Urban Environmental policy

The reading on Urban Environmental Policy can be summed up in a few simple ways. First, it defines a “local state” as the local government. This would entail town and city governments and perhaps even state governments but not national ones. It places an emphasis on the connection between these local governments and the people they regulate. This connection, however, has been increasingly similar to national governments and the line between local and national has been blurred. This creates a need to strengthen the bond between the local communities and the local governments. In order to do so, there must be a serious consideration of spatial differentiation and social diversion as the basis for the local state. Also, unlike a national government, the local state is anything but uniform and centralized. This means that each local government is unique and must be treated as such placing a further emphasis on the interaction between the local state and the local community. It also means that each local state needs to be self motivated and not rely on other communities for direction.

This need for independent local states is a topic discussed in much of the reading. It uses Toronto and Los Angeles as two examples of how this local state comes into play for controlling liberties. In Toronto, for example, the local state was left up primarily to the individual communities. This created varying disconnected systems there that were later taken over such as the transportation system. The issue was that the various communities within Toronto created their own plan, but only through overall governance could they be worked together. The local state also took on the role of community redevelopment with their waterfront project. With this project, there was a distinct connection between the governing body and the local community and the project was successful because the two groups found ways to work together.

Los Angeles took a different approach to urban planning. The initial freedom of Los Angeles was in the form of mobility. This promoted the use of cars and denounced the use of public transportation, forming the urban traffic jam we know today. This frivolous automobile created serious problems. As the greater Los Angeles area is nearly the size of Ohio, getting to and from the city is a big issue, and due to the lack of public transportation, there is a significant amount of pollution created from these cars. Restructuring the entire transportation system would be a great idea, but would also be a massive undertaking so the city planners took a different approach. As combating automobile emissions is unfeasible, the planners began to regulate industry and residential pollution. The local state, in this case, controls which days factories are allowed to operate, and also controls which days residences are allowed to use barbeques. These two approaches were used to combat the situation that could have been prevented had the communities worked together to form a more mass-mobile system.

The final concept was on the “urban regime.” This is defined as when government and private individuals work together to form governing decisions. A town meeting where everyday citizens spoke up would be an example of this. Regimes are important in the design of cities. They played a key role in Toronto’s development and play a huge part in the way large cities function. By including the communities in the decision making process, a larger portion of the governed bodies have taken a part in the decision making process, thus making it more effective.

Green Urbanism & Nature in the City

Nature in the City presents a technical view of political structure and activity as it relates to environmental phenomena, while Green Urbanism delves into examples of how cities and countries have organized politically to bring about environmental policy changes. Both texts highlight the importance of local, individualistic action as the driving force of environmental policy change as it relates not only to regions, but also how it trickles up to affect global interpretation and action on the environmental front.

If I were to apply the readings to an urban problem for which I am concerned, I would focus on the Dutch national ecological network (Green Urbanism, 202). Their national map begs the question of how much land humans need to inhabit, and how much land should be dedicated to species that cannot survive commingling with people (bears, wolves, etc.). Despite questioning the extent to which the Dutch are preserving natural areas, the idea of a national program that mandates a minimum amount of conserved land, rather that leaving the amount and placement of preserved land solely in the hands of local government, creates a more meaningful and useful (ecologically) array of natural areas, and shifts the burden of balancing preservation with increased tax dollars resulting from development out of the hands of those that would directly benefit from the latter. By doing so, the whole population benefits more than if the decisions continued to be made by local politicians vying for majority vote. The United States could implement a similar policy by expanding its national park system to place a majority of land under permanent conservation. It is very true that “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘till its gone.” In the immediate political environment, the value of such action would be dismissed as unimportant because of the purported vast amount of land that is not urban, but in 50 to 100 years, the forethought of a past generation would likely be recognized as progressive.

