How To Meet The Challenges Of Rapid Urbanization

The following is a guest post by Ray McNeal, Real Estate and Environment Blogger:

The number of people living in cities worldwide is expected to nearly double by the year 2050, increasing from 3.6 billion in 2011 to more than 6 billion. This rapid growth will surely present challenges, but it will also provide huge opportunities for the public and private sectors to work together to develop more connected and efficient cities. In addition to environmental sustainability, well-planned urban areas could mean improved public health, job growth, a reduction in excess spending, and an increased economic appeal for investors.

The issue is that resources – limited land, water, electricity, and transportation – must increase dramatically in order to support population growth, putting serious additional strain on the environment. To ensure success, public sector urban planners and private sector developers are already working to get ahead of some of the challenges that come with supporting a mass migration to cities, finding ways to stretch resources and make more efficient use of limited space.

Plan Bay Area 2040 is a prime example of a forward-thinking initiative created to prepare for expected growth in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Bay Area as a whole is expected to see significant growth in jobs and housing over the next 25 years, with the majority concentrated within its three central cities – San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland. As part of the initiative, officials from each central city meet regularly with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) to discuss progress in developing a transportation and housing plan that reduces dependence on cars and makes efficient use of land. MTC Commissioner Mark Luce considers it an historic step forward in serving future generations. Advocates of Plan Bay Area acknowledge that decisions regarding land use are ultimately local, but that the creation of a joint initiative will lead to smarter, more eco-friendly cities able to reach the common goals of each region.

The private sector is also making efforts to be more environmentally responsible in urban development. At the Urban Land Institute’s 2014 fall conference, real estate developer and Tishman Speyer President and co-CEO Rob Speyer addressed the need to look beyond the obvious solution of LEED Certification, focusing instead on how individuals make use of structures within cities. “Buildings don't exist in a vacuum, and the behavior, and the lifestyles of the people that live and work in our buildings? That's what's really going to determine the future of the environment,” said Speyer.

Tishman Speyer is the owner of Rockefeller Center in New York City, and Speyer often cites the structure as an example of a “happy building” – one that makes the best possible use of space in a crowded city. Aside from a green rooftop, it also provides the opportunity for shopping, entertainment, and office space in one central location and cuts down on the need for transportation that can drain the environment.

Multi-city transit systems and buildings designed to serve more than one purpose are two pieces to the solution in supporting rapid urbanization. Developers and urban planners are headed in the right direction, but must continue their focus on developing well-connected and efficient cities.

View from My Window

by Emilie Oyen

When you live in New York City, and you have two little children and a working husband, and there is no maid nor nanny but just you to wash and clean and wipe and soak and nurture and discard and scrape and return and store and recycle and bottle and burn and bemoan... well, there is a lot of thinking time, and often thoughts drift to terror and fear of the end of nature.

For example, I have been told that food discarded into the trash and sent to a landfill does not necessarily decompose. And I am aware that a massive, two-Texases-sized sludge-y plastic-y landfill exists out in the Pacific Ocean. These two facts haunt me as I clean up after dinner. On certain days, I feel that massive, Texas-sized landfill growing on my mind. Is it because---as the consumer and cleaner for one small family domain---I am aware of our significant consumer role that contributes to this destruction? Is it because, as a mother, I worry for the earth's health beyond my own lifetime? Who knows, but carrying this burden of guilt and fear---combined with my limited actions to address it (farmer's market, reusable grocery bags, recycling)---I've come to regard myself as a "Paralyzed Environmentalist." Full of concern: too scared to do much about it. I suspect there is an entire breed of us.

Alas, one day while I circled my apartment muttering to

myself about bananas that have the audacity to come wrapped in plastic, my brother arrived, smuggling a Bokashi kitchen composter into the pristine environs of Upper East Side. They let you in with that? I asked. He smiled, I leapt! Easy, simple, earthy, and even sort of fun. It takes up a tiny corner in my tiny kitchen, and earns the space it keeps. It lightens our trash; it lightens my burden. I have already become friends with a community gardener who did a backflip when I asked if she would take anaerobic dirt, and who awaits my first delivery. And honestly, carrying out the simple process of mixing food scraps with Bokashi and mushing it into the compost makes me feel connected to the earth----at least in my thoughts.---which is, hopefully, a first step out of paralysis.

Read more here (one of many online places to purchase). For more on the subject of indoor composting, click here.

(Above photo, member of the future generation; simple indoor compost; brother's beer bottles.)