a long time and is usually generated by long periods of poverty, or it can be transitory, when it is temporary or occurs in a short period and it can be generated by the lack of access to food, due to low food production, financial instability, or other events (FAO 2008). Strategies to promote food security deal with several challenges and pressures on food resources that can be applied to the national or household scale (Gould 2017).
Introduction to the Challenges of Environmental, Demographic, and Economic Changes Ensuring food security is one of the main challenges of the twenty-first century, particularly in developing countries (Tendall et al. 2015). Worldwide, undernourishment affects 815 million people, and poor nutrition causes nearly 3.1 million children deaths each year, particularly in developing countries where 12.9% of the population is undernourished (United Nations 2018a). Industrial and consumers’ demands for natural and nonrenewable resources increase the challenge of ensuring food security for all in a growing population scenario coupled with increasing environmental changes. To overcome these challenges will require an aptitude of policymakers, industries, civil society, and other stakeholders to manage food security in a scenario of global risks,
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guaranteeing that high standards of food quality continue into the future. Agriculture plays a key role in alleviating poverty, improving food security, and raising households’ income, by employing 40% of today’s global population (United Nations 2018a). Thus, considering that up to 80% of food consumed in the developing world comes from small farms, investing in smallholders contributes to improve food and nutrition security (United Nations 2018a). Food insecurity due to its correlation with low income affects the poor population more intensely. Poverty causes food insecurity, hunger, and malnutrition, leading to poor physical and cognitive development, which may result in low productivity that perpetuates poverty (FAO 2008). In developing countries, households spend more than half of their income on food purchase (Tendall et al. 2015). Hence, considering that, proportionally, the poorer you are, the more you spend on food, famine and food insecurity will result from poverty and the lack of access to financial resources (Bickel et al. 2000; Holden and Ghebru 2016). As stated above, “food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (FAO 1996). Therefore, in an ever-changing world facing population growth, resources scarcity, economic changes, urbanization, massive migration, climate and environmental changes, growing aging population, and changing patterns of consumer choices and food consumption (Tendall et al. 2015; Fan and Brzeska 2016; King et al. 2017), stablishing food security for all, at the global level, will require local strategies and initiatives adapted to the local reality but also aligned with global cooperation and partnership to support them. The continuity of the “status quo” through the strategies currently adopted by governments to increase food production is no longer enough. Global changes will require profound changes in land management, in resource use, and in the consumption and production patterns (McCarthy et al. 2018). Observing these challenges, the United Nations (2015) launched the 17
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Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through the Agenda 2030, aiming: To end poverty and hunger everywhere; to combat inequalities within and among countries; to build peaceful, just and inclusive societies; to protect human rights and promote gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls; and to ensure the lasting protection of the planet and its natural resources. We resolve also to create conditions for sustainable, inclusive and sustained economic growth, shared prosperity and decent work for all, taking into account different levels of national development and capacities.
In a changing world expected to reach nine billion people in few decades, ensuring sustainable food and nutrition security for all is at the core of the United Nations SDGs (King et al. 2017). Accordingly, Goal 2 “Zero Hunger” aims to “end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture” (United Nations 2018a). Some of the opportunities to achieve food security are discussed in the next section.
Achieving Food Security in a Changing World: Opportunities from Public Policies, Technological Innovation, Capacitation, Financial Resources, and Partnership and Cooperation Global food security is a major challenge that should be addressed regionally (Belesky 2014). To increase food security locally and nationally, food production should be handled by smaller and more localized production, which contributes to lower food prices and more local development (Chaifetz and Jagger 2014; Thornton and Herrero 2014; Belesky 2014; Matacena 2016). Despite their inability to intervene in global markets, national authorities play key role in ensuring global food security by handling food production between large producers and smallholders while ensuring sustainability and social inclusion (Oosterveer et al. 2014; Shete and Rutten 2015). However, strengthening partnerships with nongovernmental organizations, academia, and other sectors of civil society are equally important and contribute to the
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formulation of environmentally sustainable food security policies, which can promote gender equality and reduce the effects of climate change on food production (Magalhães 2014). Despite the significant decrease, the number of people living in the rural poor is still higher than in the urban area (FAO 2016). Aiming to reduce poverty in rural areas and increase food security, public policies need to support small farms by increasing their access to technologies and financial resources (Larson et al. 2016; Devereux 2016; King et al. 2017), opening up possibilities for rural communities and family farmers to adapt to climate change that negatively impacts their livelihood and makes them highly vulnerable (Makuvaro et al. 2018). Smallholder agriculture is essential to global food security, especially in developing countries, which creates more jobs and increases families’ incomes (Tscharntke et al. 2012; Nehring et al. 2017; Larson et al. 2016). Large-scale farms produce great amount of food, and such farmers have more resources to invest in equipment, techniques, and technologies, using less human capital, therefore contracting less employees, whereas small farmers employ, proportionally, more people, in more concentrated spaces, contributing to regional development, poverty alleviation, and local food security (Shete and Rutten 2015; Otsuka et al. 2016; Larson et al. 2016; van Vliet et al. 2015). One of the greatest threats to family farmers and smallholders is the lack of access to resources, therefore reducing their possibilities to invest in technologies and other mechanisms to enhance their production, productivity, and resilience (FAO 2016; Tirivayi et al. 2016; Nehring et al. 2017). Hence, stabilizing incomes and food prices is essential to maintain consistent food security, and it can be achieved by increasing insurance to producers, by guaranteeing employment creation, by providing financial aid to poor people, by food aid (i.e., in extreme cases), and by price interventions and food supply management (Devereux 2016; Tirivayi et al. 2016; Nehring et al. 2017). Policy interventions are necessary to face longterm poverty and food scarcity (Just and Gabrielyan 2016; Pérez-Escamilla 2012); however, good governance is essential to meet global
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demands for food security without compromising sustainable development (Lele et al. 2013; Iglesias and Garrote 2015; Pérez-Escamilla 2012). Food security governance can be stablished by ensuring “clear, participatory and responsive planning, decision making and implementation”; “efficient, effective, transparent, and accountable institutions”; “respect for the rule of law, and equality and fairness in resource allocation and service delivery”; and “coherent and coordinated policies, institutions, and actions” (PérezEscamilla 2012, p. 120). Among the initiatives to promote food security mapped in the literature are: • Financial aid: Financial aid policies aim at guaranteeing financial transfers to complement extremely poor families’ income, reducing poverty and increasing food security (United Nations 2018a; Devereux 2016; Larder et al. 2015; Dimitri et al. 2015; von Braun 2008). • Food aid: Food aid policies aim at supporting poor families living in food insecurity, also improving the quality and quantity of food consumed (United Nations 2018a; Wilkinson 2015; Clark et al. 2015; Broussard et al. 2014; Lentz and Barrett 2013; Ninno et al. 2007). • Technical support and technologies: Technical support policies aim to guarantee investments (also appealing to international cooperation) in rural infrastructure, technological development, and researches to increase crop productivity. Also, providing farmers with mechanisms to produce food in a competitive manner (United Nations 2018a; Vermeulen et al. 2013; Tilman et al. 2011; Lynch et al. 2000; Carvalho 2006; Fan and Brzeska 2016; King et al. 2017; Welch and Graham 1999; Foster and Rosenzweig 1995). • Capacity building: Capacity-building policies aim at training and allowing farmers to produce effectively and through sustainable practices, increasing their productivity and food security (United Nations 2018a; Terry 2014; Klerkx et al. 2009; Pratley 2008; Ayele and Wield 2005; Raynolds et al. 2004; Folke et al. 2002; Foster and Rosenzweig 1995). • Land tenure management/food production: Land tenure management and food production
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policies aim to guarantee sustainable farming practices by supporting practices to increase agricultural productivity while conserving and improving soil quality. Also, enforcing a fair production system, by registering all producers and promoting agrarian reforms (United Nations 2018a; Holden and Ghebru 2016; Clark et al. 2015; Garnett et al. 2013; Gebbers and Adamchuk 2010; Fan and Brzeska 2016; Godfray et al. 2010; Jakobsen et al. 2007; Sanchez 2000; Maxwell and Wiebe 1999). • Strong institutions, solid infrastructure, and assistance policies: The development of solid and transparent mechanisms for development and security helps to build resilience for households and small farmers, helping to promote and ensure food security for all at all times. These mechanisms can be translated into the availability of financial, social, legal, technological, and technical assistance, insurances, and stakeholder’s engagement, among others (United Nations 2018a; Fan and Brzeska 2016; Tendall et al. 2015; Haysom and Tawodzera 2018; King et al. 2017). • Identify, categorize, and monitor: Policies to identify, categorize, and monitor are important to develop databases and increase the efficiency when developing and implementing plans regarding food and nutrition security, poverty alleviation, land use, and climate change (United Nations 2018a; Fritz et al. 2015; Carletto et al. 2015; Brosnan and Sun 2004; Dramstad et al. 2001; King et al. 2017; Haysom and Tawodzera 2018; Lynch et al. 2000). These initiatives to promote food security meet both pressing demands of food insecurity (e.g., due to chronic causes or transitory crises), which are palliative solutions (i.e., financial aid and food aid), and lasting demands for food security, helping communities to develop competences and increase their resilience in the long term (i.e., technical support and technologies; capacity building; land tenure management/food production; strong institutions, solid infrastructure, and assistance policies; and identify, categorize, and monitor), meeting sustainability standards.
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The global chains of food supply compose all activities related to the processing and transport of food, and it has become more heterogenous, globalized, cooperative, and highly distributed (Badia-Melis et al. 2014), involving other activities such as supplying raw materials, parts, and assemblies and storing and tracking of products that are distributed to numerous channels of distribution. Resilient food systems help to ensure “sufficient, appropriate and accessible food to all,” promoting food security to all at all times, despite environmental, social, political, or economic disturbances (Tendall et al. 2015, p. 19). Further explaining these categories of food system resilience, Tendall et al. (2015, p. 19) elucidate that sufficient means “sufficient quantity and nutritional quality of food”; appropriate encompasses “the notions of culturally, technically and nutritionally appropriate food”; and accessible means “physically and economically accessible.” Together and being able to ensure the functioning of these categories in times of disturbance promote stability and resilience to the system, matching the four dimensions of food security as understood by the FAO (2008). In order to maintain food security on track and measure its path, it is necessary to develop and apply assessment mechanisms. However, food security is a multidimensional and multiscale phenomenon that requires holistic and comprehensive approaches, such as food system approach (Haysom and Tawodzera 2018). The food system approach is particularly relevant for urban areas, considering that the world is becoming increasingly urbanized, while food security assessment tools still tend to focus on the rural context (Haysom and Tawodzera 2018). Half of the world’s population already live in cities, and this percentage is expected to grow in the next years, including in the developing world (United Nations 2018b). This increase of urban population stresses cities’ infrastructure and resources, intensifying its challenges; causing an increase of slums; limiting access to treated water, sewage, clean energy, proper houses, roads, and infrastructure; threatening food security; and increasing pollution and wastes. In 2014, about
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30% (nearly 880 million people) of the global urban population already lived in slum-like conditions, increasing their vulnerability (United Nations 2018b). This reality makes the relationship between smart cities, governance, and food even more complex (Sonnino 2009, 2016), bringing new challenges to the urban food systems, which should manage how food is produced, processed, distributed, and sold (Grewal and Grewal 2012; Maye 2018). Therefore, in this scenario where food represents one of the principle challenges for humanity and particularly for large urban centers, cities also become a vital part of the solution as global actors, fundamental for the planning of a food system (Moragues-Faus 2017; Morgan and Sonnino 2010; Sonnino 2009). That is, the questions related to “urban food” became a new normal, where food and agricultural practices began to be discussed by municipal authorities, municipal advisors, and social urban movements (Derkzen and Morgan 2012). Effectively, some cities already work with their food systems in an organized urban scale, such as New York, Manchester and Toronto. In this regard, actions such as urban agriculture demonstrate optimistic results, revolutionizing the actual food systems (Dieleman 2017), mostly in developing countries, which rely on rural production (Amar-Klemesu 2000). Thus, it contributes to the decrease of organic waste disposal, improving the functioning of the urban ecosystems and guaranteeing a low-carbon economy, since supply chains, when shortened, often require a smaller amount of fossil fuel for transport (Ferreira et al. 2018). Despite critiques, urban agriculture emerges as a strategy to improve food security and dietary diversity in cities, shortening the distance between food production and consumption, also improving access to fresh food in cities (FAO 2018; Warren et al. 2015; Badami and Ramankutty 2015). Worldwide, about 800 million people practice urban agriculture, including for commerce (FAO 2018). Thus, urban farming also contributes to reduce families’ expenditure with food (Poulsen et al. 2015), enabling them to invest in other needs like education and health.
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Cross-References ▶ Urban Farming and Its Role in Enhancing the Sustainability of Cities
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Fostering Rural Urban Relationships to Enhance More Resilient and Just Communities Elisa Ravazzoli and Christian Hoffmann Institute for Regional Development, Eurac Research, Bolzano, Italy
Introduction: Mutual Relationships Between Urban and Rural Areas Rural-urban relationships have been defined broadly as the reciprocal flows of people, goods, services, money, and environmental services that link rural, mountain, and remote areas to cities. Historically, urban-rural interdependency was under urban dominance and was conceived as a hierarchical system. New social, economic, and environmental situations require us to rethink rural-urban
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relationships as less asymmetrical: rural communities are no longer dependent on the economy of urban areas; they establish connections not only with their neighbours but also internationally. Relations are embedded in a network with a multitude of different actors at various levels (urban, peri-urban, and rural) and territories (OECD 2014). Thanks to this polycentric spatial structure, the dependency of rural areas on central cities has declined. Due to rural transformation and structural changes in the economy, there has been a “rural renaissance” for rural businesses and rural areas are at the core of sustainability transitions. Moreover, both rapid urbanization and (counter-)urbanization processes coexist which give rise to a new innovative businesses, cross-sectoral linkages, or new arrangements for sustainable food systems. Urban and rural areas are mutually dependent on each other for natural resources, raw materials, and finished products, as well as financial flows, social interaction, and transport links (e. g. the rural population commutes or migrates to urban areas for work or access to services, while the recreation of urban citizens occurs in rural areas). We observe similar lifestyles in both rural and urban areas. The relationship between urban and rural areas should now be understood in a broad sense, and not only as the relationships between urban areas and their hinterland or rural areas. Consequently, the rural and urban economies are interdependent, intertwined, and complementary. Rural-urban linkages offer the primary entry point in addressing major challenges to improve food security, nutrition, and prosperity to benefit smallholders as well as city dwellers. This is also related to the fact that relations between actors are not happening only in physical spaces but first and foremost via virtual exchanges. Physical proximity, contiguity, and material links are becoming less and less important for firms and actors, and are partly substituted or extended by immaterial links, which have become more relevant for collaboration and exchanges between various actors. The relationships that exist today between urban, rural, and peri-urban spaces, as well as among actors, are highly influenced by rapid changes in
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information technology, globalization, and governmental devolution (Repp et al. 2012; Dutta and Bilbao-Osorio 2012; Davoudi and Stead 2002). Even though physical relations still exist between spaces and actors, interaction between people and across spaces no longer depends exclusively on spatial proximity; currently, advanced web-technologies, automation processes, or control techniques in the 4.0 industry provide opportunities to enhance “organisational proximity networks” (Copus 2013) or “organised proximity” (Torre and Rallet 2005), where various types of spaces, actors, and objects are connected virtually, in real time. Nowadays, smart technologies – the internet, broadband satellite technologies, or autonomous driving cars – have greatly reduced costs to bridge physical distance and facilitate rapid immaterial movements of information and capital, making spatial boundaries more blurred (Courtney et al. 2009; Khanna 2016). With current socioeconomic models, climate change increasingly influencing migration and the ecosystem balance and the advances in technology, urban and rural areas should interact more to achieve sustainable development and resilience, creating partnerships and balancing services. For these reasons, integrated territorial approaches and urban-rural links are included in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and precisely refers to SGG 11 and its links with SDG 2 (sustainable agriculture and food and nutrition security) and SDG 12 (sustainable production and consumption). Within this framework, this entry discusses rural-urban relationships in the context of regional development and for the creation of more resilient communities. It discusses how rural-urban relationships can enhance community resilience and support the sustainable development of socio-ecologic systems, contributing to protecting biological and cultural diversity. This meets the targets of SDG8, which highlight the importance of sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, of full and productive employment and decent jobs for all.
Rural Urban Relationships: Tool for the Resilience of Communities In the literature, according to the discipline, there are multiple perspectives on resilience. The engineering perspective considers resilience as the capacity and velocity of a system or material to return to its equilibrium after a displacement (Bodin and Winman 2004). The ecological perspective refers to the magnitude of disturbance that can be absorbed before the system changes its structure (Holling 1973). The evolutionary perspective considers the dynamic process of transformation to a more desirable trajectory (Davoudi et al. 2013). In this work, we adopt the evolutionary approach according to which everything is in progress and adaptations are constant, continuous, and cyclic. Based on this perspective, “a resilient region is not just economically successful but maintains economic success over the long term in the face of the inevitable adaptation required by changes in international competition, shifts in consumer demand and other such ‘shocks’ to the system.” (Christopherson et al. 2010). A region is resilient if the human and social capital among residents is high (whether they live in urban, peri-urban, or rural areas) and if people can absorb, adapt, or recover from disasters or externally driven shocks. In developing countries, urban communities fail to collect resources to resist a shock, and stresses slowly erode resilience and increase the vulnerability of the population over time. At the same time, rural, inner, and mountain communities are becoming vulnerable due to lack of infrastructure, population, disaster management capabilities, and limited livelihood opportunities. Due to the spatial allocation of settlements and specific geographical conditions, many rural areas are disadvantaged: they suffer from depopulation and out-migration, loss of services of general interest for the elderly, and are more likely to be affected by the negative consequences of climate change. The response to this can be either an erosion of social and human capital or vice versa an increase of collaborative actions aimed at solving the situation.
Fostering Rural Urban Relationships to Enhance More Resilient and Just Communities
Interconnections, links, relationships with other spatial realities (cities, peri-urban areas) can help the more fragile rural areas to improve their social and economic conditions and become more resilient. Strengthening the interconnection between urban and rural areas, and promoting integrated territorial interrelationships through political strategies, shared projects, and via collaborative and collective actions provides an opportunity to enhance resilience of both urban and rural areas. In exchanging health or care services, food, or natural resources, there is a mutual dependency between rural and urban areas that benefit both as they are production and consumption areas. In the following subsections, we provide examples of different perspectives of rural-urban relationships (urban ! rural, rural ! rural, rural ! urban) across different sectors (agritourism, energy, services), showing how rural-urban interconnections can reduce rural-urban disparities and increase urban and rural capacity to be sustainable and resilient. The examples are from the Passiria Valley in the Autonomous Province of Bolzano (Italy). Cooperation Between Tourism and Agriculture for Marketing Typical Regional Products An initiative that seeks to create better cooperation between agriculture and tourism has been promoted as part of the project “Tourism in South Tyrol 2030,” which analyzed the future scenarios for the development of the tourism sector, focusing on competitiveness and quality of life. One part of the project investigated the marketing potential of typical regional products, proving that cooperation between these two sectors promotes the sales of local agricultural products and helps the tourism sector to offer authentic local services to tourists, usually coming from cities. In order to determine the current status of directly marketed farm products – in terms of price and quantity – an inventory of products in the Passiria Valley shows that the 27 farms included in the study offer a wide variety of
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products, ranging from vegetables, soft fruits, fruit juices, sausages, cheese and dairy products, wine, jams, and chutneys, or organic honey to fish, cereals, or hay products. The producers already sell about 80% of these local products to their regular customers via well-established short distribution channels and direct marketing. This shows why the farms have no immediate need for the establishment of direct sales of their products to the gastronomic sector. Conversely, both the accommodation and catering sectors, as well as wholesale and retail businesses showed interest in local agricultural products in view of high tourist demand. They are, however, concerned about the availability of the products, the supply gaps, the delivery bottlenecks, and seasonal fluctuations. This initiative has not been developed yet, and the main agency is still evaluating how to promote cooperation between the two sectors. Several possibilities for logistic solutions have been assessed, and the most practicable option is to set up a central warehouse and cooperate with a local logistics company to distribute the products to customers. Additionally, marketing activities for tourism actors are envisaged in order to promote local products. Finally, a map showing all the farms that sell their products directly has been evaluated as a helpful tool to expand the market for the products. Among the obstacles evaluated, we can mention the supply gaps, seasonality, and discontinuous quality, as well as a lack of trust between partners, which account for a generally pessimistic attitude. Overall, the study generates positive interest but the desired model of cooperation between agriculture and tourism still requires time. Integrated Energy Service Solutions The private cooperative “Energie Umwelt Moos – Energy, Environment, Moso (EUM)” provides energy services. Each client is also a member of the cooperative: The EUM cooperative was founded in 2002. It builds its assets on revenues from a hydropower plant, entirely owned by the municipality of Moso (Passiria Valley), which is also a member. Nearly all the
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electric energy produced is sold into the Italian power grid, mainly to the benefit of urban areas. As a side product, the cooperative can deliver Moso citizens a cost-efficient renewable energy supply from the hydropower plant that is independent of the major electricity providers in Italy. But that is not all; additionally, the nonprofit cooperative reinvests revenues from the hydropower plant in further services for the general welfare of the local citizens. Due to that integrative approach of service delivery, each household benefits from autonomous optical fiber Internet from a provider in the municipality of Merano, as well as a district heating plant, a petrol station, and two local grocery stores for guaranteeing the local food supply. These services, offered at minimum prices, raise the standard of living and increase job opportunities in this remote village (32.3 km or about 50 min from the nearest large city, Merano), thus helping to counteract depopulation and brain drain. Due to this responsible approach, EUM, as a private cooperative, is more flexible. Its service offers are independent, and it speaks the language of the people living in that valley. This mainly concerns the placing of commissions and the free choice of contractors for selling the produced energy. On the contrary, this approach bypasses administrative procedure with public bodies, usually located in urban areas, which would be much more cumbersome and complicated. Moreover, EUM supports various local associations through sponsoring. On the other hand, these associations deliver an annual return to the municipality varying from 60,000 to 100,000€, underlining the effectiveness of this integrative approach. However, as a small independent electricity supplier, they are hampered by the requirements and regulations of the state power authority and the fact that the public national funding for green certificates on renewable energy (valid for 15 years) has been decreased. Integration of a Library and a Workshop for Disabled People The initiative “Reading Laboratory/lese.werk. statt” is a cross-sectoral inclusion project that
promotes a library service and workshop for people with disabilities in a public building. In addition to the possibility of borrowing a book, you can admire or buy the many products of the workshop. The initiative takes place in the municipality of San Martino (Passiria Valley) and is an excellent example of an inter-municipal service (territorial), although from a formal point of view, the district of Burgraviato (municipality of Merano) manages this integration project. The investment costs for refurbishing the building and for the infrastructure facilities were territorially shared among the autonomous province of Bolzano South Tyrol, the district of Burgraviato and the municipality of San Martino. The house provides culture, communication, and social integration facilities. The laboratory contains 12 places for disabled people, coming not only from the surrounding municipalities but also from the entire province. The workshops do not only carry out simple manual work like packaging herbs or producing simple “paper products.” These disabled people also organize the delivery of food to the people in the old people’s home in the municipality and offer services for public and private institutions as well as for entrepreneurs. The library located on the ground and first floor is open to the public. Besides the possibility to borrow books and organize public cultural events, people can visit and buy various products at the workshop for disabled people on the upper floor, too. On the other hand, some disabled people use the opportunity to work for the library. Therefore, the library is an intercultural meeting place in the center of the village promoting the social inclusion of disabled people, through the regular contact of disabled people from the workshop with the employees and visitors to the library. This inclusive approach is strengthened as the building hosts adult education, handcraft, and language courses or courses of the adult education center and public cultural events. Since people from the surrounding area, as well as from the district and the entire province, attend these courses, rural-urban exchange is fostered.
Fostering Rural Urban Relationships to Enhance More Resilient and Just Communities
Rural Urban Relationships: A Matter of Social Justice Integrated territorial relationships between urban and rural areas are essential to achieve prosperity, high living standards and decent welfare, to improve the accessibility and availability of services of general interest (SGI) in rural areas, and to reduce disparities between rural and urban areas. The quality of life for urban and rural citizens is significantly affected by the ability to participate in societal relevant processes within rural areas. Nevertheless, it is also important not to have the perception of belonging to a lower category of citizens, if resident in rural areas. Thus, it is relevant that rural areas are on the radar of the political agenda and to have communication instruments ready to be interconnected for promoting political, institutional, and personal networks with urban areas, to strengthen the functioning of societies in general (Breuer and Milbert 2013). The maintenance of SGI in rural areas is considered fundamental in discussions on the European integration process (Fassmann et al. 2015). They are recognized as important for social and territorial cohesion in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (EC 2012). Furthermore, the Territorial Agenda of the European Union 2020 declares that the integrative embedding of rural areas is a key aspect of territorial cohesion. Consequently, they claim fair access to SGIs as one of the priority goals on this political agenda (EC 2011). These services are “universal” and build the basis for the concept of “spatial justice” to enable equivalent living conditions. The concept of “spatial justice” comes from David Harvey, who spoke of “territorial social justice” already in 1973, i.e., the study of the fair distribution of public goods and resources of a territory, in line with the needs of its inhabitants (Harvey 1972). Space becomes one of the first forms of segregation and relates to spatial segregation and socio-spatial problems observed in the peripheries and ghettos of big cities. Space becomes an ontological support and an integral part of the explanations of social in/justice. Spatial justice refers to an equitable distribution of the primary social goods that are necessary for life
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and that everyone obviously wants to have at their disposal to the greatest possible extent: rights, freedom, opportunity, income, and well-being. Hence a “just society” is one that has among its priorities the improvement of all social groups (Rawls 1971). There is a close relationship between the characteristics of spaces and places (e.g., neighborhoods) and the social opportunities of the inhabitants: residency in neighborhoods characterized by poor access to services, poor quality education, and poor social and political participation represents a significant limit that feeds social exclusion (Musterd and Andersson 2005). People living in these places have much more difficulty in determining and asserting themselves as individuals, therefore accessing public services, and the labor market, increasing the undeclared labor force of underpaid and marginalized workers and giving rise to a double economy with the growth of an illegal sector with negative environmental connotations (Gupta 1993). Within this context, and in reference to the concept of social (in)justice, mobility can be considered as a response to the spatial inequality of resource distribution, including natural resources, markets, and job opportunities at both local and global levels (Tacoli and Richard 2010). Spatial injustice drives people to move from the countryside to the city due to the loss of means of livelihood and resources, in search of new job opportunities, luck, and more justice. In Western countries, the contrary is also true. The right to the city, to a healthy environment, is closely linked to the claim to the rights of self-determination, the right to work, and the rights of access to public services. Densely populated areas with a high demand generally have higher availability and quality of SGIs. Accessibility is probably not the limiting factor there, but rather the frequency of demand, which may entail longer delays in getting appointments. On the contrary, rural and remote regions, which are less populated, suffer from uneconomical demand conditions (Rauhut et al. 2013; Gløersen et al. 2016). In that deteriorated economic context, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain services of general interest, to prevent erosion of public and private services in
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rural areas, and to offer employment and business opportunities for the young. It is precisely here that service providers, especially public authorities, are obliged to offer defined services, under specific and often varying conditions. Advances in ending violence, promoting the rule of law, strengthening institutions, and increasing access to justice are uneven and millions continue to be deprived of their security, rights, and opportunities, and the delivery of public services and broader economic development is undermined. Attacks on civil society are also holding back development progress. Renewed efforts are essential to move towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 16.