An interesting perspective I noted in Nature in the City was the dichotomous interpretation of the current environmental dilemma. One perspective accepts the “hegemony of the capitalistic economy” and attempts to work within that framework to generate solutions to environmental degradation (38). The alternate perspective espoused by the authors is a fundamental restructuring of the interactions between humans and the environment. In Green Urbanism many examples provided highlight the ways in which current environmental action do not sufficiently challenge the capitalistic economic notion of environmentalism. The focus is on improving the self, with the byproduct being improving the environment. While anthropomorphic thinking is not itself a deleterious activity, bringing nature back to the city, no matter how ingenious or how green, will not prevent ecosystem collapse. The Dutch, as mentioned previously, and others that have adopted a national preservation policy, come the closest to addressing the need for urban boundaries that successfully and distinctly differentiate between human inhabited and other animal inhabited space.

Caroline project information

Caroline team -- Below is is the basic information send via email

Caroline documents

1. Caroline Comprehensive Plan. http://www.townofcaroline.org/announcements/Comprehensive%20Plan%202006.pdf Caroline's Comp Plan is organized into 2 parts: 1) Part I articulates the vision and goals for what Caroline citizens want their town to be like to be in 20 years. 2) Part II presents specific actions steps over the next five years to achieve these 20-year goals. This is the most important document because it is basis for all of our effort.

2. Grant Proposal. (sent via email "grant appl-2005") Erick Smith and I submitted this grant proposal to the NY State Quality Communities Program for professional planning support to implement our a major portion of our Comprehensive Plan: to design an innovative point-based development guidance system.

3. Request for Proposals. (sent via email "RFP for planning consultant") This RFP detailing our project and need for professional planning assistance was distributed throughout New York State. The Town eventually hired Laberge Group. Read this document for a sense of the specifics for what help the Town wishes in order to create a development guidance system.


Model documents

4. Hardin County Kentucky. http://www.hcky.org/hcpdc/wholedgs.pdf Hardin County's Development Guidance System inspired Caroline to experiment with non-zoning-based tools to shepherd land-use in the Town. How much can it serve as a model for Caroline? Some parts might not work -- for example, the negotiated process was struck down by the courts -- but we don't know. It is unclear how something like this would work in a small town with limited resources. Don't hurt yourself reading this.

5. LEED. https://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=1095. Salima, this is the basic LEED rating system for green buildings, as created by the US Green Building Council. It is widely used as the objective standard for green buildings in the US, and many municipalities and institutions are adopting policies to build buildings according to these standards. Notice how there are several categories (Sites, Water, Energy, Materials, Indoor quality, etc), and within each category there are both mandatory actions ("Prerequisites") and optional actions ("Credits"). You can pick and choose which Credits to shoot for based on your individual project, providing for flexibility and creativity. One is required to achieve all the prerequisites in each category and achieve a certain number of points from all the categories combined to attain "LEED certification" for a building project. The level of certification ("Certified", "Silver", "Gold", "Platinum") depends on the number of points (the more points, the higher the certification). Also note how the LEED system cites existing third-party/independent standards in its prerequisites and credits. This is important because for a system in Caroline to work, it must be based on objective criteria.

6. LEED-ND. http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=148. Now, this is the cool part. The US Green Building Council created a LEED rating system for neighborhood development. As with the LEED building standards, there are several categories (Location, Design, Construction, and Process), and again within each category there are both mandatory prerequisites and optional credits. The prerequisites are basic land use things like "don't build on a flood plain" and "prevent pollution during construction", whereas the credits are more bold elements like "walkable streets" or "reuse of historic buildings". Isn't that awesome? The challenging part is how to apply this idea to Caroline within the legal and political environment we find ourselves. How might this work without zoning? Again, it is unclear how something like this can work in a small town with limited resources.


Exciting, huh? We need your help: What other models are out there? What models could work in Caroline? How would they work? It will be great to have your energy and curiosity to help us learn what is possible for us in Caroline.

Be the change you seek

Hello all,

It's Dominic here from the Town of Caroline. It was great meet many of you on Thursday and I am impressed with your passion and diversity of experiences. You are truly inspiring! Looking forward to working with the Caroline team and making a difference close to home.

