Ecocities

The idea of Eco-Cities, sustainable city or Ecopolis (city) is a new approach toward sustainable living. Environmentalists used to believe that city living was pollutive and destructive to the environment because of the amount of sewage, trash, and unsanitary conditions created and dumped onto the environment.

However, the alternative was to live in the suburbs, which is also damaging to the environment because cars are needed for transportation, and the amount of energy used in a house by a single family (or a person living alone) is much more per person than the amount of energy used in an apartment for multiple family housing.

Definition

Being an eco city means working together for a better social, economic, and environmental outcomes for our children, our grand children, and ourselves. It means working with people and communities to:

1. Build a strong local economy.
2. Create attractive town-centers with good roads and passenger transport access.
3. Protect and expand the "green network" which links our streams and parks from the Ranges to the sea.
4. Use resources better, and produce less waste.
5. Improving the well-being of residents.

Solutions to urban sprawl

Because people would like to reduce urban sprawl and reduce the length of daily commute, environmentalists, policy makers, and developers are seeking new ways to allow people to live closer to the workplace. Since the workplace tends to be in the city, downtown, or urban center, they are seeking a way to increase density by changing the antiquated attitudes many suburbanites have towards inner-city areas. Many suburbanites believe that there is a higher proportion of crime in central areas or that city centres are somehow less healthy, despite the fact that most residents of inner cities walk much more than their suburban counterparts.

One of the new ways is the Smart Growth Movement.

Other solutions include increasing public transportation. Again, the problem is that the viability of public transportation depends on how many people are willing to take it. Increasing population density as well as decreasing the appeal of driving a car is a necessary step to encouraging people to take public transportation.

Agriculture in Ecocities

Not only are environmentalists, developers, and policy makers looking to try to increase population density, they are also seeking to put production of crops closer to the cities to reduce transportation costs, amount of pollution involved in transportation, and also increase freshness of the crops produced. The Columbia University's Vertical Farm Project [1] is one of the most well-articulated conceptions of this idea.

Present and planned eco-cities around the world

Present Eco-cities

• Växjö, Sweden [

Planned Eco-cities

The government of China has given the order to create approximately five eco-cities in China. One of these is in Guangdon, near the Yangtse-river, another is in Dongtan. The English company Arup has been given the order to construct these. Most of the eco-cities are already designed, but still some issues need to be worked out.

See also

• Arcology
• Ecopolis
• Ecovillage
• Sustainable city
• Urban Renewal
• Dongtan

References

Tom Turner City as landscape Ch 8 'Eco-city plans' (E&FN Spon 1986)

External links

• Which way China?Herbert Girardet, 2006 October 2nd, chinadialogue. Discusses the emergences of ecocities in China.
• eco-friendly homes gaining popularity in india
• Los Angeles: A History of the Future