Conclusion According to the literature, it is clear that wellfunctioning rural-urban linkages (e.g., flows of people, economic exchange) have the potential to reduce the rural-urban divide and to overcome spatial demographic imbalances, while producing social and economic benefits for rural areas (Copus 2013; Mayer et al. 2016). Interconnection between urban and rural areas in several sectors (e.g., flows of goods, capital and knowledge) stimulate both material and nonmaterial exchanges, foster more sustainable and inclusive growth of cities and communities, increasing their potential for regional resilience (Dower 2013). Interaction and exchanges between rural and urban areas are recognized as important issues in the field of rural and urban development and in the future will be of growing importance, especially as the economic and social divide between urban and rural populations further increases and urban and rural dwellers are asked to address complex societal challenges (e.g., climate change, migration, urbanization). Transforming and strengthening the interconnection between urban and rural areas can open opportunities towards more inclusive and resilient societies and healthy ecosystems at different levels. Equally, strong linkages enhance sustainable development, because they channel resources to where they have the largest net economic and
social benefits. In order to achieve that purpose, it is necessary to go beyond old spatial hierarchies and administrative boundaries (because relationships are constantly changing and occur beyond provincial and regional boundaries on an international level) and develop new strategies for integrated planning and management of urban, periurban, and rural areas, as well as new forms of multilevel and horizontal governance that integrate socioeconomic and environmental issues. Governments have recognized the importance of urban-rural linkages; however, to improve rural urban interconnections that promote spatial and social justice, politicians should take the issue seriously and put it on the political agenda; they should also derive from the existing knowledge and good practice examples transferable and applicable recommendations that can be applied by policy makers and interested agencies at different administrative levels.
References Bodin P, Winman B (2004) Resilience and other stability concepts in ecology: notes on their origin, validity and usefulness. ESS Bull 2:33–43 Breuer I, Milbert A (2013) Services of general interest indicators: methodological aspects and findings. Europa XXI(23):29–46 Christopherson S, Michie J, Tyler P (2010) Regional resilience: theoretical and empirical perspectives. Camb J Reg Econ Soc 3:3–10 Copus A (2013) Urban-rural relationships in the new century: clarifying and updating the intervention logic. In: Kolczyński M (ed) New paradigm in action successful partnerships. Polish Ministry of Regional Development, Warsaw Courtney P, Psaltopoulos D, Skuras D (2009) Rural-urban interactions. EDORA (European Development Opportunities for Rural Areas), ESPON Davoudi S, Stead D (2002) Urban-rural relationships: an introduction and a brief history. Built Environ 28 (4):269–277 Davoudi S, Brooks E, Mehmood A (2013) Evolutionary resilience and strategies for climate adaptation. Plan Pract Res 28:307–322 Dower M (2013) Rural development in the new paradigm. In: Kolczyński M (ed) New paradigm in action successful partnerships. Polish Ministry of Regional Development, Warsaw Dutta S, Bilbao-Osorio B (2012) The global information technology report 2012. World Economic Forum and INSEAD, Geneva
Fostering Rural Urban Relationships to Enhance More Resilient and Just Communities European Commission (2011) Territorial Agenda of the European Union 2020. Towards an inclusive, smart and sustainable Europe of diverse regions. Agreed at the Informal Ministerial Meeting of Ministers responsible for Spatial Planning and Territorial Development on 19th May 2011 European Commission (2012) Consolidated versions of the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Off J C 326, 26/ 10/2012 P. 0001–0390 Fassmann H, Rauhut D, da Costa EM, Humer A (2015) Services of general interest and territorial cohesion: European perspectives and national insights. Vienna University Press, Vienna Gløersen E, Price M, Borec A, Dax T, Giordano B (2016) Cohesion in the mountain regions of the EU. European Parliament. Policy Department B: Structural and Cohesion Policies Gupta MR (1993) Rural-urban migration, informal sector, and environmental problems in a small, open, lessdeveloped economy: a theoretical analysis. J Dev Econ 41(1):137–151 Harvey D (1972) Society, the city and the space-economy of urbanism. Resource paper no. 18. Association of American Geographers, Commission on College Geography, Washington, DC Holling CS (1973) Resilience and stability of ecological systems. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 4:1–23
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Khanna P (2016) Connectography: mapping the future of global civilization. Random House, New York Mayer H, Habersetzer A, Meili R (2016) Rural-urban linkages and sustainable regional development: the role of entrepreneurs in linking peripheries and centers. Sustainability 8:745 Musterd S, Andersson R (2005) Housing mix, social mix, and social opportunities. Urban Aff Rev 40:761–790 OECD (2014) OECD regional outlook, regions and cities: where policies and people meet. OECD Publishing Rauhut D, Smith C, Humer A, Ludlow D, Borges L (2013) SeGI indicators and perspectives for services of general interest in territorial cohesion and development. ESPON, Applied Research 2013/1/16. Final Report \Version, 25(5), 2013 Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Repp A, Zscheischler J, Weith T, Strauß C, Gaasch N, Müller K (2012) Urban-rurale Verflechtungen. Analytische Zugänge und Governance-Diskurs. Diskussionspapier Nr. 4, December 2012. LeibnizZentrum für Agrarlandschaftsforschung (ZALF), Institut für Sozioökonomie Tacoli C, Richard M (2010) Exploring mobility and migration in the context of rural-urban linkages: why gender and generation matter. Environ Urban 22(2):389–396 Torre A, Rallet A (2005) Proximity and localization. Reg Stud 39(1):47–59
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Gender-Responsive Public Transport Arunima Kishore Das School of Humanities and Communication Arts, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia
Definitions While sex is considered as a fact of biology, the concept of gender includes all the socially given attributes, roles, activities, responsibilities, and expectations that are deemed appropriate for men and women in a given culture (March et al. 1999). In alignment with this definition, UNICEF (2017) identifies gender equality as a state that provides everyone equal conditions, treatment, and opportunities regardless of their gender to ensure that they can exercise their full potential, human rights, and dignity to contribute to and get benefits from economic, social, cultural, and political development. “Gender-responsiveness means paying attention to the unique needs of females, valuing their perspectives, respecting their experiences,
understanding developmental differences between girls and boys, women and men and ultimately empowering girls and women” (UNICEF 2017, p. 5). According to UNESCO (2003), the programs and project objectives that follow a nondiscriminatory pattern to equally benefit both men and women to provide a solution to gender imbalances, represent gender-responsive objectives. Consistent with this definition, gender-responsive planning is identified as a differentiated planning culture that considers the gender-, age-, and group-specific interests (Allen 2018, p. 5). Hence, gender-responsive public transport includes transport systems that are safe, reliable, and affordable and can ensure education and economic security for women, provide access to basic rights like childcare and health facilities, and promote gender equality (ActionAid 2016, p. 5). According to UNICEF (2017), programs and policies that take into consideration the existing gender differences as well as aiming to address the issue represent gendersensitive programming and policies. In contrast, gender-blind policies patronize existing gender relations by assuming that there is no difference between men and women and, therefore, tend to exclude women (March et al. 1999).
Introduction Cities occupy only 3% of the total land mass of the world and around 3.5 billion people representing
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the half of the total population of the world live in cities (UN Women 2018). Therefore, efficient urban planning and management practices are highly prioritized in Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Modern transport facilities responding to the transport needs of all are considered as one of the most important criteria of attaining sustainable cities. Therefore, SDG 11.2 particularly aims to ensure safe, affordable, accessible, and sustainable transport systems for all. The necessity to provide special attentions to the needs of women, children, persons with disabilities, and older persons has also been mentioned in this specific target of SDG (UN Women 2018). As urban areas bring specific disadvantages for women, women and men’s experiences of cities are different (Tacoli and Satterthwaite 2013). In cities, women face mobility restrictions at a larger rate than men. Public transport, which is the easiest and cheapest means of transportation in a city, is a crucial element of sustainable transport. It allows women greater access to goods and services, such as health, jobs, education, and leisure by disabling the mobility restrictions they face. However, literature on urban transport studies show that public transport policies are yet to become gendered by equally responding to both men and women’s mobility needs (Moser and Moser 2005; Thynell 2016; Allen 2018; ActionAid 2016). Although, there have been a number of international efforts such as adoption of subsection 11.2 in SDG to prioritize the importance of gender-responsive transport systems for sustainable development, government and nongovernment agencies of developing countries often find it difficult to fulfil their international commitments of launching effective policies to introduce a gender-responsive public transport system for women. Around 90% of the academic literature exploring the interrelation among social exclusion, transport equity, and transport disadvantages focus on developed country contexts (Jeekel 2018). On the contrary, the present situation of gender-responsive transport in developing countries still requires further attention. According to Mahadevia (2015), developing countries require immediate gender-sensitive policy responses to
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address the gender differences in mobility needs. This entry aims to explore the presence and effectiveness of gender-responsive public transport system in cities of developing countries with emerging economies. Therefore, the discussion on this entry highlights the gendered nature of public transport with a review of key international policy frameworks and mention of specific case studies (from developing countries) and also lists the primary challenges for gender-responsive public transport in developing countries.
Accessing Public Transports in Public Spaces: Gendered Arenas Although, public transport is often considered as gender neutral benefitting all equally, male and female commuters, in contrast, have different expectations and needs and face different constraints while using public transport in public spaces (Allen 2018). A public transport system failing to consider specific gender needs of women is inefficient and unsustainable. Thynell (2016) have summarized the social parameters of public transport policies as five A’s that include affordability, availability, acceptability, accessibility, and appropriateness. Women commuters’ interactions with each of these are different than male commuters. This section of the entry explores public transport as a gendered issue by highlighting the contested nature of women’s use of public space and public transport. Women’s Transport Need Is Different A people-centric transport policy needs to take into consideration every commuter who undertakes a journey on a daily basis. Therefore, such a policy must prioritize women’s different transport needs by firstly identifying the instruments required to address those needs, then should adopt a structured approach to figure out the investments for employing those instruments, and finally should establish an appropriate gender-sensitive policy framework. A gender-aware transport investment planning and design process must also have women’s equal participation at every stage. Women across the globe continuously
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auto-rickshaws, nonmotorized rickshaws and women prefer them more than men (Uteng 2011).
juggle with triple roles. These three roles include reproductive work, productive work, and community management activities leading to a gendered division of labor (Moser 1993). This triple burden signifies the emergence of different gender needs for women, which can be both practical and strategic. While practical gender needs address immediate concerns and necessities in living and working situations for women, strategic gender needs address systematic and structural conditions that contribute to women’s subordinate position in society (Molyneux 1985; Mahadevia and Advani 2016). A gender-responsive transport system has a crucial role to play to address both women’s practical needs such as easy access to educational institutions, work places, and healthcare and the strategic need of women empowerment by directly meeting their practical needs. To meet women’s practical needs, a gender-responsive public transport system must be safe and cheap making it affordable, available, and accessible. To meet women’s strategic needs, such a public transport system should offer women opportunities to actively participate in the decision-making around transport policy (ActionAid 2016).
Access to Resources for Travel The majority of the global poor are women (UNDP 2016). Studies demonstrate that women mostly prefer public transport or walk in foot for short distances than men (Rosenbloom 2006). In many cases, this transport choice of women is directly linked with their poverty leading to unaffordability of transport fares. The femaleheaded households remain to be the poorest of the poor (Chant 1997). On one hand, women from the female-headed households need to work shorter and/or flexible hours to accommodate the living expenses and are often forced to take informal work, such as market trading requiring them to travel not only with children but also with the goods (Allen 2018). On the other hand, women’s poverty as a cross-cutting issue impacts their accessibility and affordability of public transport. Mahadevia (2015) has that women in India, many a times forgo an opportunity to work outside their neighborhoods if they perceive the public transport fare is expensive.
Gender Differences in Travel Patterns Women’s travel pattern is influenced by the location and forms of available job opportunities for them (Hanson 1996; Thynell 2016). Globally, women are the primary carer for children, the elderly, and the sick. Women involved in income-generating activities often combine these unpaid caring responsibilities with paid work (ActionAid 2014). They accompany vulnerable family members like the elderly or children to access public transports and public spaces and, therefore, often participate in more frequent but shorter journeys than men, which are often undertaken at off-peak hours (Thynell 2016; Allen 2018; Uteng 2011). Cultural factors also influence women’s choice of travel mode and purpose in developing countries (Secor 2002; World Bank 2002; Mahadevia and Advani 2016). In certain cultures, guided by religious stereotypes, women are forbidden to travel without a man. Many developing countries also possess paratransit systems that include taxis,
Mobility and Safety Concerns Women are more conscious about the safety and security concerns on public transport and at the same time are at greater risk of harassment while boarding them. Violence against women in public places, particularly on public transport systems, creates mobility restrictions for women and girls. Harassment is a daily occurrence for many women when using public transport in both the developed and developing world forcing women to consider certain form of public transport inappropriate and unacceptable to travel. The whole world was shocked on December 16, 2012, when a paramedical student was gang raped brutally by six men on a moving bus in Delhi, the capital of India (ActionAid 2014). Similar incidents of rape attacks on public transport are also common in other parts of the developing world. This is why, women are not at all reluctant to quit better jobs or educational opportunities if they feel that the transport connections are unsafe for them.
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Women’s Unequal Participation in the Transport Sector According to Hanson (2010), gender relations and mobility are interconnected, and one impacts the other at a great scale. The very prominent hierarchical gender relationship between men and women in most developing countries contribute to a greater gender gap in mobility needs. Cities in the developing world are attempting to take necessary measures to ensure gender-responsive public transport “with the introduction of more mass transit, especially Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems or metros” (Allen 2018, p. 17). A number of developing countries are also not lagging behind in launching initiatives to address the special needs of pregnant women, women with strollers, the elderly, and the disabled, as well as encouraging women to work as drivers and station managers to avoid cases of harassment (Uteng 2011). However, because of the hierarchical gender relation pattern, very few women are working in the transport sectors in developing countries (Thynell 2016). As a result, masculine norms are normalized in transport policy designing and planning and women’s voices in relation to their transport needs are not prioritized. ActionAid (2016) in a study on three different cities (Dhaka, Abuja, and Sao Paolo) of three developing countries (Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Brazil) have shown that women’s perspectives have hardly been considered in the design and planning of urban transport in these countries resulting in invisible institutional sexism causing gender inequality.
International Policy Frameworks: United Nations’ Approaches Article 13 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights offered every individual the mobility rights to freely move and reside within a city or a country and to leave the country and return to it if needed (United Nations 2015). Over the past few decades, the necessity of connecting sustainable transport with the empowerment of women have been acknowledged by international actors and a number of international policy agendas have been adopted in this regard.
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This section provides discussion on a few selected international policy frameworks prompted by the United Nations (UN) that help accelerate adoption of gender-sensitive public transport in developing countries. The Fourth United Nations’ World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 had much conversation on women empowerment and 12 critical areas of concern were identified in the conference to ensure women’s advancement and gender equality (UN Women 2019). Although, all the 12 critical areas of concern are equally important for both designing and implementing gender-sensitive public transport, this conference failed to establish a direct link between gender and urban transport. Similarly, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), established following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000, did not clearly pronounce the need to consider gender needs in urban transport planning. United Nations Centre for Regional Development is committed to introduce environmentally sustainable transport (EST) in Asia and has established a regional EST Forum in 2004 (United Nations Centre for Regional Development 2012–2017). The Bali Declaration (2013) was held in the presence of representatives from Seventh Regional EST Forum in Asia. It argued in favor of transport systems without congestion, pollution, and traffic accidents with specific attention to the need of people-friendly urban transport infrastructures that promote both social equity and gender perspectives (Thynell 2016). Later, United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2014) stressed the importance of employing concepts of empowerment, risk, and agency to ensure sustainable transport systems. In 2015, United Nations presented the Sustainable Development Goals where women and men’s distinctive transportation needs in cities were specifically recognized with a number of goals working to ensure safe and reliable transport system for women (UN Women 2018). Goal 5 of SDG deals directly with women’s empowerment and gender equality. Studies confirm that transport facilities enable women to better access health services, education facilities, jobs, and participation in
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politics and social activities (Uteng 2011). Hence, a gender-responsive public transport that is safe and reliable and without possibilities of harassment or other forms of violence specifically addresses target 5.2 (i.e., eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres) of SDG. Similarly, such a system can directly contribute to women’s education, productivity, health, and promote gender equality and positively influence achievement of SDG 5.5 (i.e., ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic, and public life) and SDG 5.6 (i.e., ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights) (UN Women 2018). Goal 9 of SDG deals with industry innovation and infrastructure. The need to address a robust and resilient transportation infrastructure where gender dimension will be taken into account in all elements of planning, building, and financing is well pronounced in Goal 9. On the contrary, Goal 11 deals with the aim of making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, and resilient. This specific goal understands the need of sustainable transport and precisely relates gender with transport to achieve inclusive development. Whereas all the targets under this goal promotes sustainable cities and communities, target 11.2 specifically endorses safe, affordable, accessible, and sustainable transport systems for all with a mention of the need for special consideration for people in vulnerable situations, women, children, older individuals, and the people with disabilities (UN Women 2018). United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) adopted the New Urban Agenda (NUA) in 2016, which had a major component of gender equality as its Paragraph 114 specifically promoted age and gender-responsive, affordable, accessible, and safe sustainable urban mobility and transport systems (Allen 2018). UN Women in November 2010 also launched Safe Cities Global Initiative that runs in partnership with UN-Habitat, leading women’s organizations, UN agencies, and more than 70 global and local partners in 16 cities across the world (UN Women 2019). This
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program is launched with the aim to develop, implement, and evaluate tools, policies, and comprehensive approaches for the prevention of sexual harassment and other forms of sexual violence against women across public spaces including streets, public transportation, schools and workplaces, public sanitation facilities, water and food distribution sites, and parks in a city (ActionAid 2014). The three international conferences on women’s safety occurred in Montreal, Canada, in 2002, Bogota, Colombia, in 2004, and Delhi, India, in 2010 introduced three distinctive declarations including Montreal Declaration on Women’s Safety (2002), Bogota Declaration on Women’s Safety (2004), and Delhi Declaration on Women’s Safety (2010), respectively, that were drafted by a number of women activists from up to 45 countries across 5 continents (ActionAid 2014). These declarations follow the guidelines of the major international commitments for gender equality and women empowerment (including Beijing Platform for Action and Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women) and commit to build inclusive cities that allow free movement for all women and girls within a city at any time of day and night. All these initiatives adopted by UN aims to ensure a gender-sensitive commuting environment for women commuters around the world. However, the developing nations in spite of committing to fulfil these international obligations many a times struggle to arrange a womenfriendly public transport system.
Attempts to Address Gender-Responsive Public Transport in Cities in the Developing World According to Jeekel (2018), the design of urban transport systems in developing countries lack the capacity to meet the needs of all their citizens equally. The most common intervention to better the transport system in these countries includes construction of roads and highways that mostly serves those with private transport whereas women mostly prefer public transport. Lack of transport options, therefore, may hamper
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women’s access to employment and limit their social networks leading to a significant loss in terms of economic opportunities for women. Therefore, international actors such as development banks have always been liberal in stretching their hands to fund the transport policies in developing countries. The World Bank Group promotes for gender equality to fight poverty and invests on transport projects assuming that it will positively impact the poor more by generating employment opportunities (Gannon and Liu 1997; Vasconcellos 2001; Thynell 2016). Similarly, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) invested 11.3 billion US dollars from 2005 to 2009 and 2.5 trillion US dollars by 2013 in Asia alone (Thynell 2016). This can be related back to the extreme poverty situation in Asia. A 2018 study report of World Bank shows that about 33% of the 783 million extremely poor living below the poverty line of US$1.9 a day live in South Asia and 9% of them live in East Asia and the Pacific (World Vision 2019). This section of the entry, with a special attention to Asia, demonstrates the present situation of public transport facilities in cities in the developing countries. India Urban areas of India are growing every year, and it is expected that by 2030, 600 million of India’s population will live in urban settings, and therefore, High Powered Executive Committee of India estimates that around INR (Indian rupee) 23 lakh crores is required over 2015–2030 for India’s urban transport infrastructure (Shah et al. 2017). Mahadevia (2015) has identified the key characteristics of the gendered mobility patterns of urban India: (i) women do not undertake frequent and long travel in cities but (ii) their trips are more complicated and multipurpose than men, (iii) women own fewer motorized vehicles than men and depend much on public transit and intermediate public transport, (iv)cultural factors also influence women’s mobility patterns because in certain communities, women are not allowed to go out in public alone owing to their security and safety concerns and as a result (v) unsafe and expensive public transport options in the cities force women to take up home-based work.
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Buses are the primary modes of public transportation both in rural and urban areas of India followed by auto-rickshaw, taxi, railways, and cycle rickshaw. This is why, in the capital city Delhi, in comparison to 25% of men, 34% of women commute to work by bus (Shah et al. 2017). However, the gang rape incident Jyoti Singh in December 2012 entails that the buses in India are far from being safe for women. According to a 2010 study by Jagori in nine districts of Delhi, almost two out of every three women faced sexual harassment incidents, and public transport, buses and roadsides are reported as most common spaces where harassments take place (Jagori 2012) In Mumbai, a survey done by Akshara in 2013 also showed that 46% of women reported facing sexual harassment inside buses and 17% inside trains (Shah et al. 2017). The civil society and different levels of government in India, therefore, came forward to create safer gender-sensitive public transportation systems by taking several measures. The Nirbhaya Fund 2013–2016 was created, which prompted the setting up of a unified system for Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking through emergency buttons and video recording in public transports in 32 cities (Shah et al. 2017, p. 12). Women-only public transport facilities were launched with women-only coaches in the subway or trains and women-only buses. Tejaswini buses in Maharashtra were such women-only buses that run during peak hours with women drivers and conductors (Allen 2018). The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs of India adopted the Smart Cities Mission and the Green Urban Mobility Scheme, under which the ministry aims to invest around INR 70,000 crores over 2018–2023 on sustainable transport (Shah et al. 2017, p. 1). Recommendations to ensure women’s safety such as GPS tracking inside public transport, installation of closedcircuit television (CCTV) cameras on all type of transports, police verification of drivers and conductors, and street lighting have been offered by the National Urban Transport Policy of 2014 in India (Shah et al. 2017). Apart from these government initiatives, several nongovernment agencies are also working in Indian cities to initiate
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schemes for gender-responsive public transport. Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) India has provided gender sensitization trainings to over 100,000 transportation employees since 2012 (Allen 2018). New Delhi was also chosen by UN Women and Microsoft to participate in their joint venture in Global Mapping Project within the Safe Cities Global Initiative. Safetipin, a mobile-based application, was launched in India to help women better access transport via their smart phone and to also increase their safety (Allen 2018). Despite all these efforts, urban transport facilities in India employ a gender-blind approach as they fail to consider the close interrelation between gender and transport. The numerous government initiatives are condemned guilty of not implementing in a systematic or comprehensive manner. The concurring gender imbalance in employment in transport sectors in India justifies this claim. “In 2005, 6.85 per cent of women were employed in the transportation sector in India compared to 19 per cent of men” (Shah et al. 2017, p. 19). Moreover, the ever-growing statistics of harassment and violence on public transport prove that the nongovernmental initiatives have also failed to introduce a gender-sensitive public transport facility for women in India. Bangladesh The national transport sector of Bangladesh consists of urban and rural roads, railways, air, and water transport services. Women’s mobility needs have increased in Bangladesh over the years as more women are entering workforce and are continuously struggling with multiple roles. The weakening of social barriers to women’s mobility that resulted from a change in peoples’ perceptions has also allowed more girls and women to go out of their houses and communities to study, visit relatives, and do outdoor household tasks and other outdoor activities (Asian Development Bank 2017). The mobility pattern of women in cities in Bangladesh demonstrates certain characteristics. In cities, women travel long and short distances, and have diverse transport needs by age and occupation. However, there is a lack of safe and affordable public transport options in cities.