Dominic

Chapter 7 (Beatley) and Chapter 2 (Desfor and Keil)

Chapter two from Nature in the City (Desfor and Keil) and Chapter seven from Green Urbanism (Beatley) share several elements in common. Specifically, both readings address the interaction between government and sustainable development within urban centers—urban centers that the authors claim are “central space[s] of global environmental policy making” (Desfor and Keil 38). Ironically, the readings not only highlight the many possibilities that such urban centers contain for sustainable growth, but they also discuss the role of urban centers as major sources of environmental degradation. Desfor and Keil begin this discussion by addressing the challenges of implementing ecologically friendly policies in an age where many powerful local governments show more interest in economic growth and global politics than they do in sustainable growth. Although this notion seems rather grim, the authors also claim that urban growth can very realistically promote ecological living if monitored properly. If we compare this idea to Beatley’s chapter on urban ecology, we see that urban centers truly can promote sustainable development.
In chapter seven, Beatley enthusiastically springs from one case study to the next in an effort to demonstrate many of the green practices that are shaping European cities. Interestingly enough, much of the green development within these urban centers happens under the guidance of strong central governments that are dedicated to the sustainable urban growth. The Dutch national ecological network, for example, is not merely a local endeavor, but an endeavor that engages an entire nation and its people.
As I read through these pieces, I thought of my home in Orlando, Florida where the automobile has completely overtaken the urban environment. I can only imagine how powerful some of the projects mentioned in chapter seven could be within this city. Specifically, I like the idea of Eco Bridges and green highways. Although I am not necessarily sure that Eco Bridges could be used to connect wildlife habitats across the built environment in Central Florida, I love the idea of embellishing our highways and overpasses with natural plant life. There are so many transportation corridors in the Orlando metropolitan area that could easily be transformed into models of ecologically friendly design (or at least a version of it). And although Beatley did not mention mass transit within chapter seven, I found myself pondering the idea of a light rail system that could parallel many of these corridors in Orlando.
In the end, I do have one question about the Desfor and Keil reading. On page 50, the authors claim that most environmental movements are counter regulatory at their core, yet this notion makes little sense to me considering the politically charged nature of the piece. It seems to me that government regulation plays a major role in promoting sustainable growth in urban centers. Am I misunderstanding the author?

Nature in the City & Urban Ecology

Summary

Breaking down the polarity in perception between nature/environment and city/urban
In Urban Ecology… Beatley acknowledges that “Americans clearly have a long way to go to begin viewing cities and urban environments as ecosystems and places of nature,” but argues that “[c]ities are fundamentally embedded in a natural environment.” Similarly, in Nature in the City, Desfor & Keil assert that humans are “an ‘urban species.’ Increasingly, the common conceptual separation of ‘city’ or ‘urban’ from ‘nature’ or ‘environment’ has to be reassessed.”

Urbanization as the solution to the problem it has created
Urban Ecology: (Hundertwasser’s basic belief that) there exists an obligation to replace every bit of nature taken in the process of construction and city building.
Nature in the City: “[C]ities and urbanity are being offered as solutions to the environmental problems found in and around them…urbanization is offered as the solution to the ills it is said to cause.” These two perspectives compliment each other in looking at the city as a solution as not only an obligation but an opportunity.

Realistic hegemony of the capitalist economy AND realistic possibilities of economic benefits of environmentalism
Urban Ecology: “The American context may require clear description of economic benefits associated with greening strategies.” (i.e.: the short-term cost of a green roof is high, but the “first-costs” are outweighed by added life of the roof.)
Nature in the City: “the rational, realist point of view that…seeks the compatibility of economic development and environmental quality by way of ‘integrated policies implemented through tangible incentives, backed by solid research, and sure and equitable enforcement,” and “there is often a fundamental, or radical, disjuncture between the goals of urban and regional economic development and environmental goals.”

Simply identifying problems does not solve them
In Nature in the City: “Strong publics are ‘publics whose discourse encompasses both opinion formation and decision making.”
Urban Ecology…: Utilization of tools such as ecological network maps “that presents a clear offensive strategy with not only problems but solutions.”

significant differences in perspective
In Urban Ecology…, Beatley mentions Ambrey’s (1994) declaration that “[p]eople are starved from greenery.” The entire chapter seems to be based on this underlying assumption; that people will have a natural inclination to implement the design ideas that are explored in order to satisfy their general biophilia. In contrast, Desfor & Keil give a much more anthropocentric perspective, and suggest that the necessary shift in global mindset, especially in the U.S., will only occur as a result of economic punitive measures and/or incentives.

