Ecocities Overview

Ciities and sustainbaility Cities are the biggest things people make

I=PAT(LUI)

First we shape Cities then they shape usBuilt environment limits what we can imagine llfe to

be like

The problem of car centric designBetter car makes a worse cityHealth and obesity

Better to get exercise as a natural course of life

Ecocities: What can the city be? City as an organismBuild soil. Collect and Store water, build biodiversityGehl: Lively, Safe, Sustainable, Halthy

Design Principles:Apply permaculture principlesDesigned for people and convivial interactioAccess by proximityCity as an organism

From Ecocties to Living MAchinesDesigning the pattern (bones)

Designing the detials

Life Space Buildings – In that Order – GehlThe space between buildings

Movement Space, Experience sapceRewildingPg 177 ecocities – permacukture principlesRegister

Build the city the livign system that it is Make the city’s function fit with the

aptterns of evolutionPg 183 ecocities

Follow the buildiers sequnce – start with the foundation

Land use pattern shouyld supprt the health anatomy of the of the whole city

Reverse the transportation hiearchyBuild soils and enhance biodiversity

Transition to ecocitiyPage 185Depaving rewildingTransfer of development rightsPlacemaking

City as a hub of culture, innovation

Scale: Village, Town, CitySoleri video Village Homes video Abundance video

Developing world issuesFavelas and self rule

First we shape cities, then they shape us- Winston Churchill

What is the greenest place in America?

New York City VS VermontNew York Vermont

Gasoline (gal/yr) 90 (1920) 545Electricity (kwh/yr) 4700 7100 (11,000 us)Ranking on energy use if it were a state

51 (11th largest state if it were a state)Passenger transit miles 30% 0f US total 0% of households without a car

54% (77% Manhattan) 2 or 3 per familyTons CO2/person 7.1 30Travel to workBike, foot, public transit 77% approx 0 (US 7%)

If everyone in New York was housed in density of Vermont it would cover all of new England plus New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia

And New York is not an ecocity

Times Square Cars

Times Square People

Cities and SustainabilityEcological Impact = P*A*T*LUI

P = PopulationA = AffluenceT = TechnologyLUI = Land Use Infrastructure

In Ecocities, Efficiencies Are Built In: European Example

“My point is that the low-carbon footprints depend on the infrastructure of life, and in that sense Europeans have an immediate advantage. To live without a clothes dryer or AC in the United States is considered tough and feels like a sacrifice. To do so in Rome — where apartments all include a clothes-drying balcony or indoor rack, and where buildings have thick walls and shutters to help you cope with the heat — is the norm” Elisabeth Rosenthal in What Makes Europe Greener than America

Carbon Footprint (tons CO2/person/yr):

France 6.6Italy 8UK 9.6US 20

Built in cont’d

Building efficiency - shared heating/cooling costsSmaller dwelling unitsLess places to put stuff, less stuff to buy

Potential for less of a consumer lifestyleAccess by proximity

All physical, social, educational, livelihood needs met by walking

Health Benefits - Exercise built into everyday life

Car centric vs People-centric DesignCity Design Order:

1. Life2. Space3. Buildings

Invite people to walk, use bikes, enjoy streetscape

From Jan Gehl, responsible for much of Copenhagen's people centric design, and author of The Space Between Buildings and Cities for People

Transportation

BIKES CARSBUS

72 PEOPLE

Better Yet: Walking and Access by Proximity

“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness, I have walked myself into my best thoughts and I know of no thought so burdensome that oen cannot walk away from it.”

Soren Kierkegard

Ivan Illich on Cars• The model American male devotes more than 1600 hours a year to his car. He sits in it while

it goes and while it stands idling. He parks it and searches for it. He earns the money to put down on it and to meet the monthly installments. He works to pay for gasoline, tolls, insurance, taxes, and tickets. He spends four of his sixteen waking hours on the road or gathering his resources for it. And this figure does not take into account the time consumed by other activities dictated by transport: time spent in hospitals, traffic courts, and garages; time spent watching automobile commercials or attending consumer education meetings to improve the quality of the next buy.