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The roads are underdeveloped with inadequate footpaths, and cases of violence and harassment are common on the streets. In addition to that, there is also a lack of inadequate transport waiting areas or sheds and inadequate toilet facilities in terminal stations causing mobility restrictions for women (Zohir 2003; Asian Development Bank 2017). More than one-third of Bangladesh’s total urban population (over 8.5 million) lives in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh (ActionAid 2016). Public buses are the easiest and cheapest means of mass transit in Dhaka, and women, especially from the middle class and workingclass family backgrounds, rely on them for everyday travel. There are currently 9,311 registered buses and 8,459 registered minibuses in Dhaka, and this inadequate number of buses fails to accommodate its huge population (ActionAid 2016). These buses from time to time become so crowded that it is hard “for older people or women or children to get a room inside the bus” (Rahman and Nahrin 2012, p. 99, see also Shefali 2000). Most public bus conductors during office hours discourage female boarding by saying there are no female seats available. The women commuters who succeed in boarding, after much struggle, find no seat and have to travel standing and face the possibility of sexual harassment (Rahman and Nahrin 2012; Zohir 2003; Shefali 2000). According to ActionAid (2014), 60% of women in Dhaka city hesitate to go outside alone, 62% prefer not to go outside alone at night, and 13% of women, in fear of being sexually harassed, have already stopped using public transport. Several measures have been adopted by both the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) and nongovernment agencies to better the situation. Improving the transport system is a major strategic objective of the Perspective Plan of Bangladesh 2010–2021 initiated by GoB (Parikalpanā Kamiśana 2012). The adoption of the National Women Development Policy 2011 identifies transportation facilities as key determinants for ensuring a gender-responsive work environment (Ministry of Women and Children Affairs 2011). The Seventh Five Year Plan (2016–2020) addresses gender issues in the transportation sector and ensures that “the most development
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expenditures (38.5 per cent in Fiscal Year 2015) of the government and its development partners are on the transport sector” (Asian Development Bank 2017, p. 36). In addition to that, GoB has also passed five transport policies from 2002 to 2013 along with a very recent adoption of Dhaka Structure Plan 2016–2035 to introduce gender mainstreaming into the transport sector. As an outcome of these, several initiatives were taken and has been planned to adopt to ensure gendersensitive mobility for women across the country. Women-only bus services were introduced in Dhaka city, and reserved seat protocol for women were announced. Actions have been taken to ensure lighting, police patrols, and safe toilets in public transport stations. There is a plan to run gender-sensitive trainings for public and private sector service providers. Dhaka city is also a part of UN Women’s Safe Cities Global Initiatives, and ActionAid Bangladesh has launched several research initiatives and awareness raising campaigns to ensure a harassmentfree public transport environment for women in Dhaka city as a part of their Safe Cities project (ActionAid 2014). Another initiative to address gender-sensitive public transport for women in Bangladesh was Dhaka Urban Transport project that ran from 1997 to 2004 and was a collaborative effort between the GoB and nongovernment agencies (Shefali 2000). Despite all the above-mentioned efforts to ensure a gender-responsive public transport, the commuting environment in public transport in Bangladesh are far from being gender sensitive. Poor street lighting, lack of buses and stops, allmale transport staff, lack of public toilets, and inadequate policing leading to cases of sexual harassment inside buses yet define the commuting environment of public transport in the country (ActionAid 2016). The low involvement of women (only 1.51%) in both the public and private transport sector as employees, managers, business owners, and partners also contribute to this gender-insensitive commuting environment (Asian Development Bank 2017). The detailed portrayal of these two neighboring countries in South Asia provides a brief understanding of the overall situation of
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gender-responsive public transport in the developing cities with evolving economies. The situation of transport disadvantages in other cities across the globe is not very different. In the twin city of Pakistan, Rawalpindi/Islamabad, gender-sensitive transport is a far cry (Jeekel 2018). Most public transport goes in wagons of 12–18 seats, whereas only in some major routes, buses are functioning (Jeekel 2018). In Karachi, over 70% of women faced sexual harassment (Allen 2018). As a result, women hardly commute on public transport in Pakistan. The population of São Paulo is almost 12 million making it the 12th most populous city. This city, however, has a crowded transport system. The government of Brazil has always been considerate to design a city for automobile, which contributed to a low resource investment in urban public transport (ActionAid 2014) making the public transport system in São Paulo gender-insensitive. The recent studies show that 35% of women in São Paulo have experienced violence, and harassment on public transport signifies the city’s genderblind transport system. According to Ngoc et al. (2017, p. 4561), “in developing countries, public transport services have provided a substandard quality and limited capacity.” They have provided the example of bus shares decrease in Jakarta, Indonesia (50% to 20%) and Bangkok, Thailand (50% to 30%) to justify their claims.
Primary Barriers to Gender-Responsive Public Transport Millions of people living in the city use public transport every day, and hence, an efficient public transport system is a must have for an efficient city (Uteng 2011). However, women and girls worldwide are greatly deprived of the right to safe mobility around cities because of genderblind city planning and gender-insensitive design of transport infrastructures, increasing incidents of sexual harassment, inadequate, unaffordable, and unreliable transport options, and lack of legal and policy frameworks. Whereas the previous section provides countryspecific case studies, this section, particularly, summarizes the primary barriers that impede
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introduction and implementation of genderresponsive public transport in developing nations. Gender-Blind Urban Cities Women’s internal migrations from rural to urban areas have increased in last few decades. Extreme poverty, communal violence, lack of agricultural facilities, class discrimination, and inadequate investment in rural areas force women to participate in such internal migrations to urban areas that disregard women’s safety concern in their infrastructural designs (Chant and McIlwaine 2013). Gender-sensitive city planning takes into account the practical and strategic needs of women and girls by “including women in design, budgeting, implementation and evaluation of planning projects, as well as ensuring women and girls can use services safely and effectively” (ActionAid 2014, p. 21). However, cities across the globe are still largely designed by and for men, which results in gender-blind urban planning that fails to recognize or respond to the different ways women experience urban spaces and their practical and strategic needs (ActionAid 2017). Cities have material, political, and symbolic dimensions (Sacré and Visscher 2017), and women’s interactions with all these aspects depend on their economic, social, cultural, racial, ethnic, religious, and sexual identities. A gender-sensitive city planning needs to consider the issue of women’s safety by reducing all forms of violence women face in public spaces in an urban setting, which is rare to find in the context of developing countries. Women in the developing world still do not participate in the decision-making structures in cities, and as a result, designs of the cities are made without considering women. This is exemplified with city designs where there is no lighting on routes used more by women, and public transports serve some selected work zones only used mostly by men (ActionAid 2016). As a matter of fact, a study by ActionAid (2014) demonstrates that urban planning or policy of the four developing countries (e.g., Bangladesh, Jordan, Brazil, and Nepal), where ActionAid is running Safe Cities programs, failed to recognize sexual violence or its impact on women’s lives.
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Insensitively Designed Public Transport in Cities Poorly designed public transport in cities that does not takes into account women’s special needs contributes to mobility restrictions for women commuters. Gender-insensitive planning and design of public transport may include absence of adequate lighting in public spaces (e.g., roads, bus-stops, and train stations), poorly connected routes, inconvenient bus-stops requiring long walking distances; lack of separate toilets and rest areas for women within bus stations; and lack of special facilities (e.g., storage space, priority seating, rails, and ramps) for vulnerable commuters such as the elderly, people with disabilities, pregnant women, and children (ActionAid 2016). The specific case studies of selected developing countries in the previous section establishes the fact that the design and planning of most of the public transport in developing cities currently fail to consider women and girls’ mobility demands. Unsafe Urban Public Transport Male commuters are more considerate about transport efficiency, and women commuters, in contrast, prioritize safety and security concerns before taking their travel decisions. Sexual harassment, which takes the form of unwanted touching, sexual comments, and sexual molestation occurring in public spaces as well as inside public transports, makes public transport unsafe for women. Gender-blind city planning in the developing world coupled with gender-insensitive urban transport design make the public transport a gendered space where incidents of sexual harassment occur on a regular basis. Women commuters often experience sexual misconducts and violence both on-board and on their journey to and from public transport (ActionAid 2016). According to a study by development organization BRAC (2018), 94% of women commuting on public transport in Bangladesh have experienced sexual harassment in verbal, physical, and other forms. According to United Nations Population Fund (2017), 90% of women in Sri Lanka have experienced sexual harassment on public transport, while only 4% sought help from the police.
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Unreliable, Unaffordable, Inadequate Transport Facilities Population sizes in the cities throughout the world are rapidly increasing with a growing demand for public transport facilities. On the contrary, in most of the developing cities, the number of buses available is inadequate for the number of all commuters using them. Constant overcrowding inside public transport may lead to more incidences of sexual harassment against women. The infrastructures of public transport as mentioned above hardly consider gender needs of women. Moreover, in several developing cities, the cost of travelling by public transport is expensive making it unaffordable for women who in general earns less than men (ActionAid 2014, 2016; Mahadevia 2015). Inadequate Legal and Policy Frameworks Although, many of the developing countries have signed international and regional commitments on gender equality and women’s empowerment and are committed to ensure a gender-responsive public transport for all, clear policy gaps and institutional biases are commonly observed in their transportation planning, budgeting, and designing that overlook women’s practical and strategic transport needs. There is a clear absence of adequate legal or policy frameworks at the national and local levels in Bangladesh, Brazil, and Nigeria that ensure women’s safety and equal access inside public transport (ActionAid 2016). This includes lack of strict policies for reserving an adequate number of seats for women on buses, absence of special laws to ensure better judicial response to violence on public transport, scarcity of street lights, cameras, or structures such as separate toilets for women and inadequate public-private partnership to achieve targeted goals of effective transport planning. Moreover, developing nations mostly follow a top-down approach to introduce a gender-sensitive approach, where a country signs international treaty and then adopts national policies and measures to address the issue. This procedure lacks the insights from women commuters. There are also very few women employed within decision-making bodies
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for public transport planning in developing nations resulting in absence of women’s perspectives in transport policies and frameworks.
Final Thoughts Sustainable urban development, a key concern of SDG, is impossible without integrating the women’s concerns in urban transport. Mobility is gendered because poor infrastructural advancement in developing nations with poor public transport system can raise the price of goods and services and make them go out of reach specially for women who globally earn less than men. Hence, to bridge the gender gap in mobility, the transportation system of a country needs to equally respond to women’s transport demands that require adequate transport services and mobility planning. Such a gender-responsive transport system can improve women’s overall position in society by ensuring gender equality. This entry offers an overview of gender-responsive public transport in developing countries. Firstly, the discussion on this entry explains the way gender intersects with a person’s ability to access public transport in a public space and outlines international policies instigated by the UN. Later, with discussion of specific examples from developing cities, it is clarified that despite developing nations’ obligations to international policy frameworks, these countries have failed to introduce gender-responsive public transport for their citizens. Finally, the entry summarizes the key barriers that developing nations are struggling to overcome to address gender-sensitive transport facilities for all. To make public transport systems gender inclusive in developing countries, a number of approaches should be adopted. Gender-responsive budgeting is required at state level for regulating, subsidizing, and even providing available and accessible public services for women and girls. Public transport providers and their staff should receive gender training to make them more accountable. Specific national policies should be introduced to effective management of
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public transport and most importantly a bottomup approach of introducing gender-responsive public transport should be implemented that ensures women’s participation in every stage of the physical planning and design of a city and its transportation system.
Cross-References ▶ Public Transportation for Children ▶ Risk Management in Cities ▶ Smart City Development: ICT Innovation for Urban Sustainability ▶ Urban Mobility and Transportation ▶ Urban Planning, Urban Design, and the Creation of Public Goods
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Globalization and Cities Manoranjan Mohanty The University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji
Synonyms Internationalization and urban centers
Definition Globalization is defined as a process of interaction or integration of national economic systems through the growth in international trade,
Globalization and Cities
investment and capital, and spread of modern technologies of industrial production and communication. It is a process whereby the world’s economies, societies, and cultures are becoming closely intertwined. Globalizing processes are breaking down barriers to cross-national flow of people, goods, services, ideas, and technology. It seeks to eliminate political and geographical distances between peoples through the technological revolution. Globalization is characterized by more interconnectedness, interdependence, and integration. A city is a large human settlement with a distinct social, economic, and political function. A city is the central location for capital, labor, and information.
Introduction In this entry, globalization and cities are discussed critically. At the outset, the concept of globalization is defined, and the meaning and processes of globalization are discussed. Globalization poses challenges for sustainable urbanization and urban development. Sustainable Development Goal 11 focuses on the theme Sustainable Cities and Communities under the heading “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable” (United Nations 2013). Globalization has various meanings from different social science disciplines’ point of view. It refers to the emergence of a global market, diversity and convergence of social preferences in matters of lifestyle and social values, an epoch dominated by global capitalism, gradual erosion of state sovereignty, and the location of transnational spaces within national territories (Cabigon 2006). In the last three decades or so, the process of globalization has become enormously influential in explaining changes within cities. Globalization impacts the demography and brings changes in the social, cultural, and economic sector including labor market in cities. The processes of globalization are marked by the liberalization of trade, finance, and investment, growth in volume of trade due to the reduction in protective
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tariff, and growth of multinational or transnational corporations. The main causes of globalization are economic, sociocultural, technological, and political in nature. Globalization is primarily an economic process of integration that has social and cultural dimensions. Economic globalization has witnessed adoption of the system of free-market economy and economic liberalization, both within and between countries. The growth of sophisticated transport and communications technologies and services and growth of mass media and free flow of information and people have prompted globalization. Both technological and intellectual innovations are the driving forces behind globalization. Among the political factors, movement toward democracy and international agreements that reduce the costs of doing business in foreign countries are some of the important causes of globalization. Cities are influenced largely by economic and cultural globalization.
Globalization and Cities Globalization and urbanization go hand in hand. Globalization has led to rapid city expansion, connectivity and integration, and spatial clustering of cities. A highly developed spatial form of integrated cities is called urban agglomeration/conurbation. The expansion of urban agglomeration gives rise to development of urban hierarchy in the national and global urban system. Globalization has led to rapid process of “metropolitanization” or “megalopolitization.” The term “megalopolis” refers to large metropolitan cities, and it reveals a trend in the spatial organization and structure of urbanization toward more concentrated, highly connected, and largerscaled urban forms (Yu 2017). Globalization processes are the driving force behind urban change (Castells 2000). According to Wallerstein (1974), cities are part of single world economy, and both city system and world economic system are closely intertwined. City system cannot be understood outside world economic system. Conversely,
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world economy cannot be understood without understanding city system. Rise in foreign capital and corporate activities have changed the labor structure in world economy, creating a new world spatial division of labor, called the new international division of labour (NIDL) (Timberlake 1985). Growing corporate activities has changed service/tertiary sector labor force of urban economy. Growth of multinational corporations (MNCs) has stimulated growth of producer services in cities. Expansion of global corporate activities and changing new international division of labour (NIDL) has resulted in formation of a global urban hierarchy. Two perspectives emerge on the nature of cities: (a) cities are places or specific locations in space (Orum and Chen 2003), and (b) cities are a process by which centers are connected in a global network (Castells 1996). Taylor (2004) pointed out that the cities are “global spaces of flows.” Cities are also centers of innovation and diffusion and considered as “melting pot.” According to Cabigon (2006), there are at least three distinct realities that exist in cities: (a) nature of cities and city life varies among societies, (b) nature of city is open-ended, and (c) culturally, politically, and economically, the city has no geographic limits in an urban society. Two approaches emerge in the context of cities. On the one hand, cities are seen as the “engines” of economic growth, and on the other, they are the centers of environmental unsustainability. Globalization processes are the driving force behind urban change (Castells 2000; Taylor 2000; Sassen 1991, 2006), and also globalization is seen as an essential determinant of urban change (Taylor 2005). The concepts, such as “world city” (Friedmann 1986), “global city” (Sassen 1991), “global city region” (Scott 2001) and “informational city” (Castells 1989; Stock 2011), and “global media cities” (Kratke and Taylor 2004), all refer to globalization of economic activities in cities. Cities influence the processes of globalization and, in turn, are influenced by it. Globalization and cities linkages can be explained through two broad perspectives: (a) globalization in cities and (b) cities in globalization. In other words, a globalized urbanization
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vs an urbanized globalization. The questions very often raised are: How does globalization influence and shape cities? And how does city contribute to globalization? Globalization in Cities (Globalized Urbanization) Globalization driven by foreign direct investment (FDI) and international trade influences urbanization and city growth. This is especially important in developing countries, where both economic development and social and cultural life are affected and remodeled by the activities of FDI and international trade (Hu and Chen 2015). The contemporary urbanization in the developing countries is the response to the process of increasing globalization. The inflows of capital and technology through FDI from the developed economies create jobs and the transfer of agricultural labor from the rural sector promotes urbanization (Hu and Chen 2015). The market determines the flows of capital, land, and people in the process of urbanization. The distinctive features of globalization as Liu (2016) noted are as follows: (1) there has been a decisive shift in the proportion of the world’s economic activity that is transnational in scope; (2) there is a shift in the nature and organization of transnational economic activity, with international trade in raw materials and manufactured goods that takes place within and between transnational corporations; and (3) articulation of new world views and cultural sensibilities, notably the ecological concern with global resources and environments. All cities operate in a global system today. Cities are produced within a global political economy. Cities are nodes through which global systems of capital production and exchange are organized (e.g., MNC HQs). Cities occupy distinctive “niches” in the global economy. Some cities are innovation hubs; others are centers of manufacturing; some anchor the world’s largest economies; and others are gateways to developing countries (Liu 2016). Urbanization is a phenomenon accompanied with the development of industrialization. The basic rationale is that the spatial allocation and concentration of industries and
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services can generate agglomeration effect, which can bring synergy, reduce unit production costs, and increase economic efficiency (Hu and Chen 2015). Globalization results in urban agglomeration that is a highly developed spatial form of integrated cities which occurs when the relationships among cities shift from mainly competition to both competition and cooperation (Fang and Yu 2017). Cities are integrated within an urban agglomeration, which renders the agglomeration, one of the most important carriers for global economic development (ibid.). (a) World City Hypothesis Since the “world city” hypothesis proposed by Friedmann (1986), studies have focused on linking globalization and globalizing processes to global city formation and world city network. Friedmann (1986, 2001) established several ranking criteria for cities in the international urban system. Friedmann used seven criteria to identify world cities. These criteria include (a) major financial center, (b) site for headquarters for TNCs and regional headquarters, (c) international institution, (d) business service center, (e) important manufacturing center, (f) major transport and communication center, and (g) large population size. World cities, according to Friedmann (1986), are the leading cities in the global economy and command and control centers in a new international division of labor. These are centers of global transport and communications, production, and information. These cities emphasize the variety of economic activities which are involved in globalization processes. In fact, all cities operate in a global system today, and they have a potentially significant role on the world stage. They are integrated into global system, but some are integrated more than others. They are categorized as the “global cities” that participate more in global change. Some of them are located in core countries such as London and New York, and others are on the peripheries, e.g., Singapore and Hong Kong; some are called primary global cities, e.g.,
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London, New York, Paris, Singapore, and Sao Paulo; and others are secondary global cities, e.g., Brussels, Millan, Madrid, Mexico, Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Seoul. World cities are distributed in core, peripheral, and semi-peripheral countries. They all provide essential services to international market and play a leading role in bringing global changes. Various studies have done since Friedmann’s “world city” hypothesis established cities to global economic system and development of global urban hierarchy (Smith and Timberlake 1993; Knox 1995, 1996; Knox and Taylor 1995; Taylor 1997, 2000, 2004, 2005; Beverstock et al. 2000; Orum and Chen 2003; Abrahamson 2004; Anderson, Beckfield and SpragueJones 2010). The world system theory tends to portray world cities as the “cotter pins” that hold together the global hierarchy of core, semi-periphery, and periphery (Knox 1995). This fits into global hierarchy of world cities, a hierarchy dominated by London, New York, and Tokyo, with a second tier of cities of regional transnational importance (e.g., Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Los Angeles), a third tier of international cities (e.g., Madrid, Seoul), and the fourth tier of cities of national importance and with some transnational functions (e.g., Houston, Milan, Osaka). Taylor (1997) also observed about hierarchical tendencies among world cities and constructed a “global city hierarchy.” World cities are both cause and effect of economic and cultural globalization (Knox 1995). These are the product of the combination of new international division of labor, internationalization of finance, and the global strategies of networks of transnational corporations (ibid.). World/global cities have predominantly emphasized the role of advanced producer services in the formation of a world city network. In the world city network, all cities are equal but some are more equal than others. (b) Global City Model The concept of a global city has been given an analytical edge by Sassen’s (1991) global
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city hypothesis, which links global city formation to the concentration of command and control functions in a few cities (Yeoh 1999). Global city concept by Sassen (1991, 1994) focuses on the functioning of cities as providers of global financial and corporate services. According to Sassen (1991), global cities operate through the demand for control, creating command points. This creates a demand for finance and business services. Sassen (1991) brought out her “global trilogy” (New York, London, and Tokyo) as global cities in a world where development is driven more by globalization than nationalization (Yeoh 1999). According to Kratke and Taylor (2004), the leading cities in the global economy are command and control centers. Cities are seen as important economic unit and the normal categories of activity ascribed to globalizing cities that include services, informational, high technology, and advanced services. Trade is a defining feature of global cities as cities have been focal points for exchange of goods, ideas, capital, and people. According to Sassen (2005), the existence of global economic system is a function of the power of transnational corporations and global communication. Sassen (2005) further noted that there has been “growth of networked crossborder dynamics among global cities that include a broad range of domains: political, cultural, social, and criminal.” There are also cross border transactions among immigrant communities and communities of origin. There are “greater cross-border networks for cultural purposes, as in the growth of international markets for art and a transnational class of curators” (Sassen 2005). The debate between national and global continues, and it suggests two mutually exclusive spaces where global processes are partly embedded in national territories (Sassen 2005). The geography of globalization contains both a dynamic of dispersal and of centralization (ibid.). This dynamic of simultaneous geographic dispersal and concentration is one of the key elements in
the organizational architecture of the global economic system in which cities operate. In the case of global cities, the dynamics and processes that get territorialized are global (Sassen 2005). According to Sassen (2005) the “global city” model is based on seven hypotheses as follows: (a) The geographic dispersal of economic activities that marks globalization, along with the simultaneous integration of such geographically dispersed activities, is a key factor feeding the growth and importance of central corporate functions. (b) The central functions become so complex that increasingly the headquarters of large global firms outsource them: they buy a share of their central functions from highly specialized service firms. (c) The specialized service firms engaged in the most complex and globalized markets are subject to agglomeration economies. (d) The more headquarters outsource their most complex, unstandardized functions, particularly those subject to uncertain and changing markets, the freer they are to opt for any location, because less work actually done in the headquarters is subject to agglomeration economies. (e) These specialized service firms need to provide a global service which has meant a global network of affiliates or some other form of partnership, and as a result a strengthening of cross border city-to-city transactions and networks is established. (f) The growing numbers of high-level professionals and high-profit-making specialized service firms have the effect of raising the degree of spatial and socioeconomic inequality that is evident in these cities. (g) The growing informalization of a range of economic activities find their effective demand in these cities. Cities in Globalization (Urbanized Globalization) Cities are seen as the centers of innovation and diffusion and the “engines” of economic
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growth and the locations for economic activities that drive globalization. Cities are treated as locales through which four globalizations – economic, cultural, political, and social – are produced and reproduced (Taylor 2005). Cities are largely analyzed in terms of global economic relations or economic globalization. However, cultural, political, and social globalization processes define several networks of cities in globalization (Taylor 2005). Cities are moving towards an apogee of complexity and diversity (Taylor et al. 2007). All cities are globalizing, but some cities are globalizing more than others. Global cities around the world are the terrain where a multiplicity of globalization processes assume concrete, localized forms (Sassen 2005). These localized forms are, in good part, what globalization is all about. The world economy is hyper-connected because the firms and industries in cities are increasingly global. Urbanization under globalization has not been an isolated process but the process and result of a combined effect among multidimensional society, complex economy, and integrated culture (Sassen 2005). Castells (1996) defined the global city as a process not a place. Today, cities largely drive globalization, and cities operate together in groups that form networks of activities (Taylor 2004). Marcuse and van Kempen (2000) coined the term “globalizing cities” to make the point that globalization processes are to be found operating across many more cities than just a few “global cities.” Taylor (2004) calls these “world city network” that exhibit strong hierarchical tendencies in formation cities and form interlocking networks under conditions of contemporary globalization. According to Cabigon (2006), the nature of cities in globalization is reflected through two events: (a) The world city network is a part of globalisation processes that are inevitable and irreversible. Cities are forming a world city network with a particular geography that is city-centered with command power remaining in corelocated cities and network power in non-core cities (b) Cities are reflecting a clear culture-economy overlap, with global cities such as New York, London, Paris and Tokyo emerging as centres of global economy and cultural industries.
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Global Cities Initiatives The Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program undertook “Global Cities Initiatives” and studied 123 largest metropolitan economies with GDP exceeding $100 billion (Liu 2016). Together, these 123 global cities power global competitiveness are economically significant, generate one-third of the world’s economic output, account for nearly two-thirds of all innovations, and represent more than 80% of all venture capital investment while housing just 13% of the world’s population (Liu 2016). According to Liu (2016), being a global city means being a globally “competitive” city. Traded sectors, innovation, and talent are the core drivers and enablers of competitiveness. The “Global Cities Initiatives” created a “typology” of seven types of global cities based on how they perform on these core drivers and enablers of global competitiveness. These seven types of global cities are: 1. Global Giants: These are large, highly sophisticated financial hubs of the world economy with extensive global connectivity. They include New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Tokyo, and Osaka-Kobe. 2. Knowledge Capitals: These are world’s leading knowledge and technology hubs and the economies bolstered by elite research institutions and industries with an extremely well-educated and productive workforce and with highest rates of scientific research, patents, and venture capital in the world. They include 19 cities such as San Jose (the Silicon Valley); Boston; Seattle; San Diego; Washington, D.C.; Chicago; Austin; Dallas; Atlanta; Portland; and Denver in the USA and Amsterdam, Stockholm, and Zurich in Europe. 3. Asian Anchors: are Asia’s five established and rising economic power centers: Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul-Incheon, Shanghai, and Beijing. Their ability to attract foreign direct investment with world’s most modern infrastructure systems makes them serious global power players.