Creative Application

I was surprised and excited by the explanation of the potential for retrofitting buildings for rooftop gardens in the Urban Ecology chapter. In another Cornell class I took, which focused on sustainability and building design, the professor had explained that there are intense load-bearing structural requirements for green roofs. So I felt like many new design possibilities had opened up again (perhaps for my future career) when I read that there are two kinds of green roofs, and that one of them does not require that the structure be designed to bear the immense load of soil. I especially appreciated Beatley’s suggestion to undertake one or more pilot rooftop retrofits to be studied, as my field of study is specifically focused on research and the built environment.

Concerns/Questions

I am curious about the mention in Urban Ecology of the ability of roof gardens to extend the life of a roof. Beatley mentions this on more than one occasions but never explains how. Also, after taking a class were we studied problems with moisture in buildings causing poor indoor air quality (I.A.Q.) I was suspicious of all these plant-covered-buildings not creating some of the health-problems they hoped to solve.

I found this quote from Nature in the City extremely interesting and would like to discuss it further: “Ironically, the draconian measures of government are directly traceable to earlier government indifference to or encouragement of the people’s half-century-long pursuit of one of the American Century’s leading goals: unrestricted individual mobility.”

Post-neo-(post)modern (re)view

I read the Nature in the City chapter first, and found it way too abstract and verbose to even possibly relate the cities—you know, those things with BUILDINGS. And STREETS. And PEOPLE. And not a single citizen caring whether their “local state” is neo-Fordist or post-Weberian. But, I was pleasantly surprised to find that some of the more abstract notions actually translated to the lovely concrete examples given in Green Urbanism. Below are some particularly pithy ideas I pulled from Nature in the City as I was reading, and the instances where I thought these ideas reappeared in Green Urbanism:

“In this new state architecture, the local state occupies a space where the globalization process is regulated” through various policies. (32)

Regarding some of the “global policies affecting local place” discussions in the Beatley book, I was particularly inspired by some of the transcontinental policies and networks being established, where many members of the EU were working toward a common objective. I thought that really distilled the notion that it can’t just be one town, or city, or suburb, or region, or state, or country acting alone toward sustainability. Of course it is important to take initiative, be creative, and consider issues of nature, ecology, and sustainability at the micro level, but the biosphere doesn’t heed political boundaries, so working cooperatively—and thinking cooperatively—is imperative. I mean, we have an interstate transportation system, right? So what’s to stop the US from expanding the Appalachian Trail all the way to the Rockies (besides naming conventions)? Or, for that matter, a Pan-American Trail?

Furthermore—and perhaps this is reducing much of the discussion of “globalization”—one city’s (or state’s, or country’s) choices have implications on others. Ecologically this is a commonly accepted idea; we’ve all heard about emissions from smokestacks in Michigan causing acid rain in Maine (or wherever); but, in the larger sense of sustainability, particularly economic sustainability, the logic still follows: The decisions and policies of one place, whether economic, social, or ecological, effect other places both next door and across the globe.

”The city…creates ‘fragmented identities, instantaneous connections, and constant movement.’” (33)

To me, this notion of the city as both an agent of fragmentation and connection is captured fairly well in the concept of the green wedge/finger/belt versus the implementation of pocket parks, courtyards, and green roofs. Although the greenbelt in general can be seen as an element of connectivity in the city, the smaller, disconnected instances of nature can be just as instrumental in creating an overall ecological profile, and can create unstructured uses of space that facilitate connection, movement, and identification.


“[C]ities have become an important place where the ecological crisis can be both observed in its most pronounced form and addressed in an efficient way.” (37)

Particularly in regard to local ordinances regarding water contamination (Stockholm and Berlin), habitat degradation (The Hague, Utrecht) and the like, cities in a way conspire to create ecological imbalance, but intervention by local political structures can remediate problems speedily through policy and ordinance. Unlike rural areas where governance structures may not exist, or where few people live, urban environmental policy can effectively harness the dynamism and density of city life to promote change.

My main question, though, in these readings, is the extent to which policy changes or their applications can be coordinated on the regional or superregional scale, and if so, ought they come from the local level and coalesce into something larger, or begin as large-scale plans that, by virtue of semiautonomous execution by towns and cities, become tailored to the specific place?