The future of sustainable urbanism: a redefinition

© 2016, The Author(s). In this article the future of sustainable urbanism is discussed. In current times a complex of uncertainties demands sustainable environments. Three uncertainties are distinguished. Firstly, the city needs to deal with uncertain developments, such as the impacts of climate change. Secondly, urban environments are the place where deliberate uncertainties, such as the generation of renewable energy and other sustainability transitions must find a place. The third form of uncertainty is the increased exposure of urban populations to the impacts of a spectrum of uncertain developments, climate impacts. This ‘Triple-U problem’ urges the design of urban areas to be sustainable. Sustainability has long been a part of urbanism, however, in completely different ways in different periods in history. When learning from the past, the analysis of sustainable urbanism in seven periods brings key elements to the fore. Sustainable urbanism has evolved, but key characteristics of each period may and can still be used to design sustainable cities. Based on these characteristics two strategies, and a potential third one, are identified: to fix the future, to indulge the future, and to create anti-fragile urban environments. Where fixing the future implies the reparation of environmental qualities and closing environmental flows within the urban boundaries, indulging the future focuses on the creation of sufficient space to accommodate the possible spatial impacts of unprecedented events and change. Anti-fragility supports the city in raising its resilience under threat of uncertain impacts. The article ends with a proposed renewed definition of sustainable urbanism

The future of sustainable urbanism: Society-based, complexity-led, and landscape-driven

© 2017 by the authors. This article discusses the question: where to with sustainable urbanism? It includes a historic review of the concept of sustainable urbanism and reviews of recent literature in the field of eco-cities. Through these reviews, it deliberately interrogates new pathways for sustainable urbanism. The result of this investigation is the insight that there are six design principles that are required to create a sustainable city: a design in which cycles are closed, redundancy is built in, anti-fragility is created, citizens are seen as (design) experts, the landscape is used as the basis, and innovative, rule-breaking designs are developed. These six design principles are then captured in three comprehensive concepts, which together support the design of a sustainable city: the design approach needs to be a (1) society-based; (2) complexity-led, and (3) landscape-driven design approach

Advanced use of the urban metabolism model in rapidly changing cities

For the calculation of energy and other flows in urban environments, we should take as a starting point relatively stable urban settlements. This makes it possible to calculate in and outgoing flows accurately, but only at a single moment in time. In this paper an adjusted approach to urban metabolism is proposed in which dynamic circumstances can be incorporated, suitable for urban settlements under pressure of rapid and unprecedented change. As examples we take the nearly uncontrollable growth of Almafraq in Jordan as a result of Syrian refugees and the changes in the population of Vlagtwedde in the Netherlands under influence from natural shrinkage and influx of (temporary) asylum seekers. The core questions answered here are: the way to calculate energy flows as input for sustainable urban design when population change is serious and the way to design cities when incorporating the results of dynamic urban metabolism. The research is ongoing and promises innovative results in the near future. © 2014 WIT Press

Towards an integrated vision of a climateproof Groningen

The Groningen province is gathering ideas on spatial adaptations for climate proofing the province. Such ideas on spatial adaptations for climate change have been produced and collected during a number of workshops in which experts on (e.g.) energy, ecology, water, agriculture and the climate shared their vision on how to make Groningen ready for climate change. Two kinds of workshop sessions were organized to define a coherent set of adaptation measures. Sector-specific workshops focused on generating solutions for problems in a specific domain (e.g. nature or energy), while more general sessions aimed to establish integrated visions for climate change adaption in Groningen. In the sector-specific sessions, experts gathered adaptation measures for societal domains such as energy generation, ecology, coastal management and water management. Gathering these ideas led to a large number of maps that show threats and proposed measures for a specific theme. In total, four sessions produced 28 separate maps, each with a (partially) different set of adaptation measures for Groningen

Visions of Resilience: Design-led transformation for climate extremes

This report presents results of a two-year research project led by the Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab (VEIL) exploring community-based visions of climate resilience and barriers to change. Its methods put community stakeholders at the heart of building resilience to climate extremes in Australia. It demonstrates why and how local perspectives and values must have a seat at the table when disaster mitigation strategies are conceived and designed

Effectiveness of the Local Adaptation Plan of Action to support climate change adaptation in Nepal

A key challenge in climate change adaptation in developing countries as a whole, and to handling global change in particular, is to link local adaptation needs on the one hand, with national adaptation initiatives on the other, so that vulnerable households and communities can directly benefit. This study assesses the impact of the Nepal government’s efforts to promote its Local Adaptation Plan of Action (LAPA) and its applicability to other least developed countries (LDCs). Based on data gathered from two field studies in Nepal, the research shows that the Nepal’s LAPA has succeeded in mobilizing local institutions and community groups in adaptation planning and recognizing their role in adaptation. However, the LAPA approach and implementation have been constrained by sociostructural and governance barriers that have failed to successfully integrate local adaptation needs in local planning and increase the adaptive capacity of vulnerable households. This paper describes the mechanisms of suitable governance strategies for climate change adaptation specific to Nepal and other LDCs. It also argues the need to adopt an adaptive comanagement approach, where the government and all stakeholders identify common local- and national-level mainstreaming strategy for knowledge management, resource mobilization, and institutional development, ultimately using adaptation as a tool to handle global change

Three urbanisms in one city: accommodating the paces of change

In current times urban developments can no longer be seen as straightforward building of the required number of houses, industries and parking spaces. Instead, the problems in many cities are of different nature: urban conurbations may shrink, or climate impacts cause a serious disaster. These problems all have a different pace of development. The fast development must be combined with slower development pace fitting with shrinking cities and the sudden change climatic impacts requires. Therefore, in this article three types of urbanisms are proposed, which each care for an increase of resilience in the city. Fast urbanism accommodates the growth of the city in a calculated way in periods of economic prosperity; slow urbanism designs spaces for slowly developing uses such as ecology or food in times of shrinkage; and suddenism anticipates future climate impacts through designing spaces for temporary use