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4. American Middleweights: are 16 mid-sized US metropolitan areas, including places that are growing via connections to the global economy and have valuable economic assets, and each maintains at least one globally relevant export industry. These include Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Charlotte, Phoenix, and Kansas City. 5. International Middleweights: This group includes 26 mid-sized metros outside the USA that are seeking to leverage distinctive economic assets. Many of them are aspiring technology and knowledge hubs, and they serve as centers for talent. These include Toronto, Vancouver, Brussels, Rome, Milan, Berlin, Vienna, Madrid, Barcelona, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, and Tel Aviv. 6. Factory China: are the fastest-growing cities in the world that are heavily dependent on production, are manufacturing powerhouses, and have limited talent pools and innovative assets. This group includes Chinese cities, e.g., Chengdu, Nantong, and Wenzhou. 7. Emerging Gateways: These are 28 large global business and transportation gateways for major national and regional markets, including Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago Istanbul, Mumbai, and Johannesburg. These are financial and political capitals, which have traded sectors that are on average four times more productive than their nation’s average.
Interlocking Networks of Cities Model World cities in globalization are operating as a world city network. Therefore, the relations between and among cities and the link between cities as a process are important. The world city network is interpreted as an amalgam of the offices of global service firms and the flows they generate. According to Taylor (2005), cities as economic center contribute to contemporary global practices. Cultural, political, and social globalization processes define several networks of cities in globalization. There is not one
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network of cities, rather various networks with different paths of development (Taylor 2004). The Interlocking Networks of Cities model defines a process of world city network formation with agents being institutions that use cities as networks in the everyday pursuit of their goals, e.g., financial and business service firms and NGOs (Taylor 2005). The model defines an “interlocking network” because the agents “interlock” cities through their activities (Knoke and Kuklinski 1982, cited in Taylor 2005). Nodal size and interlock connectivity are the two measures used in this model. Short and Kim (1999) observed that “globalization” takes place in cities, and cities embody and reflect globalization. Global processes lead to changes in the city and cities rework and situate globalization. Contemporary global dynamics are the spatial expression of globalization, while urban changes reshape and reform the processes of globalization. According to Taylor et al. (2002), world cities are treated as global service centers, and the world city network is conceptualized as being “interlocked” through provision of business and financial services by global firms. They explored diversity that is found among world cities in terms of inequality of power. According to them, the power of the cities is interpreted both as a “capacity” and as a “medium.” They further noted seven different ways of measuring and illustrating power differentials in world cities. These include: (a) Global network connectivity – highly connected world cities e.g., London, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Singapore. (b) Banking/finance connectivity – highly connected international financial centers, e.g., Chicago, Frankfurt, London, and New York. (c) Dominant centers, e.g., Chicago, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London, and New York. (d) Global command centers, e.g., Amsterdam, Brussels, Boston, London, and New York. (e) Regional command centers, e.g., Hong Kong, Sao Paulo, Singapore, and Tokyo.
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(f) High connectivity gateways, e.g., Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, and Madrid. (g) Gateways to emerging markets, e.g., Beijing, Moscow, Sao Paulo, and Seoul.
A Taxonomy of Cities in Globalization Taylor (2005) identified four categories of leading cities and developed a taxonomy of cities in globalization such as: (a) Global cities – functionally comprehensive global cities that include (i) leading duo, London and New York; (ii) smaller contribution and with cultural bias, Los Angeles, Paris, and San Francisco; and (iii) incipient global cities, Amsterdam, Boston, Chicago, Madrid, Milan, Moscow, and Toronto. (b) Global niche cities – specialized global contributions that include (i) economic, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Tokyo, and (ii) political and social, Brussels, Geneva, and Washington, DC. (c) World cities – sub-net articulator cities that include (i) cultural, Berlin, Copenhagen, Melbourne, Munich, Oslo, Rome, and Stockholm; (ii) political, Bangkok, Beijing, and Vienna; and (iii) social, Manila, Nairobi, and Ottawa. (d) Worldwide leading cities that include (i) primarily economic global contributions, Frankfurt, Miami, Munich, Osaka, Singapore, Sydney, and Zurich, and (ii) primarily noneconomic global contributions, Abidjan, Addis Ababa, Atlanta, Basle, Barcelona, Cairo, Denver, Harare, Lyon, Manila, Mexico City, Mumbai, New Delhi, and Shanghai.
Global City Region According to Scott (2001), city regions constitute “dense polarizes masses of capital, labour and social life that are bound up in intricate ways in intensifying and far-flung extra national
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relationships. As such they represent an outgrowth of large metropolitan areas or contiguous sets of metropolitan areas together with surrounding hinterlands of variable extent which may themselves be sites of scattered urban settlements.” As cities becoming complex, interrelated environments that foster the generation of new ideas and new ways of doing business, a new type of economic formation has been emerging in the global city region. This has been called a “polycentric global mega-city region” with an extensive and functionally interconnected cluster of urban centers that is developing around the world’s major cities (Pain n.d.). Cities and their surrounding regions are promoting globalization by providing the infrastructure and labor upon which globalization depends (UN-Habitat 2001). Cities can thus play key roles in supporting a “globalization from below” (Benton-Short et al. 2005). A globalizing world is changing urban and regional relations (Pain and Van Hamme 2014). Cities are nodes through which global systems of capital production and exchange are organized especially through multinational corporations. Cities form an important link in processes of globalization and their economic implications for human development, and cities mediate the reciprocal relationships between globalization on the one hand and economic and human development on the other (UN-Habitat 2001). According to Cabigon (2006), cities are forming a world city network which is a part of globalization processes that are inevitable and irreversible. Cabigon (2006) said there are two trends: firstly, this world city network is typically city-centered with command power in remaining in core-located cities and the network power in noncore (peripheral) cities to impinge on future social change. Secondly, cities are now reflecting a clear culture-economy overlap, with global cities such as New York, London, Paris, and Tokyo emerging as centers of the global seconomy and cultural industries. Marketing the city’s cultural offerings aims for both consumptions of culture and generation of income in the city (Cabigon 2006).
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Global Media and Informational Cities Kratke and Taylor (2004) introduced a new dimension into global networking processes through their study of “global media cities.” There has been growth of large media companies especially media industries in European cities. According to Kratke and Taylor (2004), diversity of globalized economic activities which is involved in globalization processes leads to multiple globalizations within world city network formation. Taylor et al. (2004) analyzed patterns of globalization that result from an interaction of different service sectors with particular world regions through a hierarchy of world cities. Castells (1989) termed “informational cities” that are prototypical cities of the knowledge society. According to Castells (1989), in those cities, space of flows (flow of money, power, and information) tend to override space of places. Information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure, cognitive infrastructure (as groundwork of knowledge cities and creative cities), and city-level knowledge management are of great importance. Stock (2011) discussed “informational cities” and focus on construction of cities in the knowledge society. Cities with high density of “cyber” or digital infrastructure and high levels of utilization of ICTs are called “smart” world cities (Derudder et al. 2012; Mainka 2018). Knox (1995) identified three distinctive features of globalization such as (a) a decisive shift in the proportion of the world’s economic activity that is transnational in scope; (b) a shift in the nature and organization of transnational economic activity, with international trade in raw materials and manufactured goods being eclipsed by flows of goods, capita, and information that take place within and between TNCs; and (c) the articulation of new world views and cultural sensibilities: notably the ecological concern with global resources and environments. All these as Knox (1995) says add up to an intensification of global connectedness and the constitution of the world as one place. Much of this change has been transacted and mediated through world cities. The
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“transnational practices” of the “transnational producer-service class” necessary to globalization is seen in the urban system (Knox 1995). Resulting from these transnational practices is a global metropolitanism which is closely tied to the material culture promoted by transnational capitalism (Knox 1995). Rather than a cultural homogenization, global metropolitanism through world cities is depicting tensions and oppositions (ibid.). The global metropolitanism mediated and reproduced by world cities is thus complex, dynamic, and multidimensional (Knox 1995). The “space of flows” of the “informational economy” is manifested through a series of sociocultural flows that reflect and reproduce global metropolitanism. According to Appadurai (1990) the central problem of today’s global interactions is the tension between cultural homogenization and cultural heterogenization. The new global cultural economy has to be understood as a complex, overlapping, disjunctive order, which cannot any longer be understood in terms of existing center-periphery models (Appadurai 1990). Appadurai (1990) proposed five dimensions of global cultural flow which he termed as: (a) Ethnoscapes – means the landscape of persons produced by flows of business personnel, tourists, immigrants, etc. (b) Technoscapes – means the global configuration produced by flows of technology and machinery disseminated by transnational corporations. (c) Finanscapes – produced by flows of rapid flow of capital. (d) Mediascapes – produced by flows of images and information through print media, television, and film. (e) Ideoscapes – produced by the diffusion of ideological constructs, e.g., democracy, sovereignty, and citizenship. Appadurai (1990) labeled these five dimensions as “scapes,” which are constantly shifting, just as cultures. The ethnoscape, technoscape, and finanscape are closely intertwined and shift in relation to each other. Technoscapes bring about
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new types on cultural interactions and exchanges through the power of technology that happens at an unprecedented speed.
Opportunities and Challenges Global urbanization offers the potential of economic opportunities. Globalization provides opportunities to promote democracy at the local level and cities to build partnerships with private sector and NGOs to meet the growing challenges. Globalization provides opportunities for economic growth and national development. Globalization although stimulates economic growth, however, there has been uneven distribution of benefits and costs of globalization. Globalization also provides opportunities for diffusion of innovations and knowledge generated in the cities and city regions. Cities can link economic globalization to promote opportunities for human development. Cities can thus offer solutions for many global problems because they are centers of innovation. However, global urbanization does bring numerous challenges. The process of globalization and the global changes affect urban development (Richardson and Bae 2005) and pose challenges to the sustainability of cities. Globalization also poses challenges of spatial segregation and social exclusion in cities. The central challenge is how to make both urbanization and globalization work for all people and make inclusive cities. Globalization not only increases competition between but also fragmentation within cities (Fainstein et al. 1992; van Kempen 2007). These, in turn, pose challenges to mobilize resources, build coalition, and develop effective governance structures in cities. Globalization brings spatial inequalities and uneven urbanization (Smith 1996). Globalization also puts severe governance challenges especially in Third World cities that generally get aggravated owing to obsoleted municipal political structures. Environmentally, globalization threatens to exacerbate urban environmental pollution and natural resource degradation that lead to environmental unsustainability. Moreover, a handful of larger
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global cities contribute more than 60% of the global greenhouse gasses that contribute to global climate changes. Cities must continuously adapt to be globally competitive and inclusive. The challenge is how to share the benefits of globalization more equally among people and how cities can deepen their efforts to be globally engaged.
Conclusions Globalization and urbanization go hand in hand. Cities influence processes of globalization and in turn are influenced by it. Globalizing processes are the driving forces behind urban change. An understanding of globalization and cities especially global cities brings an emphasis on power, division, networking, and inequality. Urban sustainability calls for re-embedding our understanding of cities and their multiple and diverse impacts on society, economy, and the environment within the contemporary process of urbanization. This is because cities cannot be expected to become “islands of reform” in isolation from the wider global political economy in which they are produced. All strategies should be directed to make cities livable, provide environmental services for the urban people, and protect urban people against environmental hazards in order to build a healthy and sustainable city.
Cross-References ▶ Healthy Cities and Sustainable Innovation ▶ Inclusive City, Perspectives, Challenges, and Pathways ▶ Urban Production and Consumption
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Globalization and Cities Orum AM, Chen X (2003) The world of cities: places in comparative and historical perspective. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford Pain K (n.d.) City-regions and economic development. Available at: https://www.metropolis.org/sites/default/ files/cityregions_complete_0.pdf. Accessed 28 April 2018 Pain K, Van Hamme G (eds) (2014) Changing urban and regional relations in a globalizing world: Europe as a global macro-region. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham Richardson HW, Bae CHC (eds) (2005) Globalization and urban development. Springer, Berlin van Kempen R (2007) Divided cities in the 21st century: challenging the importance of globalisation. J Housing Built Environ 22:13–31 Sassen S (1991) The global city: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton University Press, Princeton Sassen S (1994) Cities in a world economy. Pine Forge Press, Thousand Oaks Sassen S (2005) The global city: introducing a concept. Brown J World Aff 11(2):27–43 Sassen S (2006) Cities in a world economy. Pine Forge Press, Thousand Oaks Scott A (ed) (2001) Global city-regions: trends, theory, policy. Oxford University Press, Oxford Short JR, Kim YH (1999) Globalization and the city. Longmans, Harlow/Essex Smith DA (1996) Third world cities in global perspective: the political economy of uneven urbanization. Westview Press, Boulder Smith DA, Timberlake M (1993) World cities: a political economy/global network approach. Res Urban Sociol 3:181–207 Stock WG (2011) Informational cities: analysis and construction of cities in the knowledge society. J Am Soc Inf Sci Technol 62(5):963–986 Taylor PJ (1997) Hierarchical tendencies amongst world cities: a global research proposal. Cities 14:323–332 Taylor PJ (2000) World cities and territorial states under conditions of contemporary globalisation. Polit Geogr 19(5):5–32 Taylor PJ (2004) World city network: a global urban analysis. Routledge, London Taylor PJ (2005) Leading world cities: empirical evaluations of urban nodes in multiple networks. Urban Stud 42(9):1593–1608 Taylor PJ, Catalano G, Walker DRF (2004) Multiple globalisations: regional, hierarchical and sector articulations of global business services through world cities. Serv Ind J 24(3):63–81 Taylor PJ, Derudder B, Saey P, Witlox F (eds) (2007) Cities in globalisation: practices, policies and theories. Routledge, London Taylor PJ, Walker DRF, Catalano G, Hoyler M (2002) Diversity and power in world city network. Cities 10(4):231–241 Timberlake M (ed) (1985) Urbanization in the world-economy. Academic Press, New York UN –Habitat (2001) Cities in a globalized world: global report on human settlements. Earthscan Publications Ltd, London
Green Cities United Nations (2013) Sustainable development goals. Available at: http://www.unfoundation.org/features/globalgoals/ the-global-goals.html. Accessed 15 May 2018 Wellerstein I (1974) The modern world-system. Academic Press, New York Yeoh ASB (1999) Global/globalizing cities. Prog Hum Geogr 23(4):607–616 Yu CFD (2017) Urban agglomeration: an evolving concept of an emerging phenomenon. Landsc Urban Plan 162:126–136
Gray ▶ Informal Economy: An Urban Context Focus
Green ▶ Built Environment Education for Sustainability and Climate Change Preparation
Green Areas ▶ Public and Green Spaces in the Context of Sustainable Development
Green Cities Krishna Roka Department of Sociology, Winona State University, Winona, MN, USA
Synonyms Sustainability; Planning; Ecology; Infrastructure; Adaptation; Mitigation; Liveability
Definition A green city definition is disciplinary and multidisciplinary in scope and mostly depends on the local needs and focus of policies. The
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most common expectations are that a green city will have clean air and water with pleasant streets and parks, if one is looking at the ecological values. It will be resilient in the face of natural disasters, and the risks of disease outbreaks in the city are very low: this is from public health perspective. Green cities promote positive environmental behavior like use of public transport, and their ecological impact is relatively small; this is from social well-being perspective (Kahn 2006). What makes the green city different from a conventional city is that it focuses more on environmental quality and livability. It demands for a more compact mixed-used development, low-energy transportation, renewable energy consumption, and a low ecological footprint (Fei et al. 2016). A more inclusive definition proposed by Beatley (2012) claims green cities are: • Cities that strive to live within their ecological limits, by reducing their ecological footprints and recognizing their connections with and impacts on other cities and communities and the larger planet • Cities that are green and that are designed for and function in ways analogous to nature • Cities that aim to achieve a circular rather that a linear metabolism, which nurtures and develops positive symbiotic relationships with and between its hinterland (whether that be regional, national, or international) • Cities that strive toward local and regional self-sufficiency and take full advantage of and nurture local/regional food production, economy, power production, and many other activities that sustain and support their populations • Cities that facilitate and encourage more sustainable, healthy lifestyles • Cities that emphasize a high quality of life and the creation of highly livable neighborhoods and communities Green city design is therefore a plan to balance economy and environment. Some examples include clustered development, high-density residential areas, and live-work communities (Campbell, 1996: 307). Another way to build a green city is through bioregionalism, which
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is rescaling communities and the economy according to the ecological boundaries. The current concept of green city is about building city and maintaining various activities within its environmental limits that will help to withstand any environmental problems from future environmental changes.
Introduction Urban population since 1950 has grown by five times from 0.7 billion to 3.9 billion in 2014. Cities occupy only 2% of the earth’s land, but they account for more than 70% of its energy consumption and by 2050 will host 75% of the population (Gardner 2016a). The future of environmental sustainability, therefore, will be decided in these cities. As a result, cities across the world are moving toward meeting the sustainable development goals, particularly SDG 11, that aims to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. Sustainability has become a major focus for urban planners and government officials. Urban sustainability can be defined as: “A sustainable city is a vibrant human settlement that provides ample opportunities, in harmony with the natural environment, to create dignified lives for all citizens” (Gardner 2016b: 46). Furthermore, a sustainable city exists in harmony with nature, respecting and implementing the ecological principles of diversity, adaptiveness, interconnectedness, resilience, regenerative capacity, and symbiosis in its development and planning activities. One of the ways cities worldwide are attempting to reach their sustainability goals is by becoming “green cities.” Green city is a very broad concept and is widely used by governments and cities to achieve economic, environmental, and sociocultural sustainability goals. The future of urban sustainability depends on how cities address three issues: 1. The built environment – in developed countries cities are less dense, and the high demand for residential and other infrastructures in these nations requires an investment of $20 trillion
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annually to fulfill the demands. The urban built environment depends on the flow of resources as it consumes 40% of all water, 70% of timber products, and 45% of energy. 2. Urban economy – cities are economic engines where 80% of global GDP is produced. They also consume 60–80% of the energy and 75% of natural resources and emit 75% of global carbon emissions. The economic output and resource consumption are not equally distributed across world cities; the future depends on how cities in developing countries balance growth and well-being. 3. Poverty, sanitation, and health – large concentration of population makes cities the centers of poverty worldwide. One in seven people in urban areas live in poverty, and many urban residents in poor nations lack drinking water and sanitation facility. In addition, nearly 1.5 billion urban residents live in areas with poor air quality. The green city concepts offer some possible ways to establish a balance between environment, economy, and social well-being (Gardner 2016a). Green City Index To refine the definition, a Green City Index was developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit with funding from Siemens (EIU 2012). The Green City Index (GCI) measures cities on approximately 30 indicators across 8–9 categories: CO2 emissions, energy, buildings, land use, transport, water and sanitation, waste management, air quality, and environmental governance. About half of the indicators in each Index are quantitative – usually data from official public sources, like CO2 emissions per capita, water consumption per capita, recycling rates, and air pollutant concentrations. The remaining indicators are qualitative assessments of the city’s environmental policies such as the city’s commitment to sourcing more renewable energy, traffic-congestion-reduction policies, and air quality codes. The indicators were used to create a GCI for cities in each continent (see the European Index, Fig. 1). Specific indicators were developed for each continent’s index; for example, the Africa Index included indicators like access to electricity and
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Green action plan Green management
CO2 intensity CO2 emissions CO2 reduction strategy
Public participation in green policy
CO2
Environmental Governance
Nitrogen dioxide Sulphur dioxide Ozone Particulate matter Clean air policies
Energy
Air quality
Energy consumption Energy intensity Renewable energy consumption Clean and efficient energy policies
European
Index Buildings
Water Water consumption System leakages Wastewater system treatment Water efficiency and treatment policies
Energy consumption of residential buildings
Waste & land use
Municipal waste production Waste recycling Waste reduction policies Green land use policies
Energy-efficient buildings standards
Transport
Energy-efficient buildings initiatives
Use of non-car transport Size of non-car transport network Green transport promotion Congestion reduction policies
Green Cities, Fig. 1 Green City Index for Europe (EIU 2012: 9). (© 2012 by Siemens AG)
potable water and the percentage of people living in informal settlements. Depending on the score, each city received an overall Index ranking. The European and the US and Canada cities were ranked numerically, while five performance bands were created for cities in Asia, Latin America, and Africa – well above average, above average, average, below average, and well below average. Characteristics of a Green City There are many benefits of making cities green. The most important benefit of greening city is that it makes the city livable. Greening roofs help to purify air and water, reduce artificial warming from buildings, and increase biological diversity. In Toronto, it was found that green roofs resulted in a reduction in ambient air temperature of 0.5–2 C (Renner 2016). Green city also brings economic benefits such as higher property values. For example, after the construction of the High Line Park in New York City, the neighborhood attracted nearly $4 billion in investment. Ultimately, green city can improve human health and social well-being as well. In Denmark,
green spaces led to a decrease in stress level and obesity (Beatley 2012). Three characteristics of green city that deliver these benefits are green economy/growth, green infrastructure, and green urbanism. Green Economy/Growth According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), “Green growth means fostering economic growth and development while ensuring that natural assets continue to provide the resources and environmental services on which our well-being relies” (in GIZ and ICLEI 2012). This definition emphasizes on the economic growth and development aspect of cities. The “green” aspect of green growth is to reduce negative environmental externalities, like air pollution and CO2 emissions, and reduce consumption of natural resources and environmental services, including water, energy, and land. This can be achieved with effective policies and programs that integrate environment and the economy. Most development theories still believe economic growth as the route to prosperity;
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therefore, all urban planning and development must show their contribution to the economy. In a green economy, governments, corporate and industry actors, nonprofit organizations, and educational institutions will play a key role in fostering local economies. An inclusive and green economy has goals to reduce both poverty and inequality, in addition to preventing further climate change and its negative impacts. An inclusive green economy “promotes energy efficiency, non-motorized mobility, investment in green technologies and employment, the creation of incentive systems for sustainable production, operations and consumption patterns, greening municipal purchase and the establishment of standards, among many others” (GIZ and ICLEI 2012: 3). To transition to a green economy, the cities should contribute to reaching the following goals: (1) an eco-effective and ecoefficient economic structure; (2) creation of green jobs; (3) poverty eradication and inclusiveness; (4) urban form and design for eco-effective infrastructures; (5) energy and resource efficiency in the physical infrastructure; (6) renewable energy production and sourcing; (7) a valued urban ecosystem; (8) innovation, research, and development; and (9) stakeholder involvement (GIZ and ICLEI 2012). Criticism of green economy or sustainable capitalism as an oxymoron has cast some doubts on its viability. Nevertheless, US cities are rapidly working toward a green economy as a publicprivate partnership proven to be a tool to attain sustainability. Chicago since the 1990s has initiated several programs to promote green economy; some notable examples include the Greencorps Chicago to provide green skills training for its residents; NeighborSpace to develop and protect green spaces; Urban Heat Initiative to reduce urban heat and improve air quality by promoting green roof systems; Chicago Center for Green Technology to educate green design for professionals; Green Exchange, the nations’ largest sustainable business community; Chicagoland Green Collar Jobs Initiative to create a skilled workforce; Green Business Chicago to certify companies meeting green standards; Sustainable Chicago 2015 plan to improve transit, upgrade the water
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system, and modernize energy infrastructure; and the Building New Chicago, a $7 billion revitalization program, to create the largest bike-share program in North America (Lamphere and Shefner 2017). These examples suggest that cities can create a path toward sustainability by integrating green agendas in their economic plans. OECD (2013) has identified four potential benefits for cities pursuing green growth: (1) create jobs by considering energy efficiency retrofits of buildings, (2) increase a city’s attractiveness to firms and skilled labor by increasing the efficiency of the transport system, (3) produce more local green goods and services by identifying the potential for green specialization and fostering green technology research and development and innovation, and (4) increase the value of urban land through redevelopment project that infill development and eco-districts. In addition, cities promoting green growth can help tackle climate change by reducing the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGS) from the city and reducing GHGs from consumption, which means cities must not only reduce GHG emission produced within their boundaries but also the GHGs generated by producing goods and services for the city’s residents that are produced outside the city’s borders. Some examples of minimizing impacts on natural resources and environmental services are by transforming land-use planning, transport, buildings, energy, waste, and water (Table 1). Green Infrastructure Another facet of green cities is the green infrastructure (GI) development. The Landscape Institute (2013) defines GI as: GI is the network of natural and semi natural features, green spaces, rivers and lakes that intersperse and connect villages, towns and cities. Individually, these elements are GI assets, and the roles that these assets play are GI functions. When appropriately planned, designed and managed, the assets and functions have the potential to deliver a wide range of benefits—from providing sustainable transport links to mitigating and adapting the effects of climate change.
