Urban ecology/sustainable city

By Dawod Abdie (Msc.)

 Environmental challenges of cities
 Squatter settlements
 Solid Waste Management
 Urban pollution and health hazards
 Urban sprawl
 Pollution and the generation of wastes
 Increased congestion
Urbanization
– Natural increase
– Immigration from rural areas
• Pushed from rural areas to urban areas
• Pulled to urban areas from rural areas
Urbanization Pattern
and the response
• Factors for urbanization are:Globalisation,
Democratization, new information and
communication technology, economic
transformation, social and cultural changes
 Cities of the west, little urbanization it will allow
the need for regeneration and renewal now
takes priority
 In the cities of transition economies, the priority
is tackling the legacy of underused central
areas, decaying infrastructure, and a
deteriorating public housing stock.
 Developing countries, the need to
accommodate rapid growth, provide essential
infrastructure, deal with rapidly deteriorating
physical environments, and improve shelter
opportunities, especially for the poor
Most cities are unsustainable because of high
levels of resource use, waste, pollution, and
poverty.

But – what’s the alternative?

• Appealing to live harmoniously with nature is
nothing new in human history.
• It suggests an ecological approach to urban
design, management and towards a new way of
lifestyle
• Cities should be conceptualized as ecosystems
where there is an inherent circularity of physical
processes of resources
• reduce traffic and urban heat island effect,
encourage greater use of renewable energy,
green roofs and public transport, a holistic
approach to nature, history, heritage, health and
safety, and a life cycle approach to energy,
resources and waste
• Howard in his influential garden city concept
argued for the importance of bringing nature
back to cities
• Greenbelt towns
• New Urbanism emerged in the 1980s as a
strategy with new typologies in land use to deal
with the ecological weakness arising from the
massive scale of postwar sprawling
suburbanization,
How Does Transportation Affect Urban
Environmental Impacts?
• Bicycles

• Heavy-rail systems

• Light-rail systems

• Buses

• Rapid-rail system between urban areas

 Urban sustainability
•Things that make cities safe, clean,
healthy and pleasant also make them
more sustainable
•A sustainable city functions effectively
and prosperously over the long term
Generations will have a good quality of
life
Impacts on natural systems and
resources are minimized
•A city’s impacts depend on how we use
resources, produce goods, transport
• Self-reliant cities
 an approach to reduce the negative external impacts of city
beyond its own bioregion
 The intension is to build “Eco cities’’
• Externally dependent cities
 environmental problems can be addressed through free market
'light green approach’’
• Fair shares city
 regulation of waste on impact of recipient area .institutional
transformation.
 Consideration of carrying capacity and tolerance levels of host
and recipient
 Urban ecology and sustainability
Cities must replace the one-way linear metabolism of
importing resources and exporting wastes
This destabilizes environmental systems and is not
sustainable
Urban ecology = cities can be viewed explicitly as ecosystems
•Fundamentals of ecology and systems apply to cities
• Cities should follow an ecosystem-centered model

•Encourage urban agriculture

•Spread of low density residential development
cause for the rise of motor vehicle.
Making cities more livable (pleasant, safe, clean,
healthy) helps make them more sustainable
Planning and zoning are long-term, powerful sources for
sustaining urban communities
Smart growth and new urbanism reduce energy use
Different Dimensions of urban sustainability

Discussion points
• Sustainability and Land use planning
• Sustainable mobility
 public bikes
 walking, biking, or mass transit
Smart growth

• Smart growth is a more clearly defined term with

specific practices recommended for application
at the local level. Many of the strategies focus
on the location, density, and inter-
relationships of uses, such as transit and
housing.
• “Smart growth is an urban planning and
transportation theory that concentrates growth in
compact walkable urban centers to avoid
sprawl and advocates compact, transit-
oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendly land use,
including neighborhood schools, complete
streets, and mixed-use development with a
range of housing choices.”
Smart growth
• Mix land uses
• Compact building design
• Create walkable neighborhoods
• Foster distinctive, attractive communities with a
strong sense of place (enhance identity,
increase property values, generate local pride
and responsibility)
• Preserve open space, farmland, natural beauty,
and critical environmental areas
• Provide a variety of transportation choices
• Encourage citizen and stakeholder participation
in development decisions
 CONCEPTS OF NEW URBANISM
– Walkability
– Mixed-use and diversity
– Quality urban design
– Environmental sustainability
– Smart transportation

• Brownfield development
• Greenfield development
SOME EXAMPLES
Curtibia brazil
 The Eco city Concept in Curitiba, Brazil
• Bus system: cars banned in certain areas

• Housing and industrial parks

• Recycling of materials

• Helping the poor

Sustainable mobility:
• The priority of transport system for public and
pedestrian Rather than private cars for
sustainability of cities.
• The road design has to incorporate pedestrian and
bicycle paths.
•European cities use different methods for the
sustainability of their mobility like Car sharing: e.g.
Netherlands, neighborhood based cars for sharing to
minimize the use of private cars in the
neighborhoods.
DISCUSSION ON BAHIR DAR CITY
HOW DO U SEE FROM THE PERSPECTIVES OF
• SUSTAINABLE MOBILITY
• LANDUSE PLANNING
• GREEN BELT
THANK YOU: