Regenerative Cities

At the start of the 21st century, humanity is becoming a predominantly urban species and this historic development represents a fundamental, systemic change in the relationship between humans and nature. Urban based economic activities account for 55 percent of GNP in the least developed countries, 73 percent in middle income countries and 85 percent in the most developed countries.1 Modern cities, then, are defined by the concentration of economic activities and intense human interaction. This is reflected in high average levels of personal consumption and the efficient supply of a great variety of services at comparatively low per-capita costs. But the environmental impacts of an urbanizing humanity are a great cause for concern. Apart from a near monopoly on the use of fossil fuels, metals and concrete, an urbanizing humanity now consumes nearly half of nature’s annual photosynthetic capacity as well. Since the industrial revolution the process of urbanization has become ever more resource-intensive, and it significantly contributes to climate change, loss of soil carbon, natural fertility of farmland, and the loss of biodiversity all over the world. The ravenous appetite of our fossil-fuel powered lifestyles for resources from the world’s ecosystems has severe consequences for all life on Earth, including human life. Cities have developed resource consumption and waste disposal habits that show little concern for the consequences. Addressing this issue is the primary task of this paper. The larger and the richer the city, the more it tends to draw on nature’s bounty from across the world rather than its own local hinterland. Human impacts on the world’s ecosystems and landscapes are dominated by the ecological footprints of cities, which now stretch across much of the Earth. They can be hundreds of times larger than the cities themselves. In an urbanizing world, cities need to rapidly switch to renewable energy and to actively help restore damaged ecosystems. The WWF states in its Living Planet Reports that in the last 30 years a third of the natural world has been obliterated.2 40-50 percent of Earth’s ice-free land surface has been heavily transformed or degraded by human activities, 66 percent of marine fisheries are either over exploited or at their limit and atmospheric CO2 has increased more than 30 percent since the advent of industrialization.3 Helping to reverse this collision course between humans and nature is a new challenge for most national politicians, but even more for urban politicians, planners and managers, and for architects, civil engineers and city dwellers. The challenge today is no longer just to create sustainable cities but truly regenerative cities: to assure that they do not just become resource-efficient and low carbon emitting, but that they positively enhance rather than undermine the ecosystem services they receive from beyond their boundaries. A wide range of technical and management solutions towards this end are already available, but so far implementation has been too slow and too little. Most importantly, the transformative changes that are required to make cities regenerative call for far-reaching strategic choices and long-term planning as compared to the short-term compromises and patchwork solutions that characterize most of our political decision-making systems at all spheres of government. In recent years there has been a proliferation of urban regeneration initiatives focussed on the health and wellbeing of urban citizens and the urban fabric – the ‘inner-urban environment’ – particularly in rich countries such as Britain, Germany and the USA. Such initiatives have received much funding and media attention, and they have improved the lives of millions of people. In various countries Urban Regeneration Associations have been established to address problems such as deindustrialization, depopulation, congestion, aging infrastructure, run-down sink estates and associated matters.

source :
https://www.worldfuturecouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/WFC_2010_Regenerative_Cities.pdf