The city of Ahmedabad, India, defines GI as: A livable, environmentally sustainable and efficient city for all its citizens; a city with robust social
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Green Cities, Table 1 Urban activities that can reduce cities’ environmental impacts (OECD 2013) Sector Land-use planning
Transport
Buildings
Energy
Waste
Water
Activities Zoning that allows for a mix of land uses so as to reduce travel distances between home, work, and other activities Tax reform to encourage the development of underused lands in urban cores and to discourage urbanization of undeveloped land in the urban fringe Expanding and/or improving public transport Physical improvements to encourage walking and cycling Attaching a price to personal vehicle travel (e.g., congestion charges Retrofitting existing building stock to increase energy efficiency Minimum energy efficiency standards for new buildings Installing distributed renewable energy generation (e.g., solar panels) District heating and cooling systems Fees that discourage peak energy use Recycling household and industrial waste Waste-to-energy and landfill methane-toenergy systems Fees that discourage waste generation Fees that encourage water conservation Governance mechanisms to improve efficiency of water delivery
and physical infrastructure, vibrant economy and a distinct identity; a globally preferred investment destination. (Mell 2017)
Green infrastructure includes grassed areas, trees, landscaping, and water bodies. GI offers multiple functions to increase access to green spaces, which in turn deliver socioeconomic, health, education, and business opportunities to the people. Economic benefits of green areas include more motivated workers, increased property values, reduced sickness absence, rural tourism, agricultural employment, reduced pollution leading to reduced health costs, encouraging healthy lifestyles, creating jobs in communityowned green spaces, conservation employment, flood risk reduction, and reducing the heat island effect (Antrobus 2011). Importantly, GI is seen as an important aspect of climate change mitigation and adaptation in enhancing the overall resilience of the city. Some of the ways GI can improve
resilience is through flood risk management and biodiversity conservation. In the greater Manchester City area, GI is integrated in its Catchment Flood Management Plan (Antrobus 2011), and in Ahmedabad, the riverfront project reduced the impact of flooding from the Sabarmati River (Mell 2017). In developing countries, GI is key to manage their environmental resources efficiently and tackling environmental problems. GI offers an alternative to conventional infrastructure by promoting a more holistic approach to climate adaptation and protection of clean water and limiting the impacts of flooding and the urban heat effect, in addition to promoting health, well-being, and economic opportunities for local people and businesses (Mell 2017). In India, GI is promoted to facilitate socioeconomic and environmental improvements. The newly launched 100 Smart Cities initiatives by the government include GI as a critical component. GI in India is measured by the area of green space in urban areas. Using a m2 metric per person, it was found that Chandigarh, a planned city comprised of 54 m2 person, New Delhi 21 m2 (including green belt area), Bengaluru 17 m2, and Chennai had the lowest value of only 0.46 m2 that is well below the World Health Organization’s recommended level of 9 m2 per person (Mell 2017). The variation in the area of urban space indicates the multitude of values in adopting GI in urban planning by Indian cities. In Ahmedabad GI was promoted as a progressive move toward building within the city’s environmental limit. A simplest form of GI cities can require is the construction of green roofs, which are partially or completely covered with vegetation. Cities can promote green roofs through changing land-use plans and building codes, green roof statutes, subsidies and incentives, pilot programs, and information and awareness campaign. Green roofs bring many benefits such as improving air quality, increasing biodiversity, managing storm water, increasing the life of buildings, assisting with food production, and contributing to make a livable city. In addition, green roof reduces energy inputs, lessen impacts from climate change, and can help to mitigate the urban heat
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Green Cities, Table 2 Indicators of green (biophilic) infrastructure (Beatley 2012) Indicators Share of population within 100 m of a park or green space Existence of an integrated, connected, ecological network, “green urbanism from rooftop to region” Share of city land area in wild or semi-wild nature Share of forest cover in the city Extent and number of green urban features (green rooftops, green walls, trees) Kilometers per capita of walking trails Number of community gardens and garden plots
Beatley’s guideline values 100%
Ideally, unbroken green corridors from the center of the city to the edges 10% 40% (less in the core, more near the periphery) 1 green rooftop per 1000 inhabitants (minimum 1 per block) 1.61 km (1 mile) per 1000 population would be a high level 1 community garden per 2500 city residents
island effect. Countries like Germany, France, and Japan along with cities like Toronto, Canada, have adopted green roof-related regulations. For example, Toronto’s Green Roof Bylaw has resulted in 444 green roofs in the city (Renner 2016). Beatley (2012) has developed indicators for green infrastructure that cities can implement (Table 2). Green Urbanism Green urbanism is about building cities that are smart, secure, and sustainable. It is a concept to promote compact energy-efficient urban development with zero-emission and zero-waste urban design. Lehmann defines green urbanism as “. . . a conceptual model for zero-emission and zero-waste urban design, which arose in the 1990s, promoting compact energy-efficient urban development, seeking to transform and reengineer existing city districts and regenerate the post-industrial city centre. It promotes the development of socially and environmentally sustainable city districts” (2010: 1). Green urbanism is an interdisciplinary concept that consists of three pillars – energy and materials, water and biodiversity, and urban planning and transport – that interact to build a holistic city (Fig. 2).
According to Newman (2010), there are seven features of green urbanism and seven types of cities that could be built: 1. Renewable energy city – In this model urban areas should be powered by renewable energy produced within cities integrated into their land use and make it an important component of the urban economy. Masdar City in the UAE is an example of a 100% renewable energy city. Other examples include North Port Quay in Australia, which is designed to be 100% renewable; Freiburg, Germany; and Vancouver, Canada. In addition to having a small ecological footprint, renewable energy makes cities healthy and livable by promoting diverse forms of transportation. 2. Carbon-neutral city – Becoming carbon-neutral is the new mantra for nations, cities, corporations, and households. There are three steps to become carbon-neutral: (1) reducing energy use everywhere from building and transportation sectors, (2) using renewable energy as much as possible, and (3) offsetting CO2 emission by purchasing carbon credits or planting trees. Examples of cities phasing out fossil fuel use and are progressing toward a carbon-neutral future are New Castle, Sydney, Vaxjo, and Vancouver. 3. Distributed city – This framework advocates for a decentralized system of power and water distribution system. In the past 100 years, cities’ power and water systems have become more centralized and inefficient in reducing the city’s ecological footprint. The distributed water system is built around the natural water cycle that uses rain and local groundwater sources to feed into the system and then recycle “gray” water locally and “black” water regionally to ensure a significant reduction in water use. Similarly, renewable energy produced and consumed at the local level can prevent power loss during long-distance distribution. Toronto, Canada, and Malmo, Sweden, have successfully implemented a distributed power system by installing rooftop solar panels and water management systems.
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GREEN URBANISM
Embodied energy
Urban water management
Urban design
Material specification
Water recycling and irrigation
Ecological city theory
Urban Farming
Health and walkability
Urban landscape typologies
Mobility, public Transport
Energy sources and consumption
Ecosystems’ biodiversity maximized
Infrastructure
Construction systems
Way water recycling
Mixed land use
Prefabrication and recycling
Storage of urban stormwater
Housing affordability
Climate change impact management
Subdivisions
Supply chain Renewable energy solutions
Energy efficiency Resource management
Social sustainability
Energy efficient buildings
Reducing car dependency
Waste management
ENERGY and MATERIALS
WATER and BIODIVERSITY
URBAN PLANNING and TRANSPORT
Interaction between three main pillars
Green Cities, Fig. 2 The three pillars of green urbanism and the interaction between these pillars (Lehmann 2010: 3)
4. Biophilic city – This city type uses natural processes as part of the city’s infrastructure. They rely on green infrastructure, which is maintaining and recreating wetlands, urban forests, community gardens, parks, and green spaces, which benefits the city and its residents by providing fresh food, clean water, climate moderation, and cleaning the air. Urban agriculture is widely implemented as part of integrating ecology into urban landscape.
5. Eco-efficient city – This type of cities aims to reduce their ecological footprint by reducing waste and resource use. They do this by adopting a circular or closed system of resource use and waste recycling. Eco-efficiency can be achieved in developing nations by using human resources to sort, recycle, and reuse materials by local industries, buildings, and food production. A good example of an eco-efficient city is the Hammarby Sjostad neighborhood in Stockholm that uses biogas
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generated from wastewater and organic waste generated by the residents. 6. Placed-based city – Here cities focus their economic agendas to reflect local place identity and are localizing energy, food, materials, and economic development to strengthen local community. The belief is that having such activities in the community developed a sense of place among the residents who then adopt sustainable lifestyle to enhance the city’s image. They become part of the change process. According to Newman, “The more place-oriented and locally self-sufficient a city’s economy is, the more it will reduce its ecological footprint and the more it will ensure that its valuable ecological features are enhanced” (p. 158). 7. Sustainable transport city – These cities promote walkability, mass-transit systems, cycling, and renewable energy as the source of power. This transformation serves two purposes – reducing greenhouse gas emission and managing traffic congestion. Three ways cities can transition to sustainable transportation are (1) high-density planning and urban form, which promotes walking and makes public transport efficient; (2) infrastructure priorities and transit planning, investing in electric rail system can bring multiple benefits from addressing fuel scarcity to decarbonizing the economy; and (3) street planning and mobility management, this is about building “streets not roads” where people can walk, cycle, and be safe. Examples of Green City Across the World The top 20 green cities in the world are in Europe and North America and include cities like Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, San Francisco, Vancouver, and New York City. These cities’ green agendas include green economy to transportation to waste management. Below are some of the characteristics of green cities across the continents as highlighted in the Green City Index (EIU 2012). It includes examples of cities that have achieved a great level of sustainability and highlights sectors cities need improvement. Characteristics of Green Cities in Europe • Oslo uses the highest share of renewable energy at 65%. The Index average is 7%.
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• Copenhagen and Berlin’s residential buildings consume almost 40% less energy than the Index average. • In Stockholm, 68% of people cycle or walk to work, the highest percentage in the European Index. In contrast, in Helsinki, another Scandinavian city of similar size, only 16% do so. • Riga offers the longest public transport network at 8.6 km per km2, almost four times the Index average of 2.3 km per km2. • In Kiev, 74% of the population uses public transport to get to work. This is the highest figure in the European Index and Kiev ranks 30th overall. • Tallinn consumes the least amount of water, only 138 liters per person per day, compared with the Index average of 288 l. • Amsterdam has the lowest water leakage rate of 4%, in Sofia this is 61%. • Helsinki recycles 58% of its waste, compared with the Index average of only 18%. Characteristics of Green Cities in North America • Electricity consumption by cities ranges widely, from 10 gigajoules per capita in Cleveland to 152 gigajoules in Atlanta. • New York is the most densely populated city in the Index, with almost 10,700 residents per km2, compared with the Index average of 3,100. • Atlanta has almost three times as many LEEDcertified energy-efficient buildings as the Index average (18.3 buildings per 100,000 people versus the Index average of 6.4 buildings). • Vancouver has the longest public transport network in the US and Canada Index, but it is New Yorkers who use public transport most frequently to get to work (37%). • About 90% of US residents use their cars to get to work. Characteristics of Green Cities in Latin America • Mexico City has the highest level of energy efficiency, only using 0.3 gigajoules of electricity to generate $1,000 of GDP (Index average, 0.8 gigajoules).
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• All cities regularly monitor air pollution and have some kind of code to improve air quality. • Rio de Janeiro and Curitiba have the longest public transport networks, with an estimated 8.7 km and 8.5 km per km2, respectively, compared with the Index average of 5 km. • Wastewater is often not treated adequately: 8 of 17 cities treat 50% or less of their wastewater before discharging it. • In Medellin, only 7 in 100 residents own a car or motorcycle. In Buenos Aires this figure is 66 in 100 residents. • Water leakage is a challenge for all cities. The lowest water loss is 21% in Monterrey; the highest amount is lost in Rio de Janeiro, at more than 58%. Characteristics of Green Cities in Asia • Tokyo created the first cap and trade system in Asia in April 2010. The scheme aims to cut energy-related CO2 emissions by 6% by 2015 and an additional 17% by 2020. • Population density ranges from fewer than 1,000 people per km2 in Wuhan to more than 27,000 people per km2 in Mumbai. • Seoul has the densest public transport network in the Asian Green City Index. 6.6 km per km2 versus the average of 1.7 km per km2. • Tokyo has the lowest water leakage rate in the Asian Index, at 3%, compared with the index average of 22%. Jakarta had the highest water leakage rate, at 50%. • In Manila, only 12% of the population has access to sanitation. Characteristics of Green Cities in Africa • South African cities generate on average 3 t of CO2 emissions from electricity consumption per person. That is more than 5 times the figure for North African cities and 60 times the figure for the other cities in sub-Saharan Africa. • Cairo is by far the most densely populated city, with 19,000 residents per km2, compared with an average of 3,500 in the other African cities. • Cape Town and Johannesburg have the greenest space in the African Index, at an estimated 290 m2 and 231 m2 per person, respectively. The Index average is 74 m2.
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• An estimated 38% of residents live in informal settlements across the 15 cities; in Maputo the figure is 70%. • Waste production figures range from 160 kg per capita each year in Addis Ababa to more than 1,000 kg in Pretoria. • Residents’ access to sanitation also varies widely, from 49% in Maputo to 99% in Casablanca. • Durban has a target to become a zero-waste city within 20 years and carbon-neutral by 2050. The global comparison of cities shows that cities are at various level of achieving sustainability. The difference is stark along the economic status of the nation and region. As expected, cities in the USA and Canada and Europe are the wealthiest and greenest among the regions. Latin American cities lead Asian and African cities for the number of parks, open spaces, and other green areas. Asian cities are by far the densest among the regions; US and Canada cities trail the rest. The North American cities have highest per capita CO2 emissions than Europe and Asia combined. Latin American cities lose the most water across the five regions. Far more US and Canada city residents travel to work by car than in European cities. The US and Canada cities consume by far the most water among the five regions. Asian cities have higher sulfur dioxide concentration levels than European and Latin American cities combined. European cities produce the most waste per capita, followed closely by Latin American and African cities. Particulate matter pollution in Asian cities far outstrips levels in Latin American and European cities. The above analysis reveals that there are different pathways to measure and achieve green city status. It is also evident that cities can learn from each other in making their programs cost-effective and inclusive to promote sustainability.
Planning and Development of Green City Cities are the centers of future economic growth that will generate national wealth and offer
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millions of people a hope for a better quality of life. Globally, urban areas are under pressure from rapid migration from rural areas to cities that is also affecting urban environments. Ecologically sensitive land is under threat, and infrastructure to deliver public services is under strain. Furthermore, extreme weather events caused by climate change threaten urban areas through flooding, droughts, and storms. The future of urban areas is gathering knowledge on the best practices and implementing them worldwide. The EIU (2012) nicely concluded the future direction for the cities to become sustainable: Governments everywhere need to collaborate on a uniform standard for environmental data, so that a given city in one part of the world can easily compare its results to any other, in order to learn from its peers and improve its performance. Guaranteeing sustainable growth in the face of overwhelming urbanization is one of the world’s biggest tests in the coming decades. To meet the challenge, we must ensure that proven strategies and initiatives become the reality in the majority of the world’s growing cities. (46)
Urban Greening Urban greening movement began in the 1960s and 1970s as cities lost population to the suburbs leaving behind vacant lots. Communities started to create community gardens to address urban blights. Today’s most successful community garden programs in the USA were started in the 1970s: Green Guerillas in New York City, TreePeople in Los Angeles, Philadelphia Green in Philadelphia, and P-Patch in Seattle (Carlet et al. 2017). An example of greening cities is implementing urban agriculture projects, which can transform vacant properties into multifunctional and sustainable spaces and provide an opportunity for residents to reconnect with food production, improve food access, and promote sense of community through gardening (Carlet et al. 2017). In addition, urban agriculture can become an effective way to transform postindustrial landscapes into urban farms, community gardens, and parks. Furthermore, urban agriculture can provide a supply of fresh food and water, as well as regulate climate, air, and water quality, and various cultural services.
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Urban agriculture has many benefits. Researchers from the Ohio State University in Cleveland, a city of 400,000 residents, farmed more than 18,000 vacant lots and found it could provide 46–100% of fresh produce, 94% of poultry and eggs, and 100% honey. This would save the city 29–100 million in food money (Grewal and Grewal 2012). Urban greening is nowadays incorporated in sustainability plans and environmental programs by local governments and organizations that recommend diverse treatments and interventions. Some of the interventions include (Carlet et al. 2017): 1. Conversion of neglected urban parcels and public rights-of-way into parks, trails, and open space – redesigning empty lots into green space will provide social and ecological benefits to the residents. 2. Vacant land/lot greening as neighborhood stabilization strategies – removal of construction debris and planting native grass and flowers. 3. Temporary pop-up interventions – pop-up gardens, parklets, and “open streets” are community-focused urbanism that connects people and places. 4. Green infrastructure – one of the simplest forms of GI is rain gardens that also helps reduce storm water runoff. 5. Urban agriculture – it is the act of raising animals and growing fruits and vegetables within city boundaries. Community gardens are the most form of urban agriculture that is used as a community development tool and to grow fresh produce for local businesses. The Green City Index recommends a sevenstep pathway to a greener city (EIU 2012): 1. Good governance and leadership at the metropolitan level: Although national policies will provide direction for sustainability, city-level leadership is just as crucial. For best results, national legislation should leave enough autonomy for cities to address their issues and make their own investment decisions. National
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policies should be complementary and not competitive with cities’ goals. 2. A holistic approach: Best-performing cities in the Green City Index took a holistic approach to environmental problems; they recognized that performance in one category, such as transport, is linked to success in others such as air quality. For example, Curitiba in the 1960s implemented integrated programs to curb rapid population growth. These included polices across departments, including strategies to limit urban sprawl, create pedestrian areas, and provide low-cost rapid transit. More programs like creation of green areas, waste recycling and management, and sanitation were added later. 3. Wealth is important, but at the initial stages of development, the right policies matter more: It is true; a correlation exists between greater wealth and better environmental performance across the cities. It is found affluent cities can invest more money in infrastructure and set aside more generous budgets for environmental oversight. However, money is not everything. Cities with below-average income have outperformed those with higher income (Bogota, Accra). They can produce better results by implementing low-cost projects such as tree planting and payment for waste pickers. The EIU writes (2012), “A central issue for cities in the developing world is to work towards limiting the environmental impact of rising consumption today, rather than waiting for attitudes to change as incomes grow. This can be done by investing in efficient infrastructure, initiating public education campaigns and setting targets – for example, for more renewable energy, green spaces and air quality as well as addressing the growth of informal settlements” (41). 4. Civic engagement: Comparison of cities revealed that cities scoring high in the Green City Index had more volunteerism in the city. Involving people in environmental decisions is considered an essential element toward a green city. More needs to be done to increase citizens’ participation in the decision-making process and access to programs and policies.
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5. The right technology: Technology can play a significant role in reducing environmental impacts and reduce costs for energy, water, or waste disposal. For example, in London technological levers were projected to reduce the city’s total CO2 emission by 44%. Sectors’ technology can have an impact include retrofitting buildings to save energy, waste management, landfill construction to capture methane gas, water filtration and distribution, and adoption of renewable energy like solar power. 6. The green and brown agenda need to go hand in hand: Brown agenda focuses on human health and poverty reduction, and green agenda looks to improve sustainability of ecosystems. In many cities, economic growth or brown agenda tends to dominate urban policies; however, the two agendas go hand in hand. Some of the benefits of green agendas include reduction of municipal waste and sewage, improve the efficiency of energy and water provision, and even create jobs and wealth through investment in infrastructure. 7. Tackle informal settlements: The EIU claims the reason for many African cities ranking low on the Green City Index is because of the 70% of the urban population living in slums. Informal settlements that exist outside of formal planning policies lead to higher pollution through inadequate sewerage and waste management. Inclusion of these settlements in the overall urban agenda tends to lower solid waste pollution.
Conclusion Historically, urbanization has always had a negative impact on the environment. Development of cities was at the cost of natural destruction: clearing forest, polluting rivers and air, and leveling mountains. This trend continues even today across the world. In the decades after the 1970s environmental movement, cities are repositioning themselves as balancing development and environmental conservation. Sustainability has taken hold in urban planning, even
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though it may not take the center stage; environmental values were always discussed. Campbell (1996) discussed how urban planners presented three perspectives on sustainability: (1) The economic development planners view the city as a place where production, consumption, distribution, and innovation happen. Here, the city competes with others for markets and new industries. Space has economic value for highways, market areas, and commuter zones. (2) The environmental planner sees the city as a consumer of resources and generator of wastes. The city always poses threat to nature because of its conversion of resources and land. City space is seen as ecological space for greenways, river basins, and ecological niches. (3) The equity planner sees the city as a space of conflict over the distribution of resources, of services, and of opportunities. The competition happens among different social groups in the city itself. Here, space is a social space of communities, neighborhood organizations, and labor unions. Campbell called them the three corners of the triangle, and the goal of this model is to get to the center where all three goals can be met. In other words, sustainable development can be achieved by getting to the center. Therefore, green city as a sustainable concept is not about greenery or ecological systems alone, but it is about achieving all three – economic, ecological, and equity – with the least possible impact on the environment. In fact, the goal should be to improve the environment while doing green city planning and development. Countries can build sustainable cities by investing in infrastructure and capacity development to narrow social development gaps by increasing access to good-quality public transportation, water and sanitation, health, education, housing, and energy services. Also, they can invest in urban resilience to use more renewable energy sources, create jobs through green growth, retrofit buildings and increase green areas, and adopt adaptation and mitigation strategies. Cities can also improve efficiency in the use of water and electricity and effectively manage waste and recycling systems. Green city can be a vital component for urban planners and governments in achieving sustainable urban development.
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Cross-References ▶ Green Economy and the Transition to Sustainable Development ▶ Heritage, Conservation, and Development ▶ Liveable City: Toward Economic, Social, Cultural, and Environmental Well-Being ▶ Public and Green Spaces in the Context of Sustainable Development ▶ Resilient and Green Building Design/ Construction ▶ Sustainable Urban Planning and Making Sustainable Cities ▶ Urban Ecological Footprints
References Antrobus D (2011) Smart green cities. From modernization to resilience. Urban Res Pract 4(2):207–214 Beatley T (2012) Green urbanism: learning from European cities. Island Press, Washington, DC Campbell S (1996) Green cities, growing cities, just cities?: urban planning and the contradictions of sustainable development. J Am Plan Assoc 62(3):296–312 Carlet F, Schilling J, Heckert M (2017) Greening U.S. legacy cities: urban agriculture as a strategy for reclaiming vacant land. Agroecol Sustain Food Syst 41(8):887–906 EIU (2012) The Green City Index: a summary of the Green City Index research series. Economic Intelligence Unit, London. München, Siemens AG Fei J, Wang Y, Yag Y, Chen S, Zhi Q (2016) Towards ecocity: the role of green innovation. Energy Procedia 104:165–170 Gardner G (2016a) World’s cities at a glance. In: Gardner G, Prugh T, Renner M (eds) Can a city be sustainable? Island Press, Washington, DC Gardner G (2016b) Toward a vision of sustainable cities. In: Gardner G, Prugh T, Renner M (eds) Can a city be sustainable? Island Press, Washington, DC, pp 45–64 GIZ and ICLEI (2012) Discussion paper: green urban economy conceptual basis and courses for action. http://www.citiesalliance.org/sites/citiesalliance.org/files/ ICLEI_GIZ_Green_Urban_Economy_Study_2013_03_ 26_BMZ.pdf Grewal SS, Grewal PS (2012) Can cities become selfreliant in food? Cities 29(1):1–11. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.cities.2011.06.003 Kahn ME (2006) Green cities: urban growth and the environment. The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC Lamphere JA, Shefner J (2017) How to green: institutional influence in three US cities. Crit Sociol 2(44):303–322 Landscape Institute (2013) Green infrastructure: an integrated approach to land use. Landscape Institute
Green Economy and the Transition to Sustainable Development Position Statement. https://www.landscapeinstitute. org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Green-Infrastructure_ an-integrated-approach-to-land-use.pdf Lehmann S (2010) Green urbanism: formulating a series of holistic principles. S.A.P.I.EN.S 3(2). http://journals. openedition.org/sapiens/1057 Mell IC (2017) Greening Ahmedabad- creating a resilient Indian city using a green infrastructure approach to investment. Landsc Res 43:289. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/01426397.2017.1314452 Newman P (2010) Green urbanism and its application to Singapore. Environ Urban ASIA I(2):149–170 OECD (2013) Green growth in cities. OECD green growth studies. OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/ 9789264195325-en Renner M (2016) Reducing the environmental footprint of buildings. In: Gardner G, Prugh T, Renner M (eds) Can a city be sustainable? Island Press, Washington, DC, pp 115–134
Green Economy and the Transition to Sustainable Development Julia Swart and Loek Groot Utrecht School of Economics, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Synonyms Green growth; Low-carbon economy; Sustainable development
Definitions The United Nations (UNEP 2011) defines a green economy as “one that results in improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities” (p. 9). Furthermore, a green economy has three main characteristics: (i) it is low carbon; (ii) it is resource efficient; and (iii) it is socially inclusive. In a more extensive definition, we could add that a green economy encompasses: • Internalization of negative externalities associated with pollution
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• Internalization of positive externalities associated with environmental conservation • Substitution away from unsustainable consumption, production, and energy sources • Efficiency gains in the use of natural resources and less waste generation • Investment in green sectors • Creation of green jobs
Introduction The term green economy and the term sustainable development are often used interchangeably as an all-encompassing representation of development which takes environmental limits into account. Nonetheless, a green economy can be understood as a means to sustainable development. Sustainable development was defined in the report of the Brundtland Commission (1987) and carries a strong fairness distinction between generations and within each generation. The concept of sustainable development emphasizes the connection between environmental degradation and poverty and therefore the need to combat both from a justice-oriented motivation and from an environmental perspective. Accordingly, economic growth and development are possible to be fairly distributed and should be aligned to environmental protection. While doing so, the prospective needs of future generations should be met. The Brundtland Commission report (1987) is widely used as a reference to define sustainable development, even though it has reportedly been criticized for having a “broad vagueness” (Lélé 1991). In contrast, the term green economy is often used without a clear definition of it, which fosters the confusion between the two terms. In this sense, the guidebook prepared by the United Nations (Allen and Clouth 2012) came as an important work to clearly place the term in historical context and relate it to other close terms such as low-carbon economy and green growth. The term green economy has first appeared in Pearce et al. (1989) who do not actually define it but only use it as an embracing title to an analysis of sustainable development and the design of solutions to stimulate environmental conservation
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Green Economy and the Transition to Sustainable Development, Fig. 1 Number of publications with search results in Google Scholar for four key phrases. Notes: data collected on June 6, 2019. The search excluded
citations and patents and used the exact phrases alternatively: “low-carbon economy”; “green economy”; “green growth”; and “sustainable development”
and pollution reduction. The term became more prevalent at the end of the years 2000s, as illustrated in Fig. 1. Since then the term green economy has been increasingly used in academic research. According to Allen and Clouth (2012), the term reappeared in 2008 as a response to the global financial crisis, with the United Nations promoting the adoption of a green package to stimulate the global economy. A green economy is one which is low carbon, is resource efficient, and is socially inclusive. To achieve these three aspects of a green economy requires the adoption of a purposely designed legal and regulatory framework and a set of policy instruments. In this sense, a green economy also comprehends the design and implementation of specific policy instruments targeted at the environment. Furthermore, a broader definition of a green economy requires rethinking trade relations and the international chain of goods to avoid having countries being green at the cost of others. A green economy in this broader sense is globally inclusive and acts to reduce the global ecological footprint. While transitioning toward a green economy, countries should therefore observe a reduction in pollution, reduction in the generation of waste, an increase in environmental preservation, and an increase in natural resources conservation and social cohesion. Essentially the green economy promotes a balance between economy and environment.