• The model American puts in 1600 hours to get 7500 miles: less than five miles per hour. In countries deprived of a transportation industry, people manage to do the same, walking wherever they want to go, and they allocate only 3 to 8 percent of their society's time budget to traffic instead of 28 percent.

• What distinguishes the traffic in rich countries from the traffic in poor countries is not more mileage per hour of lifetime for the majority, but more hours of compulsory consumption of high doses of energy, packaged and unequally distributed by the transportation industry.

Electric Transportation: Nissan Leaf

• Nissan Leaf Example

Assume 12,000 miles per yearLeaf gets 5.4 miles per kwh, 2300 kwh per yearCost for electrictity at 12 cents/kwh:$271Equivalent cost for gas @$3/gallon: $1200

Like having 70 cent per gallon gasoline

The better car makes the worse city

The Geography of Nowhere:Kuntsler Critique of Car Culture

Most photographed place in Fairfield

Daily Dome Commute, 2020

Bicycle Infrastructure

Public Bike Systems = Public Transportation like a bus, taxi, or subway

Short term use, not pleasure riding

BIXI photos from May 2012 trip to Montreal

Highest: $100Lowest: $15Average: $40Median: $38

If Jefferson County spent like these cities:$/person/yr Annual tot 20 Year Investment$100 (high) $1,500,000 $30 million$15 (low) $225,000$4.5 million$40 (avg) $600,000 $12 million$38 (median) $570,000 $11.4 million

Cost spent on trails system to date: $2-4 million

Placemaking, Michael Cook, and City Repair

Park(ing) dayPop up public parks

Ecocity as a Context for Green Technologies

The City as an Organism: The ecology of the Ecocity

The Ecocity Solution

Register video

Hundterwasser

Hundterwasser

Strategies for transitioning to ecocities

Transfer of development rights (TDR)

Used to preserve farmland or natural areas and historic properties. Sell development rights. Purchaser can get benefits at another project.

Ex: Buy development rights to save an historic building

from development. Purchaser gets to build at higher density than normally allowed in another project

Double TDR – removes existing infrastructure at “sending site”, allows more to be built at “receiving site”

Transfer of development rights (TDR)

Sample TDR ordinance“Any person owning improved property within fifty feet of the

historic centerline of a buried or open creek may sell the development rights of his/her property to a developer , by way of a land trust directly, for demolition of improvements and restoration of open space on the sending site and for transfer of those rights to any site within three blocks of a regional rail transit station or intersection of 4 or more bus lines.”

Double TDR

TDR Revolving Fund

• Non profit or municipality creates a fund to buy land and sell development rights so that the rights to develop are shifted to ecocity ready parts of town.

• Land and buildings are purchased with the fund, buildings are removed, and nature or agriculture established.

• Developer then buys the development rights to be used in elsewhere and fund is replenished

“Should be open space acquisition fund”

Tax Credits (like for historic buildings)Offsets taxes owed.

Ex: You owe $1000 in taxes. You spend $500 on qualifying ecocity infrastructure. You

now owe only $500 in taxes. Ex Project Criteria1. In the right area (in or close to a transit center)2. Adds density and diversity3. Removes development to restore a creek4. Creates a greeway5. Expand a community garden6. Provide right of way to a railroad

No tax bill? Sell the credits to someone who needs them.

Used to preserve historic buildings. “It’s time that waterways, hills, trees and soils are considered as valuable as historic

architecture and as worthy of restoration” register, Ecocities page 264

Restoring hydrologically functional landscapes in cities

Rain gardensPermiable pavement

Seattle’s Street Edge Alternatives Program

Infiltrates most rainfall Convey 25-yr.,24hr storm Enhance Water Quality Decrease Runoff By 98%

Des Moines – Luther Park

Traditional Ecocities

Colmar, France

Seguret, France

Positano, Italy

Lichtenstein

Rousillion, France

Roussillon Ochre Conservatory

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO1e8SkPhNo#t=83

Torri Superiore Ecovillage

Gruyere

Oia

Malta

Mont St Michele

Burano Italy

Picture of tornoto car public art planted