Opinion Poll

Health and sustainable cities

Sidsel Overby Hartlev — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 15:39:36 +0000

Health is one of the fundamental prerequisites for a sustainable lifestyle in the cities. Cities provide the physical, social and environmental framework for the majority of the planet’s population and have an important role in promoting a healthy lifestyle and making it easy to choose a healthy way of living. Health is about people's overall living conditions as well as groups and individuals lifestyle.

Masterplans and sustainable cities

Anna Esbjørn Hess — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 07:05:20 +0000

The masterplan – the ’grand plan’ – is a crucial tool when planning for urban renewal projects or new urban development projects on a large scale. With the masterplan architects and urban planners can present their overall vision: how should the configuration of buildings, traffic and land-use be? Usually, details are left out in the masterplan – the most important issue here is the big view upon things.

Education and sustainable cities

admin — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:05:10 +0000

In industrialised countries, we often use terms such as knowledge society or information society to characterize our present time. Education and specialisation are crucial parameters for urban development and survival in a global economy. The world is closely connected through cooperative relations, technology and the media, and cities share many of the same challenges in relation to climate adaption and sustainable development. Thus it makes sense that everyone gains access to this knowledge.

Buildings and sustainable cities

June-Catherina Starling — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:33:16 +0000

In developed countries, residential and commercial buildings account for nearly 40% of all carbon emissions and consume as much as 73% of electricity. While perhaps shocking at first, these statistics are hardly surprising when one realizes that the average person in the developed world spends more than 90% of his or her time indoors. In a world that is rapidly developing and modernising, sustainably-constructed and efficiently-used buildings are severely needed to ensure a sustainable future.

Social issues and sustainable cities

Hulda Hallgrimsdottir — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 10:11:58 +0000

During the last 50 years the main goal in city planning has been creating efficient and easy accessible cities. The focus has been put on community infrastructure like sewers, roads, electrical, gas and water utilities and other aspects of the physical structure. These planning strategies have had a large number of unintended consequences with impact on the social life of cities. Thus, social sustainability becomes important in creating sustainable cities.

Green and sustainable cities

Hulda Hallgrimsdottir — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:51:15 +0000

The world is in the midst of a disturbing period of population growth, growing consumption and environmental degradation. From global warming to biodiversity loss to patterns of sprawling land consumption, the environmental trends are dire. Cities will by necessity play an increasingly important role in addressing these issues.

Energy and sustainable cities

June-Catherina Starling — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 02:26:45 +0000

Most of the world's energy is used in cities. Local transport, electricity supply, home living, services provision and manufacturing crucially depend on fossil fuels. In the last 50 years, fossil fuel combustion has increased nearly five times (Girardet 2008). Without routine use of coal, oil and gas, the growth of megacities would never have occurred, all the internal activities – local transport, electricity supply, home living, services provision and manufacturing – crucially depend on fossil fuels.

Waste and sustainable cities

June-Catherina Starling — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 02:24:12 +0000

From 1950 to 2000 the world’s economic activities increased fifteen fold. The growth of consumer societies all over the world has seen a large increase in solid waste produced per head, and the waste mix has also become ever more complex. For more than 50 years we have taken for granted that our waste could be deposited in holes in the ground or incinerated. In the urbanized world cities use the bulk of the world’s resources and discharge most waste.

Water and sustainable cities

June-Catherina Starling — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 02:17:50 +0000

Over the last 100 years rapid growth of the world’s population has been one of the most visible and dramatic changes to the world. Population growth has huge implications for all aspects of resource use, including water. Although water is a renewable resource, it is only renewable within limits.

Transport and sustainable cities

June-Catherina Starling — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 21:36:22 +0000

During the past fifty years, there has been an exponential growth in transport of both people and goods. The number of motorised road vehicles has surpassed more than 800 million world-wide and are, in many places, still growing at higher rates than both human population and GDP. This growth has several unintended consequences – and is now increasingly eroding some of the very benefits transport has brought about. It is now evident that current trends pose severe challenges for societies aiming to move towards sustainable city development.

Food and sustainable cities

June-Catherina Starling — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 11:35:32 +0000

Today modern western populations expect to be able to eat large varieties of different products from all over the world, all year round.

In the U.S., the average grocery store product travels nearly 1,500 miles between the farm where it is grown and the consumer’s refrigerator. A tremendous amount of fossil fuel is used to transport food such long distances. Even when you set aside the environmental harm resulting from processing, packaging and long-distance-transport, the industrial farms are major sources of air and water pollution.