Green Economy and Economic Growth A central issue in the green economy debate is whether a green economy can go hand in hand with economic growth. From the definition green economy is a means to sustainable development. In principle, sustainable development can come without economic growth as development and growth do not mean the same thing. Redistributing resources in a fair and environmentally friendly way stimulates the development of a green economy and leads to sustainable development, which can take place without experiencing economic growth. On the other hand, setting the incentives, rules, and regulations for a green economy can serve as a stimulus package to advance economic growth. So, promoting a green economy is compatible with economic growth: to green growth. Green growth, according to the OECD (2011), “is about fostering economic growth and development while ensuring that the natural assets continue to provide the resources and environmental services on which our well-being relies. To do this it must catalyse investment and innovation which will underpin sustained growth and give rise to new economic opportunities.” The concept of a green economy is thus close to the concept of green growth with the main difference that the intention of a green economy is not growth per se, so the focus goes away from measuring GDP toward measuring a variety of indicators encompassing social and environmental features.
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Green Economy and the Transition to Sustainable Development, Fig. 2 CO2 emissions (metric tons per capita). Notes: Based on World Bank, World Development Indicators (WDI) dataset. Data downloaded on 11 June 2019
This change in economic paradigm is an unsettling one. At all levels (personal, local, regional, national, or global), mankind has prioritized economic prosperity. Standards of living and income are seen as synonymous, and developed countries are those whose GDP per capita is above a certain threshold level. The World Bank, for example, classifies countries according to the GNI per capita. It is accepted as a good proxy for standards of living as it has a strong positive correlation with indicators such as life expectancy at birth and enrollment rates in school. Nonetheless, the relationship between GNI/GDP per capita and different environmental indicators does not follow a straightforward positive relationship, neither is there a consensus over an environmental Kuznets curve (see, e.g., Dinda 2004; Stern 2004). In the beginning of the 1960s, high-income countries emitted approximately 36 times more CO2 emissions per capita than low-income countries; 18 times more than lower-middle-income countries; and 6 times more than upper-middleincome countries. With the significant increase in emissions per capita from upper-middle-income countries and a declining trend from high-income countries, these figures changed in 2014, respectively, to 33, 7, and 2 (see also Fig. 2). Thus, whereas on the one hand Fig. 2 indicates evidence of, albeit very modest, greening of high-income countries’ economies through time, on the other
hand, high-income economies are substantially “dirtier” than all other income level economies. Figure 2 also suggests that upper-middle-income economies are becoming less green. Extending this analysis by looking at the sectoral composition of CO2 emissions, Fig. 3 shows similar developments across countries with higher income and with lower income. In general, as income increases, CO2 emissions from electricity and heat production increase in the total share of fuel combustion. Thus, to green the economy, countries should prioritize creating economic incentives to renewable energy. In most developed countries, this implies replacing old electricity and heat production infrastructure based on nonrenewables, such as coal, to new facilities based on renewable sources of energy (solar, wind, hydro). For less wealthy countries, where the demand for electricity and heating is on the rise, this creates an immense opportunity for green growth. Such opportunity must not be missed, as the adoption of electricity and heating production facilities creates lock-in infrastructure with long-term consequences. Besides an unclear relationship between GDP per capita and different environmental indicators, a high GDP per capita does not imply a tendency toward a more green economy because low pollution and resource efficiency often disguise a
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Green Economy and the Transition to Sustainable Development, Fig. 3 Source of CO2 emissions, as percentage of total fuel combustion. Notes: Based on World
Bank, World Development Indicators (WDI) dataset. Data downloaded on 12 June 2019
transfer of pollution and resource depletion elsewhere. Figure 4 shows the top 15 exporters (left panel) and top 15 importers (right panel) of bovine meat. Meat from beef cattle is associated with many environmental externalities, including deforestation, methane emission, and groundwater depletion. Mekonnen and Hoekstra (2010) estimate that on average, every ton of beef cattle meat corresponds to the usage of 15,400 m3 of
water, which is equivalent to filling up approximately 5.5 Olympic swimming pools. Meat has therefore a high content of virtual water, which is the water embedded used throughout the meat production process. The concept of virtual water is closely related to the concept of water footprint which at the country level represents the total amount of water consumed by a given country.
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Green Economy and the Transition to Sustainable Development, Fig. 4 Exports and imports of meat bovine (fresh), percentage of world total, 2016. Notes:
Based on FAO, Food and Agriculture data. Data downloaded on June 14, 2019. Based on export value and import value of meat bovine fresh, item code 1924
Green Economy and the Transition to Sustainable Development, Fig. 5 Consumption of meat, cattle, in US$, 1961–2013. Notes: Based on FAO, Food and Agriculture data. Data downloaded on June 14, 2019. Based on
production value (meat indigenous, cattle; item code 944), export value, and import value of meat bovine fresh, item code 1924. Aggregation based on World Banks’ list of economies classification of June 2018
Figure 5 shows that global consumption of meat is increasing steadily, in particular because of consumption from upper-middle-income countries, such as China, Brazil, and Russia. Consumption from high-income countries remains high but relatively stable. Overall global consumption of meat is expected to keep increasing in the coming years, because of population growth and growth in the global GDP per capita.
Decreasing consumption of environmentally unfriendly goods can be difficult because of social lock-ins. For the case of energy consumption, Maréchal (2010) argue that individual habits refrain their response to incentives to reduce energy consumption. His finding indicates that it is easier therefore to change consumption patterns of new residents. Similarly, at the country level, Fouquet (2016) analyzes the case of path
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dependency on energy systems. Both technological lock-ins and behavioral lock-ins make more advanced countries stuck with the current energy system which is heavily dependent on fossil fuel. Furthermore, this provides strong support for countries which are now industrializing and investing in new infrastructures to critically consider and possibly avoid these high-energyintensity economy lock-ins. To understand the developments made toward greening the global economy, the following sections will present the main indicators to assess economies’ greenness; an example of a current initiative; and the link with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
Green Economy Indicators Countries transitioning to green economies should experience a decrease in carbon intensity, an increase in resource efficiency, and an increase in social inclusion. This would then be reflected in an increase in green investments and green jobs. Bowen and Kuralbayeva (2015) define green jobs as those “associated with environmental objectives and policies” (p. 5) and point out that most green jobs definitions “focus on employment in industries (or specific projects) that produce environmentally beneficial products.” Furthermore, the authors stress that knowledge about the number of green jobs allows to assess how employment is affected by environmental objectives and policies. Green investment, on the other hand, encompasses investment in many different sectors, such as water management, building, and transport. These investments are considered to be green when they allow low-carbon and resource-efficient development. Corfee-Morlot et al. (2012) identify five elements of a green investment policy framework. Figure 6 indicates these elements and illustrates the relationship between harnessing resources and building capacity (element 4) and the promotion of green business and consumer behavior (element 5). The other elements are element 1, strategic goal setting for infrastructure and climate change and the alignment of the
policies across and within the different levels of government; element 2, modifying policies to enable investment and strengthen market incentives for low-carbon climate-resilient infrastructure; and element 3, establishing the financial apparatus to give the support for new green technologies. One way to investigate whether countries are becoming greener is by analyzing the evolution of green jobs and green investments. Yi (2013) conducts a regression analysis for the metropolitan areas in the United States to evaluate the impact of clean energy and climate policies on jobs and finds a positive impact. Böhringer et al. (2012) find that a feed-in tariff policy increased employment in green sectors in Ontario, but overall unemployment increased as a result of the policy. Annandale et al. (2004) analyze green jobs in Australia and find that green jobs growth is higher than other employment growth in the period 1996–2004. However, Bird and Lawton (2009) point to the fact that more jobs might be lost while transitioning to a green economy than created. Overall, there is no consensus in the literature about how the transitioning to a green economy will affect overall employment, even though the transitioning is associated with the creation of green jobs. OECD (2017) raises four sub-questions/areas to answer the main question of whether an economy is experiencing green growth. These areas are related to (i) efficiency of natural resources and environmental services; (ii) the level of the natural asset base; (iii) the benefits created by green initiatives to individuals; and (iv) the generation of economic opportunities. Based on these four areas, OECD (2017) defined a set of 26 indicators to monitor green growth. In addition, a set of socioeconomic indicators are used to monitor the characteristics of growth, in terms of economic development, in particular poverty alleviation and social inclusion. Although extensive, this set of indicators is not exhaustive, and different indicators should be used to take into account local characteristics. Nonetheless, this wide range of indicators, covering diverse things such as biological diversity and training development, makes it unfeasible to classify countries as
Green Economy and the Transition to Sustainable Development Green Economy and the Transition to Sustainable Development, Fig. 6 Toward a policy framework for green investment. (Source: Corfee-Morlot (2012), p. 10. LCR stands for lowcarbon, climate-resilient development)
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1. Strategic goal setting and policy alignment 5. Promote green business and consumer behaviour
2. Enabling policies and incentives for LCR investment
4. Harness resources and build capacity for a LCR economy
3. Financial policies and instruments
experiencing green growth or not. It is therefore a qualitative analysis instead of a classificatory exercise. Similarly, in general the emphasis lies on whether countries are transitioning toward a green economy instead of classifying countries as green or not. Table 1 presents the OECD’s suggested headline indicators to monitor green growth (OECD 2017). These indicators are multidimensional, and their individual analysis through time allows policy makers and other interested parties to have an overview of countries’ development with respect to green growth. Countries experiencing green growth are by definition developing toward a greener economy. In the period from 1990 to 2015, indicators identified by OECD (2017) show that different countries are advancing toward a greener economy through different means. Some countries have invested more in environmental technologies and innovation (e.g., Denmark), whereas others have experienced lower air pollution exposure (e.g., Iceland). Accordingly, the report enforces the need to look into a broad range of indicators. More research is still needed to evaluate development on a more global scale.
Green Economy and the Transition to Sustainable Development, Table 1 – Six headline indicators to monitor green growth plus a placeholder for a future additional indicator Headline indicators Environmental and resource productivity Carbon and energy 1. CO2 productivity productivity Resource productivity 2. Non-energy material productivity Multifactor 3. Environmentally adjusted productivity multifactor productivity Natural asset base Renewable and 4. Natural resource index nonrenewable stocks Biodiversity and 5. Changes in land cover ecosystems Environmental quality of life Environmental health 6. Population exposure to air and risks pollution (PM2.5) Economic opportunities and policy responses Technology and Placeholder: No indicator innovation specified Environmental goods and services Prices and transfers Regulations and management approaches Source: OECD (2017), p. 17
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Transitioning to Green Economies According to Ocampo (2013), green growth and the development of a green economy requires a substantial governmental role. Trade and investment can also help in the transition phase (Cosbey 2011). Khor (2011) lists nine policies and measures to promote a green economy (and thus sustainable development): 1. Recognition of the value of environmental resources, both from a social and from an economic perspective, so that governments can thus internalize the positive externalities associated with environmental resources. 2. The conservation of resources and the restoration of damaged environments and ecosystems. There should be a reconciliation between the short-term benefits of exploring the environment and ecosystems, with the long-term benefits of conserving them. 3. Getting the prices right and guaranteeing that access to basic goods and services will be met. Prices should reflect the real value of the goods and services, such as water, while at the same time guaranteeing access to the poor population. 4. The public sector should have an active role. This active role should encompass regulation and strategic policy-making in industries such that their economic choices become aligned to social and environmental objectives. 5. Market regulation. Governments should create the conditions to incentivize improvement in the environment by setting regulations and incentives for firms to become greener. 6. Acknowledge the link between the livelihoods of rural communities and the environment by fostering the amelioration of their natural environment. 7. Reform existing patterns of consumption. Current patterns of consumption are unsustainable and are placing significant pressure on the environment. 8. Improvement of food security and sustainable agriculture. With the dual objective to eliminate hunger by providing the right to food and increase sustainability in the agricultural
sector, trade relations need to be reviewed and rural livelihoods improved. 9. Enforcing support to developing countries to establish and develop policies and efforts to become greener. This involves providing financial and technological assistance. Around the world initiatives to promote a green economy are taking place. Stimulated by the research and innovation program Horizon 2020, the EU is investing in nature-based solutions. Nature-based solutions are “. . . inspired and supported by nature, which are cost-effective, simultaneously provide environmental, social and economic benefits and help build resilience. Such solutions bring more, and more diverse, nature and natural features and processes into cities, landscapes and seascapes, through locally adapted, resource-efficient and systemic interventions.” Furthermore, “these nature-based solutions provide sustainable, cost-effective, multi-purpose and flexible alternatives for various objectives. Working with nature, rather than against it, can further pave the way towards a more resource efficient, competitive and greener economy. It can also help to create new jobs and economic growth, through the manufacture and delivery of new products and services, which enhance the natural capital rather than deplete it” (EC 2019). There is still little research on nature-based solutions. Those available, however, provide strong support for nature-based solutions to societal and environmental problems. Keestra et al. (2018) find that nature-based solutions can improve soil quality and landscape function, by, for example, decreasing hydrological risks and land degradation. The authors analyze diverse examples of nature-based solutions, including organic farming, land restoration, and wetland construction, and conclude that nature-based solutions can restore ecosystem services and therefore help to realize the sustainable development goals (see next section). CohenShacham et al. (2016) describe ten case studies of nature-based solutions. The success attributed to these case studies is given by their inclusive, integrated approaches; the participation of stakeholders; the presence of a leader to mobilize the peers; the engagement of public and private sectors
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in setting up a partnership; the setup of solutions which are “locally grown”; the simultaneous search to address biodiversity and social benefits; and conducting a valuation analysis of the ecosystem in order to obtain the appropriate funding for the initiative. Maes and Jacobs (2017) argue that there is ample opportunity for nature-based solutions, but it requires dealing with political, economic, and scientific challenges.
Green Economies and the Sustainable Development Goals In September 2015, 193 world leaders met in New York under the umbrella of the United Nations. These leaders agreed to follow 17 sustainable development goals which were set up during the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in 2012. These goals are interconnected and have three general objectives: 1. End extreme poverty 2. Fight inequality and injustice 3. Fix climate change The Sustainable Development Goals (henceforth: SDG) expand on the Millennium Development Goals (a global effort starting in the year 2000 to combat poverty) by incorporating new areas such as climate change and sustainable consumption. In the 2015 meeting the world leaders set goals and targets to be implemented by 2030. Seven out of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals are directly related to the environment (see IAEG-SDGS 2016): • • • •
Goal 6 – Clean water and sanitation Goal 7 – Affordable and clean energy Goal 11 – Sustainable cities and communities Goal 12 – Responsible consumption and production • Goal 13 – Climate action • Goal 14 – Life below water • Goal 15 – Life on land According to UNEP (2019), the green economy is closely related to five of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals:
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• Goal 1 – No poverty • Goal 8 – Decent work and economic growth • Goal 9 – Industry, innovation, and infrastructure • Goal 11 – Sustainable cities and communities • Goal 12 – Sustainable consumption and production All 17 Sustainable Development Goals are related, and therefore they are all somehow connected to the green economy. Moreover, sustainability is a prerequisite to achieve development and alleviate poverty, in particular in poorer countries, whose dependence on the environment is high. Dercon (2014) points out that the poor suffer the most from environmental damage and climate change, because they are often more dependent on agriculture. But also those in the urban areas face difficulties, for example, because of higher exposure to pollution and inadequate access to water and sanitation. Additionally, the poor lack a financial safety net in case of a shock such as a bad harvest and extreme events. Goal 1 – no poverty – foresees that tackling poverty requires a green agenda. A clean and balanced environment provides sources of jobs and income to the poor. This creates a brighter perspective for the future, allowing the poor to stay in their hometowns, which also has the positive effect of diminishing migration with the associated urban planning problems. In particular, Goal 1 encompasses expanding resilience of the poor to environmental shocks. Goal 8 – decent work and economic growth – is closely related to the concept of a green economy, inasmuch as a green economy is one which is socially inclusive. Moreover, two of the targets associated with Goal 8 are linked to the environment. Target 8.4 is to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation, a main component of a green economy; and Target 8.9 stipulates the promotion of sustainable tourism, which has the double objective to stimulate the economy and conserve the environment. All three aspects from Goal 9 – industry, innovation, and infrastructure – need attention to transition to a green economy. A green economy should have greener industries, stimulate green
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innovation, and replace or build infrastructure which is low carbon and resource efficient. Targets 9.1, 9.2, 9.4, and 9.a are all related to the environment. They involve developing sustainable and resilient infrastructure, promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and the adoption of clean technologies and financial support to developing countries to establish green infrastructure. Goal 11 – sustainable cities and communities – is part of a green economy and also related to the concept of a Green City. Sustainable cities and communities involve sustainable transport systems, housing facilities which create inclusion and are sustainable, protection against natural disasters, safe levels of air quality, availability of clean freshwater to all population while considering water conservation, waste management collection, recycling and reuse of materials, and accessibility to green spaces. Sustainable cities and communities contribute to sustained standards of living in the long run by focusing on environmental quality and social equity. Finally, a green economy fosters the realization of Goal 12 – sustainable consumption and production – given that a green economy foresees resource efficiency. To attain Goal 12, it is necessary to reduce waste, increase resource efficiency (e.g., water and energy), and decrease pollution which by contaminating either water, soil, or air can hinder future consumption and production.
Concluding Remarks Green economy is a relatively new concept, with the underlying suggestion that the economy and the environment are not in competing positions. The concept also pertains social inclusion, thus aligning the economy and the environment with social demands. Throughout the world, progress has been made toward greening the economy, particularly in developed countries, but not uniformly and not always in the same direction. More research needs to be done to scrutinize-specific countries achievements and challenges. Additionally, it is fundamental to emphasize and correctly assign how the achievements have been
made. In the end the objective is to have a green world. Praising progress of individual countries toward greening the economy can give a too optimistic view of worldwide trends. In the case of developing countries, Ocampo (2013) proposes an investment-based strategy to bring about the transition toward a green economy, with a role for public and private investment. Technological progress is mostly experienced in developed countries. New environmental technologies need to be adapted and diffused in developing countries, which requires a deliberate technology policy. In this sense, trade policy can also foster the transition toward a green economy by decreasing trade barriers in environmentally friendly goods. Overall, the academic literature seems to agree that greening the economies of developing countries is fundamental for sustainable development. Less agreement exists with how to foster a green growth strategy in developing countries, in particular. For future research it is necessary to expand the work done for developed countries toward developing countries, for example, by applying the green growth indicators proposed by OECD in developing countries. Secondly, research should focus on the types of policies, instruments, and rules and regulations that have been successful and under which context and country. Finally, research needs to address the international linkages between countries, in terms of trade, foreign direct investment, and financing which can collaborate to a greener world.
Cross-References ▶ Green Cities
References Allen C, Clouth S (2012) A guidebook to the green economy. Issue 1: green economy, green growth, and lowcarbon development – history, definition and a guide to recent publication. Division for Sustainable Development/Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations, New York
Green Infrastructures Annandale D, Morrison-Saunders A, Duxbury M-L (2004) Regional sustainability initiatives: the growth of green jobs in Australia. Local Environ 9(1):81–87 Bird J, Lawton K (2009) The future’s green: jobs and the UK low-carbon transition. Institute for Public Policy Research, London Böhringer C, Rivers NJ, Rutherford TF, Wigle R (2012) Green jobs and renewable electricity policies: employment impacts of Ontario’s feed-in tariff. B E J Econ Anal Policy 12(1):1–38 Bouwen A, Kuralbayeva K (2015) Looking for green jobs: the impact of green growth on employment. Policy Brief, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment 1–28 Brundtland Commission (1987) Our common future. Oxford University Press, Oxford Cohen-Shachan E, Walters G, Janzen C, Maginnis S (eds) (2016) Nature-based solutions to address global societal challenges. IUCN, Gland, p xiii + 97 Corfee-Morlot J, Marchal V, Kauffmann C, Kennedy C, Stewart F, Kaminker C, Ang G (2012) Towards a green investment policy framework: the case of low-carbon, climate-resilient infrastructure. OECD environment working papers, no. 48. OECD Publishing, Paris Cosbey A (2011) Trade, sustainable development and a green economy: benefits, challenges and risks. In: The transition to a green economy: benefits, challenges and risks from a sustainable development perspective, report by a panel of experts to second preparatory committee meeting for United Nations conference on sustainable development Dercon S (2014) Is green growth good for the poor? World Bank Res Obs 29:163–185 Dinda S (2004) Environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis: a survey. Ecol Econ 49(4):431–455 EC (2019) Nature-based solutions. https://ec.europa.eu/ research/environment/index.cfm?pg=nbs. Accessed 17 June 2019 Fouquet R (2016) Path dependence in energy systems and economic development. Nat Energy 1:16098 IAEG-SDGs (2016) Final list of proposed sustainable development goal indicators. Report of the interagency and expert group on sustainable development goal indicators (E/C.3/2016/Rev.1), Annex IV Keestra S, Nunes J, Novara A, Finger D, Avelar D, Kalantari Z, Cerdà A (2018) The superior effect of nature based solutions in land management for enhancing ecosystem services. Sci Total Environ 610–611:997–1009 Khor M (2011) Challenges of the green economy concept and policies in the context of sustainable development, poverty and equity. In: The transition to a green economy: benefits, challenges and risks from a sustainable development perspective, report by a panel of experts to second preparatory committee meeting for United Nations conference on sustainable development Lélé SM (1991) Sustainable development: A critical review. World Development. 19(6):607–621 Maes J, Jacobs S (2017) Nature-based solutions for Europe’s sustainable development. Conserv Lett 10(1):121–124
237 Maréchal K (2010) Not irrational but habitual: the importance of “behavioural lock-in” in energy consumption. Ecol Econ 69(5):1104–1114 Mekonnen MM, Hoekstra AY (2010) The green, blue and grey water footprint of farm animals and animal products. Value of water research report series, no. 48. UNESCO-IHE, Delft Ocampo JA (2013) The macro- and mesoeconomics of the green economy. In: Paus E (ed) Getting development right. Palgrave Macmillan, New York OECD (2011) Towards green growth. OECD Green Growth Studies/OECD Publishing, Paris. https://doi. org/10.1787/9789264111318-en OECD (2017) Green growth indicators 2017. OECD Green Growth Studies/OECD Publishing, Paris. https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264268586-en Pearce D, Markandya A, Barbier E (1989) Bluebrint for a green economy. Earthscan, London Stern DI (2004) The rise and fall of the environmental Kuznets curve. World Dev 32(8):1419–1439 UNEP (2011) Towards a green economy: pathways to sustainable development and poverty eradication – a synthesis for policy makers. www.unep.org/ greeneconomy. Accessed 7 June 2019 UNEP (2019) About green economy. https://www. unenvironment.org/explore-topics/green-economy/aboutgreen-economy#ourwork. Accessed 17 June 2019 Yi H (2013) Clean energy policies and green jobs: an evaluation of green jobs in U.S. metropolitan areas. Energy Policy 56:644–652
Green Growth ▶ Green Economy and the Transition to Sustainable Development
Green Infrastructure ▶ Implementation of Green Infrastructure in PostDisaster Recovery
Green Infrastructures ▶ Public and Green Spaces in the Context of Sustainable Development
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Hazards ▶ Business Continuity Planning
Healthy Cities and Sustainable Innovation Shasha Zhao Middlesex University London, Business School, The Burroughs, London, UK
Synonyms Public place; Urban ecology; Urban environment; Well-being
often the lowest administrative level is thus believed to have the power to marshal the resources as well as the political mandate and authority to develop and implement integrative approaches to health (Ashton et al. 1986). It was only since the 1990s that scholars and public bodies started to consider it in the context of developing countries. For example, between 1995 and 1999, the WHO Geneva undertook healthy city projects in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; Fayoum, Egypt; Managua, Nicaragua; and Quetta, Pakistan. These projects marked the shifting political mentality of increasing attention to peripheral regions of the world in terms of improving their living conditions (Harpham et al. 2001; Ramaswami et al. 2016).
Introduction Definitions The concept of “healthy city” has had a long establishment in public health management literature. It was initially used to describe the living conditions of cities in developed economies (Duhl 1986). In the late 1980s, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) European Office initiated a major new project known as “Healthy Cities” – the time when the term started to draw both researcher and policy maker attentions and became widely used. It was used to support public health promotion at the city level. The city being
In this chapter, the conceptualization of healthy city and its characteristics and societal benefits are discussed. To build and sustain healthy cities, a well-established approach found in literature is reviewed. Furthermore, more recent literature has been calling for more effective city-level systems to deal with constant and fast-changing city health conditions as city-immigration is hitting global record high and thus the challenge is ever more difficult. A particularly debated area is the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on health of cities of host countries. Recent emerging
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trend identifiable in recent literature is the seeking and promotion of building technologically smart and resource-sustainable cities. The chapter concludes by highlighting some important future considerations for public policy bodies.
Healthy Cities In literature, cities are increasingly encompassing fast-growing immigration (International Council for Science 2013). It is estimated that during the next three decades, global city populations are likely to grow by three billion. This extraordinary development will impact on the health of cities worldwide in an unprecedented manner. For instance, there are issues of exposure to pollutants, safety, crowding, shelter and sanitation, levels of physical activity, food choices, and social connectivity (Corburn 2009; Ramaswami et al. 2016). At the micro level, these issues are considered causes of common health problems for individuals (including injuries, respiratory diseases, heart disease, diabetes, cancers, and mental disorders, as well as an array of infectious diseases) in modern days (Corburn 2009; Ramaswami et al. 2016). Within each city, inequity in access to infrastructure and resources including transport, education, food, and employment creates barriers to maintaining good health. At the macro level, the way people live in and choose to structure cities has direct impact on the environment, such as loss of biodiversity, changes to ecosystems, and greenhouse gas emissions (International Council for Science 2013). Subsequently, these environmental changes impact reversely on health at the micro level. Hence, for a city to be considered “healthy” at both micro and macro level, it generally embeds 11 key characteristics, according to the WHO and Corburn (2009). They are: 1. A clean and safe physical environment of a high quality (including housing) 2. An ecosystem that is stable and sustainable in the long term 3. A strong mutually supportive and nonexploitative community
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4. A high degree of participation, and control, by the citizens over the decisions affecting their lives, health, and well-being 5. The meeting of basic needs (i.e., food, water, shelter, income, safety, and work) for all 6. Access to a wide variety of experiences and resources, with the chance for a wide variety of contact, interaction, and communication 7. A diverse, vital, and innovative economy 8. The encouragement of connectedness with the past, with the cultural and biological heritage of city dwellers, and with other groups and individuals 9. A form that is compatible with and enhances the preceding characteristics 10. An optimum level of appropriate public health and sickness care services, accessible to all 11. High health status (i.e., high levels of positive health and low levels of disease)
Major Societal Benefits of Healthy Cities There are many benefits identifiable in literature to having healthy cities regardless of the country. In particular, healthy cities are recognized by scholars to play the role of addressing effectively some of the most pressing issues, which can include zero hunger, clean water and sanitation, sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, climate change, and peace, justice, and strong institutions. Each of these issues and benefits is discussed next. Zero hunger. The first benefit of a healthy city is that it can ensure access to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food by all through increased access to healthy options (e.g., organic foods market); provide individuals with clear information to make healthier choices (e.g., food labelling); and restrict or disincentivize the availability of unhealthy foods and beverages (Rice et al. 2017; Vaudrin et al. 2018). Clean water and sanitation. The second benefit of a healthy city is that it can ensure efforts and attention of public bodies are given to increase access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation for large segments of the population. It also
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provides, in place, appropriate waste disposal and pollution management to minimize damage to human health and the natural environment (Njoh 2016; Rietveld et al. 2016). Sustainable cities and communities. The third benefit of a healthy city is that it ensures better housing, reduced overcrowding, and more habitable residential areas. This helps to minimize the risk of airborne illnesses as a result of substandard housing, as suggested by research evidence. A healthy city encourages better city planning to prioritize increased access to safe transport systems, green and public spaces, and emergency responses to natural disasters, which together reduce road traffic deaths, improve air quality, and promote physical activity (Sallis et al. 2016; Vuchic 2017; The WHO n.d.). Responsible consumption and production. The fourth benefit of a healthy city is that it ensures unsustainable consumption and production patterns that can harm the environment and human health is minimized, if not eliminated. The harm can potentially result from either air pollutants, contaminated water supplies, or food losses. A healthy city sets in place rigorous environmental regulations to ensure that both local and foreign companies’ processes and products are not gained through causing irreversible damage to either human health or the environment, such as city pushes local and transnational corporations, and supports individuals, to adopt sustainable practices for the health of both the planet and its people (Crane and Matten 2016). Climate action. The fifth benefit of a healthy city is that it recognizes severe weather can cause significant impact on health, as a result of, for example, disruption to food supplies or spread of waterborne illness. A healthy city can reduce the environmental damage caused by excessive carbon emissions and improve air quality by promoting physical activities (e.g., walking or cycling). It is often considered a major pathway toward climate change mitigation (Campbell-Lendrum and Corvalán 2007; Harlan and Ruddell 2011). Peace, justice, and strong institutions. The sixth benefit of a healthy city is that it offers peace and inclusion. It eliminates physical and mental violence to all in the way of providing
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safe places to live, work, and play. It also sets in place easily accessible justice support for those who are marginalized or disadvantaged (Mitchell 2003).
The Policy-Oriented Approach to Managing Healthy Cities With an effort to build and sustain healthy cities, it has been noted in the literature that policy makers and urban planners have been paying particular attention to several key policy-related dimensions. These include policies covering four key areas: population health, places, processes, and power (Corburn 2009; Rein and Schön 1994). The reason that the political lens was viewed as necessary and useful by scholars was because it allowed for establishment of effective urban development policies and it was generally believed that how policy issues were framed at the outset affected the quality of solutions to having a healthy city (Rein and Schön 1994). Next, the four areas are discussed. Population health. Population health is concerned with assessing and addressing reasons behind some social groups being healthier than others while paying attention to how social inequalities determine health inequities (Evans and Stoddart 1990; Corburn, 2009). Two central questions raised by scholars in the field were as follows: “what explains the distribution of disease and well-being across populations?” and “what drives current and changing patterns of inequalities in well-being across population groups?” By emphasizing distribution as distinct from causation, population health concerns how social, political, and economic forces shape which groups get sick, die earlier, and suffer unnecessarily (Corburn 2009; The WHO 2008). It calls for policies which address the differences in health conditions as a result of conditions such as social status, level of education, and employment status. Place. The influence of place is increasingly recognized as major, if not the most important, determinant of human well-being (Diez-Roux 2001; Geronimus 2000). City characteristics, such as affordable housing, access to healthy
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food, employment opportunities, quality education, public transportation, social networks, and cultural expression, are social determinants of health and so fall within the domain of urban management (Corburn 2009). However, it is noted that the role of place in urban planning and policy remains controversial, particularly in debates over whether place-based policies can address urban and regional inequality (Dreier et al. 2004). Processes. This policy dimension seeks to move practice beyond a focus on people and places by emphasizing the processes that shape health-promoting opportunities for people- and place-based characteristics (Corburn 2009). Urban policy making has long debated whether to focus either on improving opportunities for individuals or the qualities of places (Bolton 1992). In a world of limited resources, peoplebased and place-based policies are often pitted against one another (Corburn 2009). However, some later research seems to suggest a discourse by emphasizing that not only are policies focused on people and place critical for healthy cities, but that greater attention needs to be paid to the institutional processes that shape these policies. Institutions are not just the formal structures or procedures of government but rather an established way of addressing certain social issues (Healey 1999). The institutionalist view examines when established processes (such as environmental impact assessment) might best promote the goals of a healthy city (Corburn 2009). Power. The fourth political dimension concerns resolution of power inequalities in cities. Questions of who has power, where it derives from, how it is deployed, and to what ends are seminal in urban politics (Banfield 1961; Dahl 1961). Power in healthy city policy making includes the ability to affect institutional, disciplinary, and bureaucratic changes (Corburn 2009). Power relationships can place constraints on group or individual abilities to resist exposure to material and social health hazards. For example, any effort to improve the quality of life in cities must also address the power inequities
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perpetuated by structural racism or misplaced social privilege (Massey and Denton 1993; Greenberg and Schneider 1994).
The Debate on Impact of FDI on City Environment One of the most debated areas in economic literature is the impact of FDI on host locations, which concerns predominantly developing countries. FDI takes place when a multinational corporation from one country establishes a business operation in a particular city of another country, through setting up a new wholly owned affiliate, or acquiring a local company, or forming a joint venture in the host economy. While these types of operations make distinctive contributions to host city welfare, they also cause distinctive dangers or harmful threats to host city and thus pose distinctive policy challenges to local governments (Moran 2012). In recent years, China has experienced rapid export-driven economic growth enhanced by large investment flows originated overseas. According to Cole et al. (2011), since 2000, economic growth rates have consistently exceeded 8% (World Bank 2007), while China now receives more FDI than any other developing economy and by 2005 ranked among the world’s top three recipients with inflows of $72 billion (UNCTAD 2007). However, it is generally accepted that these economic gains have come at a cost as out of the 25 most polluted cities in the world, 17 of them are in China. Resultantly, a significant number of people die prematurely each year as a result of air pollution. In line with finding answers to cases such as China, much literature has examined the impact of economic growth on the environment of cities using panel data, and results have been mixed. Drawing on the work of Cole et al. (2011), on the one hand, early studies claimed to find an inverted U-shaped relationship between income and pollution, known as an environmental Kuznets curve. On the other hand, more recent studies have subjected the curve to growing scrutiny and generally urge caution when interpreting
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results (Harbaugh et al. 2002; Stern 2001). Thus far, only a limited number of studies investigate the role played by FDI in cities of developing economies. These studies incorporate the FDI location decision with environmental regulations in play as well as the impact on environmental pollution at city level. Their results show very limited impact on industrial SO2 emissions (Cole et al. 2011). Similarly, other studies examine the environmental impact of FDI in cities by suggesting a “pollution halo” around multinational corporations. This means those firms are in fact less pollution intensive than domestic firms (Cole et al. 2011). Possible reasons behind multinational corporations being “greener” than domestic firms include access to more innovative technologies and management systems to meet increasingly environmentally conscious consumers (Pinkse and Kolk 2010). This view was shared by Meyer (2004) who notes that multinational firms are concerned with reputation and being seen to be corporately responsible or the potential dangers of damaging their global brand as a result of possible scandals in developing economies. He argues that emergence of globalization increases institutional and customer pressures on reputable firms to surpass local requirements in developing economies. The transfer of modern, environmentally friendly technology and production processes by these firms, which improve the standards prevalent in the host economy, causes a pollution halo effect. These firms employ their innovative technology and systems can better realize economies of scale in engineering standards for design, equipment purchases, and maintenance, integrate global value chain, and reduce liability from regulatory changes (Meyer 2004). More examples include the study by Eskeland and Harrison (2003) which shows that foreign investors are more efficient in using energy, an important aspect of environmental impact. However, there is another side to the argument which is that many multinational FDI are made in cities for the reason of much less-regulated conditions. For instance, Meyer (2004) suggests that the impact of multinational corporations on the
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cities of host economies can also be negative. It is believed that these multinational corporations choose to transfer outdated technology to much less-regulated cities – a pollution haven effect. It is suspected that multinational firms evade strict environmental standards in their home countries and locate to pollution havens, thus triggering a “race to the bottom” in environmental standards (Meyer 2004). However, this view is increasingly out of date as compliance costs are small relative to total costs of production and legal changes in developing countries have narrowed the regulatory gap that may have existed in the 1970s. Thus, there is reduced incentive to escape environmental regulation at home country as an important motivation for FDI (Jaffe et al. 1995; Dasgupta et al. 2002; Meyer 2004).
Recent Shift Toward Innovation for Smart and Sustainable Cities Infrastructure design and socio-spatial disparities within cities are emerging as critical determinants of human health and well-being (Ramaswami et al. 2016). It has been noted in more recent literature that cities are presented with several health risks pertaining to infrastructure, including inaccessibility to food and water by households, designs of residential areas that inhibit active living, clean air and water, or severe weather conditions contributed by climate change. It is noted that socioeconomic disparities often shape exposure to the various risk factors and mediate and modulate the health outcomes. Addressing these diverse social, environmental, and infrastructural risk factors represents a new paradigm for urban public health. For example, the WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States recommend community-based participatory health planning that connects local capacities with infrastructure. Making these connections is challenging, calling for frameworks that can connect diverse data and processes across scales to support action. In particular, one of the influential works is by Ramaswami et al. (2016) who proposed eight principles for transforming
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cities into smart, sustainable, healthy ones. In reference to their work, the eight principles are discussed next: 1. Focus on providing and innovating basic infrastructure for all. Affordable water, energy, sanitation, and transportation have long been recognized as important for all cities but have been difficult to attain in some cases, often because of rapid in-migration, unplanned urban expansions, and challenges in infrastructure financing. For instance, with 30–40% of the population in several cities in Asia living in slums, a healthy city must prioritize basic infrastructure for all. Many smart-city discussions focus on innovative and equitable solutions such as fit-for-purpose point-of-use household water treatment in Chinese cities, automatic water dispensers in Indian cities, and prioritization to support nonmotorized transportation in compact mixed-use urban neighborhoods. 2. Pursue dynamic cross-sector health improvements, with attention to eliminating inequities. Cities need to strive to address health priorities in way of considering infrastructural, environmental, and sociocultural factors. Such an approach could lead to weather and air pollution forecasts that can provide customized messaging to vulnerable populations, neighborhood-level health interventions, more equitable access to nutritious food and green spaces, and greater attention to sociocultural assets that enhance quality of life and human well-being. 3. Focus on cross-sector synergies for improved resource efficiency. As city populations grow, consumption is likely to increase and thus impact on environment. To address this, cities must be able to enhance their resource efficiency. Research suggests that an optimally dense urban form, with a high intensity of diverse co-located activities, creates opportunities for systemic cross-sector infrastructure interventions, yielding the highest-efficiency gains. Advanced district energy systems that use energy cascading, exchange, and storage across industries, power plants, buildings, transportation, water, solid waste management,
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and renewable energy production offer tremendous potential. 4. Recognize diverse strategies for resource efficiency in different types of city. A technologyoriented view of smart cities can result in translating high-efficiency solutions from one country to another, where they may not work as equally effective. For example, for tightly insulated, highly instrumented, all-day centrally cooled and heated buildings which are energy-efficient for countries such as the United States, it may not be considered efficient when applied to the more vernacular architecture and informal user practices of Chinese apartments, which tend to be spot-cooled over short periods of time, which thus greatly reduces resource intensity. 5. Integrate vernacular technologies. Cities can seek local knowledge and systems-level understanding of different solution configurations. For example, local plants that convert solid waste to energy are not as effective in cities of developing countries. The waste streams have lower calorific value, having been sifted through by the informal sector of waste pickers who recycle extensively waste paper and plastics, which creates greater systems efficiency in terms of material cycling while also promoting local livelihoods. Formalizing and integrating the expertise of waste pickers with state-of-theart information and waste-to-energy technologies can create hybrid solutions, illustrated, for example, by India’s recently revised solid waste management regulations. 6. Apply transboundary systems analysis to inform decisions about localized versus larger-scale infrastructure. Driven by goals of local self-reliance, efficacy, and anticipated health and well-being benefits, cities are increasingly focusing on more localized infrastructures, such as rooftop solar installations, community-supported city farms, and apartment-scaled wastewater treatment plants. Improved information about transboundary environmental footprints and local well-being impacts are critical to clarify synergies and trade-offs between local and larger-scale infrastructure networks.
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7. Recognize coevolution of infrastructures and institutions. Matching the scale of engineered infrastructures with that of the institutions with which they must operate is key. For example, neighborhood-scale city farms, solar gardens, and waste management systems will require new levels of coordination among homes, neighborhood associations, businesses, and local governments. At the same time, technology can change institutions; for example, widespread deployment of sensors is enabling remote surveillance of distributed water and wastewater systems. 8. Create capacity and transparent infrastructure governance across sectors. Some cities have created sustainability offices that are empowered to convene multiple city departments, and many are leveraging multi-level and cross-national policy-exchange networks. With the smart-city agenda requiring hightechnology expertise, greater involvement of the private sector in infrastructure delivery is inevitable. Many cities are initiating publicprivate partnerships and special financing for smart-city development (Ramaswami et al. 2016).
Conclusion While it is acknowledged that the intended consequences of healthy city policy interventions are likely to be beneficial to all, unintended, negative consequences are also likely to occur. For example, it is noted by the International Council for Science (2013) that there is an increasing use of household water tanks to collect rainwater in urban areas – for human consumption and other purposes. If not well managed, these water tanks can become breeding sites for mosquitoes capable of transmitting dengue virus and other pathogens. Another example is the potential for allergy to some species of flowering trees and plants using in urban greening campaigns. Thus, a wellplanned and carefully implemented management program, supported by effective data gathering, can help to mitigate such unintended consequences. Public bodies and policy makers must
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ensure they are capable of dealing with all emerging urban issues as population in cities continue to grow to record level.
Cross-References ▶ Smart City Development: ICT Innovation for Urban Sustainability ▶ Sustainable Development ▶ Urban Planning
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Heritage, Conservation, and Development Martina M. Keitsch Department of Design, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
Synonyms Contextual; Interdependent; Transdisciplinary
Definitions Heritage: Etymologically‚ “heritage” from Latin “hereditare” denotes a “condition or state transmitted from ancestors” (Etymology Dictionary 2018). Heritage comprises physical artifacts and/or intangible practices, activities and attributes of groups or communities through time, and can be categorized in natural and cultural heritage. The World Heritage Convention (2018) defines natural heritage as follows: “Natural features consisting of physical and biological
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formations or groups of such formations, which are of outstanding universal value from the aesthetic or scientific point of view; geological and physiographical formations and precisely delineated areas which constitute the habitat of threatened species of animals and plants of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation; natural sites or precisely delineated natural areas of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science, conservation or natural beauty.” The Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society (Faro Convention 2005) defines cultural heritage in Article 2 as “. . .a group of resources inherited from the past which people identify, independently of ownership, as a reflection and expression of their constantly evolving values, beliefs, knowledge and traditions.” Currently, approaches that merge natural and cultural heritage, for example, regarding the evolution of historical landscapes and/or complex urban landscapes, are getting more common in heritage conservation (Dümke and Gnedovsky 2013). Conservation: According to Merriam Webster the term describes the careful preservation and protection of something. Conservation includes management to prevent destruction or neglect. Heritage conservation concerns among others to counteract deterioration of historically and culturally important buildings and artifacts and structures or preservation of environments such as parks or gardens. Development: The Cambridge Dictionary describes “development” as a process in which someone or something grows or changes and becomes or is made more advanced. This description indicates improvements of economic, political, and social structures for citizens for their wellbeing on a sustainable, long-term basis.
Investigating Dimensions of Heritage, Conservation, and Development This entry discusses heritage, conservation and development, and their relationships by drawing on state-of the-art research literature. A major
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challenge for any contemporary society lies in facilitating satisfying relationships between heritage, peoples’ cultural activities, and sustainable development. In this context, cultural sustainability is becoming an important factor in the sustainability debate (Nurse 2006; Wessels 2006). The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) explains that development that is responsive to the cultural context and considers the particularities of a place and community is likely to yield sustainable, inclusive, and equitable outcomes (2012). Currently, Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11: “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable,” (United Nation Development Program, UNDP) emphasizes the role of culture and heritage, especially in target 11.4 that calls for strengthening efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage. Interpreting heritage, conservation, and development as interdependent, the entry presents an introduction to recent main ideas regarding these domains. Addressing and illustrating the complexities of their relationships, heritage, conservation, and development are illustrated with reference to urban space and stakeholder participation, and possibilities and challenges are discussed. The entry concludes with two methodological suggestions for balancing heritage, conservation, and development with regard to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
Ideas of Heritage, Conservation, and Development Ideas of natural and cultural heritage are based on multifaceted value systems. These ideas are changing because value systems differ historically and spatially. Values of heritage are also recognized differently by stakeholders. In this sense, heritage representations such as cultural landscapes, buildings, and objects have a symbolic character and contribute to identity development and preservation (Tilley 2006).
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Currently, concepts of cultural heritage empathize at least two perspectives. First, heritage is considered to bridge past and future with particular applications in the present, for example, through conservation. This historical view understands heritage consisting of elements that allow societies on the one hand to reflect and reshape their past, to grasp the presence, and to plan for the future (Ashworth 2008; Harrison 2013). Heritage plays here the role of a medium, where both cultural memory and cultural representations meet. Holtorf (2008) refers to cultural memory as human collective understanding of the past in any given social and historical context. Second, concepts that acknowledge the importance of local heritage are gaining momentum, supplementing concepts that discuss heritage conservation on national and global levels. Connections to heritage and to activities such as preservation of buildings or objects and maintaining traditions are seen as an important element of developing both community and personal identity. Besides acknowledging the contextual value of heritage, this view also reflects its social value as a result of selections, negotiations, and trade-offs, involving multiple stakeholders (Graham et al. 2000). Heritage decisions and development are accompanied and influenced by cultural, social, and economic activities of certain societal groups. Issues on identity, meaning, and values indicate the probability of conflicting notions of ownership attached to heritage and ultimately conflicting sets of values and interests. Wang and Sauerlia (2014) illustrate that in cultural heritage, conservation and sustainability issues, conflicts, and challenges are linked to diverse stakeholders, which have to be taken into account. In relation to development, cultural heritage conservation can have both positive and negative impact on community activities, resilience, and well-being. For example, broadening access to historic sites and allowing local participation raise interest in the history of the people, places, and traditions (Yung et al. 2017). On the other hand, forced heritage conservation, evictions, and restrictions are often threats to communities.
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The Washington Charter, Article 3 stated already in 1987: “The participation and the involvement of the residents are essential for the success of the conservation programme and should be encouraged” (Washington Charter 1987). The conservation of historic towns and urban areas concerns first of all their residents.” Within this context, conservation challenges present themselves as development challenges (ICOMOS 1987). Wang and Sauerlia (2014) point that historical, contextual, and symbolic values of heritage comprise tasks for conservation professionals and decision-makers, for example, to ensure that residents and stakeholders understand, appreciate, and ideally support conservation work and to balance reconstruction and requirements of preservation with contemporary living conditions and private economic interest.
Sustainable Development Concepts and contents of sustainable development have undergone significant transformations, since the first definition of the term by the World Commission on Environment and Development, as “. . .development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (1987, 46). These transformations indicate that sustainable development requires a continually revised understanding of many ideas and strategies. For example, lacking knowledge has to be identified, and sustainable innovation should be directed to meet new emerging challenges. Robinson explains: “Sustainability . . .is itself the emergent property of a conversation about what kind of world we collectively want to live in now and in the future.” The history of sustainable development started at least two decades before the World Commission on Environment and Development coined the term sustainable development. Ideas about corresponding progress, growth, equity, and resources emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s (Du Pisani 2006). Environmental concern was partly triggered by the fear that economic growth might endanger the survival of the human race and the planet, and was expressed
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by authors such as Glick: “. . .if we continue our present practices we will face a steady deterioration of the conditions under which we live” (Glick, in Dubos et al. 1970, 2). In 1972, The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, 1972, Article 3) stated that “. . .In our time, man’s capability to transform his surroundings, if used wisely can bring to all peoples the benefit of development and the opportunity to enhance the quality of life. Wrongly or heedlessly applied, the same power can do incalculable harm to human beings and human environment.” Further, “To defend and improve the human environment for present and future generations has become an imperative goal for mankind” (Stockholm Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, 1972, Article 3). Responding to the environmental crisis, the sustainable development paradigm focused initially mainly on economic and environmental aspects of interactions between humans and nature with the aim to satisfy human needs within the limited boundaries of the ecosphere. The original intention of sustainable development was thus to coordinate and manage the vitality of nature’s ecological systems with economic activities. Consequently, a natural science approach gained momentum, putting sustainability at the center of attention for scientific analyses and action, while ethical and cultural dimensions were seldom part of the debate. In the beginning of the twenty-first century, the former unquestioned ideology of the manageability of nature within a framework of constant economic growth and Westernized consumer culture became however a major criticism of the sustainable development paradigm (Du Pisani 2006). Successively, the idea solidified that human life quality is as depended on the existence of other species and natural environments as humans’ material needs. Further, the insight that economic, social, and ecological development intrinsically depend on each other was reflected conceptually and methodologically (e.g., Holling 2001; Ostrom 2009). Acknowledgment of the challenge to harmonize tensions between nature
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and culture remained tacit until recently. In 2015, the UN Open Working Group proposal for the Sustainable Development Goals stated in point 9: “Rio+20 affirmed the conviction that in order to achieve a just balance among the economic, social and environmental needs of present and future generations, it is necessary to promote harmony with nature. It acknowledged the natural and cultural diversity of the world, and recognized that all cultures and civilizations can contribute to sustainable development (UN Open Working Group 2015).” In the last two decades, heritage, conservation, culture, and sustainable development become closer connected, conceptually as well as practically. In 2011, the UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape suggested a holistic approach that balances conservation with the triple bottom line, i.e., social, economic, and environmental sustainability. This relates, for example, to how historic city parts affected by environmental damages such as air pollution, increasing solid waste, and water pollution (Appendino 2017; Nocca 2017). Strategies, policies, and technologies to integrate sustainability in maintaining tangible and intangible heritage are still in an infancy stage (Richard and Wilson 2007), however, successively sustainable development becomes part of heritage and conservation and vice versa, represented, e.g., SDG 11 and the “New Urban Agenda” that appraises cultural heritage as an important factor for urban sustainable development (New Urban Agenda 2017). Culture is crucial “in rehabilitating and revitalizing urban areas, and in strengthening social participation and the exercise of citizenship” (New Urban Agenda 2017, point 38) thus contributing to generate viable communities (New Urban Agenda 2017, points 45 and 60). Nocca (2017, 4) points out: “The definition of Historic Urban Landscape . . .is the latest specific contribution of the international debate on the identification, conservation, and enhancement of cultural heritage. The Historic Urban Landscape. . .the ‘historic layering of cultural and natural values and attributes’ incorporates the intangible dimension of heritage. . . .This
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approach recognizes the necessity to support . . .cultural and natural heritage in a world characterized by rapid and uncontrolled urbanization, integrating heritage conservation into the transformation strategies and projects.” On a transnational level, the document Towards an Integrated Approach to Cultural Heritage for Europe (European Commission 2014) acknowledges the “intrinsic and social value of heritage” as a strategic resource for sustainable development.
Cultural Sustainability Heritage and Conservation According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO 2011), development interventions that are responsive to the cultural and environmental context and the particularities of a place and community and that advance a human-centered approach to development are most effective and likely to yield sustainable, inclusive, and equitable outcomes (UNESCO 2012). Interpreting this statement, some authors suggest that culture should be regarded as the fourth pillar of sustainability. Wessels (2006) states, e.g., that adding culture on its own merits to the ecological, economic, and social pillar creates a holistic approach to sustainability. Cultural sustainability looks at ways to improve life quality of citizens, for example, by providing a viable inheritance for future generations. This requires the recognition of local cultural values, equal rights, and providing support for community-based, people-centered, and participatory approaches. Further, the promotion of cultural diversity and the preservation and conservation of tangible and intangible (local) cultural heritage are considered key aspects (Wessels 2006). Historically, comprehensive ideas on heritage, conservation, and development, which emphasize, e.g., social and economic benefits accompanying the preservation of cultural heritage, have existed some for decades. The World Heritage Convention stated already in 1972 that: “. . .the cultural heritage and the natural heritage are
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increasingly threatened with destruction not only by the traditional causes of decay, but also by changing social and economic conditions which aggravate the situation with even more formidable phenomena of damage or destruction.” Recently, Rodwell (2007, 8) points at the common connotations of conservation and sustainability – to manage resources and achieve enhancement for both the natural environmental and peoples’ quality of life. In this sense, “Conservation means all the processes of looking after a place so as to retain its cultural significance.” In the 2003 “Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage,” the UNESCO provided a framework protecting “living heritage” globally. The term “living heritage” overlaps with the term “intangible cultural heritage.” The UNESCO understands living heritage as the fundament of communities and as essential source of identity and continuity. Aspects of living heritage include tradition, oral history and narratives, performing arts, social practices, rituals and festive events, knowledge concerning nature and cosmos, and indigenous skills, techniques, and craftsmanship. The UNESCO emphasizes particularly nature-culture relationships, local participation, and inherent dynamics of living heritage: “Intangible cultural heritage refers to living practices and expressions passed down from generation to generation. These living traditions are constantly recreated by communities in response to their environment, their relationship with nature and their history. . . The 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage . . . places individuals and communities at the heart of efforts to ensure its viability. In this way, intangible cultural heritage can become a fundamental factor in sustainability, a catalyst for meaning and energy, a source of creativity and innovation, and a resource to meet new challenges and find appropriate solutions” (UNESCO News 2013). In terms of social and cultural sustainability, living heritage also plays an important normative role in promoting values such as cultural diversity, social cohesion, reconciliation, peace, and economic development. Court et al. (2015) suggest that these values can be realized through
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participation, here people-centered approaches, and suggest that the community should play a genuine, self-driven role to manage conservation of cultural heritage. Stakeholders, such as policymakers, conservationists, and architects, should be familiar with the local context and needs, so that long-lasting benefits for the community can be achieved. Court et al. remark that peoplecentered approaches benefit even disadvantaged communities to develop capacities and assets that can advance their own development and heritage resources. Theoretically, heritage conservation is increasingly tied to concepts on social sustainability to achieve better coherence and acceptance. Newer theories emphasize the sense of community, locality, social interaction, cohesion, and inclusion in line with sustainable development and heritage conservation strategies (Rodwell 2007). Further, collaboration, cooperation, and partnership among various stakeholders in local and global level have received growing attention in the literature (Chapagain 2008; Aas et al. 2005; Rahman 2013). The notion of “culture” entails underlying belief systems, values, experiences, and worldviews, which contribute to shape relationships as well as interactions and practical actions within the environment (Nurse 2006). In this sense, cultural sustainability and heritage conservation in, e.g., urban space connects with the embodied knowledge of the stakeholders. Several contemporary concepts show an increased recognition and interest in the empowerment of local actors and collaboration between different stakeholders in heritage and conservation projects, addressing needs more fully along with national and global priorities (Walker and Devine-Wright 2008; UNESCO 2013). Both local people and community groups (users) and external stakeholders play significant roles for implementing and maintaining heritage conservation (Court and Wijesuriya 2015). People-Centred Approaches to the Conservation of Cultural Heritage: Living Local people own “embodied” information, developed throughout generations as their “culture.” The notion of
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“embodiment” refers to a phenomenological concept of spatiality and humans’ experience of space (Relph 1976). According to Relph (1976), the very quality of space lies in the potential to organize human values, experiences, and activities spatially. An important point is that a place can have different identities for different users and that these identities change dynamically, relating to embodied information and activities that connect these users with places. From a cultural heritage point of view, this phenomenological perspective invites to revisit ideas of “heritage” and methodologically by including narratives on daily experiences and “ways of living” in planning and collaboration decisions and activities (Keitsch and Singh 2014). McCoy and Scully (2002, 120) put it as follows: “People want to be part of community . . . and to make progress on the issues that are important to them. They need opportunities that allow them to make the best use of their skills and time. They need to be invited to participate by those they know and trust.” Normatively, inclusion means orientation toward participation and strive for a mutual trust building, initiative taking, motivation, and ownership. Community groups, facing environmental, economic, and social transformations, change internally in order to adapt. However, groups and stakeholders such as conservationists, architects, planners, and others involved in the heritage conservation process are not only challenged to adapt but to couple innovation with the protection of local values, beliefs, and identity. Connecting users and stakeholders through various cultural activities is mentioned by some authors as a promising practice to encourage mutual trust. Involvement in common activities for heritage conservation might also present an opportunity for the broader public to gain some stakes. Additionally, sharing cultural practices within a context of local knowledge, skills, and heritage management can be a motor for future common actions and is thus not just a driver of inclusion, social mobility, and economic stability but can play a key role in creating sustainable environments (Keitsch and Singh 2014). External stakeholders such as decision-makers on national and
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global levels can thereby facilitate local peoples’ knowledge of heritage strategies and would thereby become a valuable resource for conservation projects. Regarding, for example, the conservation of tangible heritage in the form of monuments and buildings, which are still in use for various cultural and social activities, a people-centered or inclusive approach should address the need for restoration in line with users’ needs, e.g., to have a safe and suitable space for rituals and other cultural activities. When community members (users) and stakeholders start repairing, e.g., parts of a temple, this is an internal affair for the users, and they will think of the project as their own (Keitsch and Singh 2014). However, the restoration of the monuments is might also be in the interest of governmental and commercial stakeholders and other organizations who have different conservation requirements. In fact, community members often face technical and bureaucratic barriers when getting involved in heritage conservation. This is partly due to their lack of policy, technical, and organizational knowledge. Eventually, community members and groups might also be confronted with economic hurdles, which generates the necessity to include more stakeholders, sometimes even farer from the locality, such as international donors. Comprising diverging interests and requirements from the donors, regulatory bodies, and need of technical experts, the project scales up with mounting financial, bureaucratic, and technical challenges. While the community members and groups see their attachment to the project through the lens of the usability to perform their cultural activities, the external stakeholders see the project’s technical attributes, architectural features, regulations and policies, or economic benefit. These variations in perceptions can result in inter- and intragroup conflicts, which is often a major factor for halting a project’s process. Anticipation of potential conflicts between stakeholders and mitigation strategies can reduce this risk (Keitsch and Singh 2014). Social sustainable development in heritage conservation acknowledges the fact that local groups have embodied information and developed
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traditions and knowledge throughout generations as their “culture.” Culture shapes not only relationships and practical actions within the natural environment, but culture, heritage, and conservation can contribute to community viability, for example, through economic development. Nocca (2017) emphasizes, for example, that local products as elements of both heritage and local identity can mediate values of a community and to contribute to income generation, representing a strong connection between a product and its place of origin. Small sustainable businesses and local entrepreneurs can develop ways to compete with mass-produced commodified culture, which may contribute to increase economic growth. Simultaneously local governments can promote sustainable, local production to strengthen communities’ identity, activities, and social bonds simultaneously maintaining triple bottom-line principles. Ideally, local resources can give access to both strength of local economy and of local culture and to sustainable everyday activities. In practice, balancing economic opportunities and cultural values in a community is challenging. While cultural knowledge and practices often form a solid common ground locally, culture as commodity can shift power balances internally among community members and bring external forces into play, for example, when investors, travel agencies, tourist associations, and promoters convert local culture to an income source without compensation of the locals (Gurung 2018). Changes can lead to growing inequity, incongruence, and rising exclusion. Sometimes local level control may lead to the self-destructive pathways, misusing the space, and asserting social injustice and environmental decay. These kinds of instabilities and conflicts require governmental interventions as ultimate regulation mechanisms to provide the future sustainability for the community and stakeholders. Projects that deal with sustainable conservation and heritage development will henceforth have to consider solutions that connect sustainability, heritage conservation, and the community’s thriving and well-being, i.e., pay attention to cultural viability, economic affluence, environmental resilience, and social equity.
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Conclusion Recent research literature on heritage, conservation, and development increasingly acknowledges that heritage has meaning on multiple levels, which is served best by transdisciplinary methodologies and approaches that can be developed and used worldwide. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) define a future development agenda for 2015–2030 meant to encourage the international community to move toward a global sustainable future in the next few decades. The aims of sustainable development (SD) and their articulation in SDGs advance the discussion on a better world, with emphasis on values for human rights, justice, health, and well-being (SDG 16). Two methodological strategies with regard to conservation, heritage, and development are here suggested to approach these aims. First, as Nocca points out (2017), generic tools are needed to evaluate the contribution of cultural heritage to the achievement of the SDGs. These tools should reflect the interrelatedness between heritage, conservation, and development and comprise the possibility to link with, e.g., sustainable conservation and management of cultural heritage (Keitumetse 2011). Further, evaluating cultural heritage related to ecological and social challenges might require the development of new (crosscutting indicators) and evaluation methods to assess the contribution of cultural heritage to triple bottom-line challenges of sustainability. Second, cultural heritage is inquired by many disciplines such as humanities, social sciences, environmental studies, architecture, and design. Suggestions for cultural heritage and SDG success should be sought through interdisciplinary research (Robinson 2004) especially by implementing transdisciplinary collaboration between scientific experts and societal stakeholders (Termeer et al. 2012; Biggs et al. 2010). Transdisciplinary research comprise to find methodologies for academia to collaborate directly with stakeholders. Applying and refining methods such as co-design, contextual case studies, and fieldwork within existing communities of practices will enhance dialogue, mutual learning,
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and respect. New transdisciplinary methodologies facilitate to share multiple perspectives and generate common knowledge and for effectively integrating multiple values and perspectives. Implemented in education, transdisciplinary methodologies enable students to plan and design heritage conservation strategies that are feasible, applicable, and desirable for societal stakeholders and that yield SDGs policy adaption.
References Aas C, Ladkin A, Fletcher J (2005) Stakeholder collaboration and heritage management. Ann Tour Res 32(1):28–48 Ashworth GJ (2008) Heritage: definitions, delusions and dissonances. In: Almoeda R et al (eds) Heritage 2008. World heritage and sustainable development. Green Lines Institute for Sustainable Development, Lisbon, pp 3–9 Biggs R, Westley FR, Carpenter SR (2010) Navigating the back loop: fostering social innovation and transformation in ecosystem management. Ecol Soc 15(2): 9. [online]. Available from: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/ vol15/iss2/art9/. Accessed 20 July 2018 Cambridge Dictionary. Available at: https://dictionary.cam bridge.org/dictionary/english/development. Accessed 25 Apr 2018 Chapagain NK (2008) Heritage conservation in Nepal: policies, stakeholders and challenges, third annual himalayan policy research conference, Kathmandu. https://ejournals. unm.edu/index.php/nsc/.../764. Accessed 20 July 2018 Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society (Faro Convention, 2005). https://www.coe.int/en/web/ culture-and-heritage/faro-convention. Accessed 4 July 2018 Court S, Wijesuriya G (2015) People-centred approaches to the conservation of cultural heritage: living heritage. https://www.iccrom.org/sites/default/files/PCA_Anne xe-2.pdf. Accessed 20 July 2018 Du Pisani PA (2006) Sustainable development – historical roots of the concept. Environ Sci 3(2):83–96 Dubos R, Cole LC, Jacobs J, Carter LJ, Temko A, Bowen W, Wylie P (1970) The environmental crisis. United States Information Service, Washington, DC Dümke S, Gnedovsky M (2013) The social and economic value of cultural heritage: literature review. European expert network on culture, EENC paper, July 2013. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3a70/d26f9adf6b2772 16b8f3acf7909927bf2bc5.pdf. Accessed 4 July 2018 Etymology Dictionary (2018). https://www.etymonline. com/word/heritage. Accessed 4 June 2018 European Commission (2014) Communication from the commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the
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254 Committee of the Regions. Towards an integrated approach to cultural heritage for Europe. European Commission: Brussels, 2014, section 2.1. http://ec. europa.eu/assets/eac/culture/library/publications/2014heritage-communication_en.pdf. Accessed 4 June 2018 Graham B, Ashworth GJ, Tunbridge JE (2000) A geography of heritage: power. In: Culture and economy. Arnold/Oxford University Press, London/New York Gurung N (2018) Stakeholder manual for local project planning for Bahragaun Muktichhetra, Mustang, Nepal. Publishing date October 2018 Harrison R (2013) Heritage, critical approaches. Routledge, London/New York Heritage conservation terminology. http://ip51.icomos. org/~fleblanc/documents/terminology/doc_terminolog y_e.html. Accessed 4 June 2018 Holling CS (2001) Understanding the complexity of economic, ecological, and social systems. Ecosystems 4(5):390–405 Holtorf C (2008) In: Howard P (ed) The Routledge Research Companion to heritage and identity. Routledge, London/New York, p 21 ICOMOS (1987) Charter for the conservation of historic towns and urban areas. Chapter 3 Keitsch M, Singh B (2014) Cultural sustainability and the negotiation of public space – the case of Indrachowk Square, Kathmandu, Nepal. J Sustain Dev 7(3):129–139 Keitumetse S (2011) Sustainable development and cultural heritage management in Botswana: towards sustainable communities. Sustain Dev 19(1) McCoy M, Scully PL (2002) Deliberative dialogue to expand civic engagement: what kind of talk does democracy need? Natl Civ Rev 91(2Wiley Periodicals):117–135 Merriam Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dic tionary/conservation. Accessed 4 June 2018 New Urban Agenda (2017). http://habitat3.org/wpcontent/uploads/NUA-English.pdf. Accessed 4 June 2018 Nurse K (2006) Culture as the fourth pillar of sustainable development. Small States Econ Rev Basic Stat 11:28–40 Ostrom E (2009) A general framework for analyzing sustainability of social-ecological systems. Science 325(5939):419–422 Rahman S (2013) Heritage management challenges in historic town of Ludlow, England. World Appl Sci J 24(12):1589–1596 Relph E (1976) Place and placelessness. Pion, London Richards G, Wilson J (2007) Tourism, creativity and development. Routledge, London Robinson J (2004) Squaring the circle? Some thoughts on the idea of sustainable development. Ecol Econ 48:369–384 Rodwell D (2007) Conservation and sustainability in historic cities. Wiley-Blackwell, New York
Heritage, Conservation, and Development Termeer CJAM, Dewulf A, Breeman G, Stiller SJ (2012) Governance capabilities for dealing wisely with wicked problems. Adm Soc XX(X):1–31 Tilley C (2006) Identity, place, landscape and heritage. J Mater Cult 11:7–32. http://www.unesco.org/new/en/ culture/resources/in-focus-articles/safeguarding-comm unities-living-heritage/ UN Open Working Group proposal for Sustainable Development Goals. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/ focussdgs.html. Accessed 4 June 2018 United Nation Development Program (UNDP), Goal 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, 11.4: Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage. http://web.unep.org/nairobiconvention/ sustainable-development-goal-11-make-cities-and-humansettlements-inclusive-safe-resilient-and. Accessed 10 July 2018 United Nation Development Program (UNDP). SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions. http://www.undp. org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-developmentgoals/goal-16-peace-justice-and-strong-institutions.html. Accessed 24 Feb 2018 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) (2003) Convention for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage. Accessed 20 July 2018 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) (2011) Recommendation on the historic urban landscape. https://whc.unesco.org/uploads/activi ties/documents/activity-638-98.pdf. Accessed 25 Apr 2018 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) (2012) Culture: a driver and an enabler of sustainable development. 2012. http://www. un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/Think%20Pieces/2_cultur e.pdf. Accessed 25 Apr 2018 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) (2013). https://whc.unesco.org/ en/news/1085/. Accessed 4 June 2018 United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) (1972) Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (1972). http://www.unep.org/Doc uments.Multilingual/Default.asp?documentid=97& articleid=1503. Accessed 20 July 2018 Walker G, Devine-Wright P (2008) Community renewable energy: what should it mean? Energy Policy 36:497–500 Wang Yu, Sauarlia L (2014) Reshaping place, reshaping people? In: Proceeding of the 2nd Biennial conference on anthropology and sustainability in Asia, Hiroshima, ISSN 2188–344 Washington Charte 1987, London. https://www.icomos. org/charters/towns_e.pdf. Accessed 4 June 2018 Wessels T (2006) The myth of progress: toward a sustainable future. University of Vermont Press, Hanover Wilson L (2007) Lose or reuse: managing heritage sustainably. Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, Belfast, p 2007
Housing Affordability: Measurements and Trends World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) Our common future. Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York World Heritage Convention (2018). http://whc.unesco.org/ archive/convention-en.pdf. Accessed 4 June 2018 Yung E, Zhang Q, Chan E (2017) Underlying social factors for evaluating heritage conservation in urban renewal districts. Habitat Int 66:135–148
High Density City ▶ Compact City as a Model Achieving Sustainable Development
Housing Affordability: Measurements and Trends Md Aslam Mia and Ema Izati Zull School of Management, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Pulau Pinang, Malaysia
Definitions of Affordable Housing One of the most frequently used terms in the era of rapid urbanization is perhaps “affordable housing.” However, to date, there seems no universally acceptable definition of affordable housing that exists among the academicians and practitioners. The concept of affordable housing can be relative (housing affordability through history) and subjective (classic assumption of individual with their rational self-interest) at the same time (Cai 2017). The term is very much contingent to economic development and income levels; hence, it does not have any uniform definition worldwide. Affordable housing in the ambit of wider meaning could constitute homes that are affordable to the maximum demographics, which indicates various levels of income groups. However, affordable housing concept has been defined in many ways based on various classifications, and they range from relative, subjective, purchase affordability, repayment affordability, and income affordability
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(Gan and Hill 2009; Stone 2006). Some of the classifications are used to gauge the overall conditions of housing market, and some of them are for deriving government policies to ensure housing for all. In a broader sense, affordability is a very subjective term, and its usage may depend on the locality. When affordability is added with the word “housing,” then the meaning could vary from region to region. Housing affordability involves two elements, housing and its users. Thus, housing affordability actually shows the relationship between these two elements (Cai 2017). In the Canadian context, Advocay (2019) has defined affordable housing as “. . .is available at a cost that does not compromise a household’s ability to attain other basic needs of life, including needs for food, clothing and access to education.” This definition of affordable housing not only considers the price and ability of the households but also reiterates the importance of having some other basic amenities. In the UK, affordable housing is defined in the London Plan (2019) as “. . .. social rented, affordable rented and intermediate housing, provided to eligible households whose needs are not met by the market.” The key highlights from this definition is the excluded community who are not capable of owning/renting a house based on the market price; hence, they require assistance from the government. A similar type of definition is also used in the Australian context, where affordable housing means to provide adequate support to the lowerincome households so that they can obtain and pay for their appropriate housing without having any financial difficulties (Milligan et al. 2004; O’Neill et al. 2008). On the other hand, the Government of India (GOI) defined affordable housing as “any housing that meets some form of affordability criterion, which could be income level of the family, size of the dwelling unit or affordability in terms of equated monthly installments (EMI) or ratio of house price to annual income” (High Level Task Force 2008). In China, affordable housing is defined as “a kind of ordinary housing constructed under national
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normal housing construction standards, provided to low- and middle-income families with living difficulties” (You et al. 2011). Overall, we can conclude that the definitions of affordable housing are context and country specific, and most of the cases it considers the financial ability of the households to own/rent a house.
Introduction When skyscrapers are touching the sky in many cities, approximately 100 million people are homeless, and as many as 1.6 billion people lack proper housing facilities globally in 2005 (Kothari 2005). This indicates that housing continues to remain unaffordable to a large segment of the population, and formal housing market is still reluctant to cater those excluded community. The situation of homelessness and inadequate housing facilities is acute in most of the developing countries due to unplanned city development, exponential rise in housing prices, rapid urbanization, young demographic profile, transition to nuclear families, and severity of poverty. In general, housing prices have outpaced income growth, and the percentage of home ownership among city dwellers has consequently declined in most of the major cities in the developing countries. For example, in India alone, around 17.7 million people are homeless, among them, 8.3 million and 7.4 million of people are living in rural and urban areas, respectively, based on the 2011 housing census (Kumuda 2014). Similarly, in Dhaka, over three million people are living in slums with lack of public amenities, including water, electricity, and proper sanitation and drainage and so on so forth (Khare 2016). Despite unprecedented growth in housing and financial market in most of the developing countries, such progress has limited effect to the lower- and middle-income segment of the population (Koehler 2014). Hence, the issue of affordable housing garnered public attention in most of the developing countries during the last decade. The importance of housing is manifold. For example, housing has a multidimensional
Housing Affordability: Measurements and Trends
significance to accelerate economic growth and ensures well-being of the people. To highlight how important is affordable housing, Rakesh Mohan stated that “...future national competitiveness and economic success will depend on the comparative efficiency of cities. Because housing is where jobs go to sleep at night, the quantity, quality, availability and affordability of housing becomes a key component in national economic competitiveness” in a joint report by Affordable Housing Institute and Ernst & Young. A lack of affordable housing could contribute to substandard of living, which may potentially lead to various diseases (e.g., asthma, frequent illness, obesity, and behavioral problem). Moreover, there is a well-established link between poor housing conditions and poor health, which indicates housing improvement could enhance health (Thomson et al. 2013; Pollack et al. 2014; Baker et al. 2016). Studies also found that healthcare expenditure substantially reduces when homeless people move to supportive housing (Wright et al. 2016). Apart from health, housing also contributes to form social structure. For example, without affordable housing, communities become segregated based on income and family background, which lose the social ties among various income groups. As a result, “affordable housing” become a matter of serious concern among policy makers and academicians in both developed and developing countries. Some of the countries are consistently battling and framing policies to ensure that everybody has a house to live. For example, India has tried to intervene in the housing market and initiated “Housing for All by 2022” scheme in 2015. As part of the campaign, a huge amount of public funds since then has been channeled to affordable housing market to make houses affordable for the targeted beneficiaries. Similarly, housing policies in Singapore also seem to be efficient and effective that make it possible for over 90% of the resident to own a house despite having a very limited land (Phang and Helble 2016). The affordable housing policies in China also allowed a significant number of its population to own or rent a house through numerous policies of central and local governments (Zou 2014),
Housing Affordability: Measurements and Trends
which could have been further extended to increase its coverage to low- and middle-income groups by improving institutional structures (Cao and Keivani 2014). In the case of Malaysia, home ownership stood at 72.5% in 2010 as per the housing census. Khazanah Research Institute (2015) reiterated that to meet the effective housing demand in Malaysia for the remaining percentage of people, institutionalizing reforms and restructuring national procurement system is indeed necessary to improve delivery of housing supply (in terms of cost, time, and quality). However, in the case of Bangladesh, affordable housing industry is in nascent stage and comprehensive housing and housing finance policy framework is still lacking to meet the growing needs of the housing for lowand middle-income groups. Recently, Khare (2016) estimated that Bangladesh needs at least 8.5 million dwelling units in the next 5 years to meet the urban housing shortage. Overall, it is understood that the conventional housing market is not capable of serving the poor people in the society, and they need assistance (financial and nonfinancial) from the government. To understand how some of the countries are assisting these people to own or rent a house, the entry investigates some of the affordable housing policies undertaken by selected Asian countries. This discussion will unravel several policy implications, implementations, and targeting factors of affordable housing. Additionally, a brief discussion on how property liberalization could affect housing affordability is also discussed based on the Malaysian context.
Measurement of Affordable Housing Since the definitions of affordable housing vary based on location and context, the universal measurement of such is also found to be difficult and complex. In most of the cases, housing affordability is measured by looking at the expenditure on housing to income of the household (Gopalan and Venkataraman 2015). This is one of the commonly used housing affordability parameters based on the expenditure or ratio method. To
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be more precise, housing affordability is often measured by the “median multiple,” which is basically the ratio of median house prices to gross annual median household income (Hulchanski 1995). This indicator is widely used in the global urban housing market due to its several advantages. First, it is simple, reliable, and easy to understand. Second, it facilitates meaningful and transparent comparison of housing affordability in different geographic region and the health of the residential market. As the house price varies based on different geographic locations, which is often driven by the land price, this measurment also considers looking at the income differences among various locations for different geographical regions. Hence, it can provide better estimates of affordability as far as the house price and income are concerned. Additionally, in other estimates of housing, affordability often varies due to variations in mortgage term (interest rates, tenure, and down payment). However, the price paid for the house does not change; hence, the median multiple gives a reliable estimate of affordability. Due to these advantages, this indicator has been recommended by the World Bank, the United Nations, and the Joint Center for Housing Studies, Harvard University. The threshold of median multiple for affordability is 3.0x, and beyond this threshold, the housing would not be considered as affordable. The global norm of three times median housing price to median income indicates that the housing market is functioning well. Table 1 shows the housing affordability ratings which is adapted by the Demographia (2017). Apart from its advantages, the median multiple has some limitations too. For example, it measures the value for median category (both income
Housing Affordability: Measurements and Trends, Table 1 Housing affordability ratings Housing affordability rating Affordable Moderately unaffordable Seriously unaffordable Severely unaffordable Source: Demographia (2017)
Median multiple 3.0x and below 3.1x to 4.0x 4.1x to 5.0x 5.1x and above
H
258 Housing Affordability: Measurements and Trends, Table 2 Definitions of affordable housing in India
Housing Affordability: Measurements and Trends
Categories Economically weaker section (EWS) Low-income group (LIG) Middleincome groupI (MIG-I) Middleincome groupII (MIG-II)
Income (INR) (annual) < 300,000 (