The Future of the City: Sustainability and the Smart City Movement

Abstract

Modern urban planning is faced with adapting to what the cities of tomorrow will be like along with the current urban problems in the cities of today. Sustainability has been on the agenda of many organizations and cities to help combat issues of climate change and decreasing resources. The global market has added challenges of its own but also poses as opportunities in sustainability and successful urban environments. The smart city movement has provided a means to connect city officials and planners with residents and important data to help foster effective decision making. While the modern urban world brings about many challenges, its innovation also brings about exciting changes to our urban world.

Introduction

One of the hottest topics in urban planning, government, and organizations both locally and internationally is the future of our cities and the challenges that the urban environment will pose in the years to come. Many of these challenges have already manifested themselves in problems such as natural disasters, poverty, overcrowding, food production, inadequate housing, crumbling infrastructure, and climate change. Because of the challenges facing the urban environment, sustainability processes, global interconnectivity, alternative food production, and data collection through the smart city movement has made its way to the forefront of urban processes moving forward.

The Beginnings of Urbanization

When discussing the future of cities it is imperative to examine what gave rise to the urban environment to begin with. The processes of agriculture led to the settlement of large civilizations and urban development as it allowed them to give up their hunter-gatherer lifestyle and build permanent shelters. The technological changes of the Industrial Revolution further changed the relationship between humans and the environment as it led to industry with mass manufacturing and greater worker productivity. All of these changes helped foster the rapid development of cities and urban population boom.

Sustainability

Sustainability is, essentially, the ability to sustain, or endure, over long periods of time. According to the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (1987), “sustainable development…implies meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” (United Nations, 1987). Sustainability is primarily concerned with how an individual, an organization, a city, a nation, and the world work together to enable efficient overall outcomes. Not just one process or aspect of a city can make it sustainable; it is a development of processes that work together that leads to sustainability.

Sustainability and Innovation

The documentary The Rise of Sustainability discusses how innovation rather than traditional methods will be essential in achieving the desired outcomes of preserving our environment and our future:

Traditional thinking, institutions, and management methods that created the sustainability crisis will not solve it. As such, the development of a truly sustainable, global economy would involve a transformation in the deep structure of post-industrial economics to exhibit new functional capabilities. (Complexity Labs, 2017).

100 Resilient Cities

100 Resilient Cities is an initiative pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation that encourages action from cities around the world to incorporate sustainability practices and resiliency into their city. The 100 Resilient Cities website states that they are “dedicating to helping cities around the world become more resilient to the physical, social, and economic challenges that are a growing part of the 21st century.” (100 Resilient Cities, 2017).

New Orleans

New Orleans is included in the 100 Resilient Cities list and many conversations have occurred about what steps to take to propel New Orleans forward as a sustainable city. Many organizations in New Orleans are leading the way in this initiative. One of these organizations includes The Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation, whom founded the movement GreeNOLA: A Strategy for a Sustainable New Orleans. Their executive summary states:

The City of New Orleans is establishing a comprehensive approach to its recovery by incorporating leading ideas about sustainable and smart urban development into the recovery process. We are, in fact, rebuilding both the city’s physical infrastructure and its administrative infrastructure. Our objective is not merely to recover smarter, greener, and better than we were before. In New Orleans, sustainable development means establishing resilient settlement patterns based on a thorough understanding of flood risk; adopting better building standards that include energy efficiency, design for climate change, and alternative energy sources; finding more effective uses for materials that are currently being discarded as waste; and protecting and restoring the urban and natural environments. (The Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation, 2008).

Currently as a whole however, New Orleans, along with several other cities on the list of 100 Resilient Cities and across the world, still need to resolve issues such as homelessness, income inequality, poor infrastructure, inadequate housing, insufficient economic diversity, reliance on fossil fuels, and lack of resources to implement drastic change before they can be considered truly sustainable. Reaching sustainability will be a long, ongoing process, likely with many bumps along the way, particularly with scarcity of resources and necessary government regulations, and require implementation of creative and technological advances.

Global Interconnectivity

The future of cities, whether everyone is on board with it or not, relies heavily on global cities and the global economy. Moving forward, cities will have to find a balance between local markets and global competition, perhaps through shop local initiatives or financial incentives for small businesses. At the same time, the global market will also open up many opportunities for cities willing and able to take advantage of it. This type of global interconnectivity will also be beneficial moving forward with sustainable practices, as cities across nations and from around the globe will be able to learn from one another and aid in building sustainable cities together.

There are already numerous ways that cities and organizations are trying new ways to revolutionize the city. The video Urbanization and the Future of Cities examines some of the widespread changes we may see, or may already be seeing, occurring in cities:

Food production might move to vertical farms and skyscrapers, rooftop gardens, or vacant lots in city centers, while power will increasingly come from multiple sources of renewable energy. Instead of single-family homes, more residences will be built vertically. We may see buildings that contain everything that people need for their daily life, as well as smaller, self—sufficient cities focused on local and sustainable production. The future of cities is diverse, malleable, and creative, no longer built around a single industry, but reflecting an increasingly connected and global world. (TEDEducation, 2013).

Inclusivity, Creativity, and Sustainability

There are three important factors to the successful cities of tomorrow – inclusivity, creativity, and sustainability. Together these three factors can help combat the challenges that cities are currently facing and will continue to face in the days to come. In Chapter 13 of the textbook Introduction to Cities: How Place and Space Shape Human Experience, the authors discuss the importance of these three factors in urban life:

Cities that are more exclusive tend to be more contested and less stable places with eroded identity, community, and safety, while more inclusive cities possess and preserve these three valuable attributes of place much better…By planning and designing the residential environment to accommodate people of more diverse backgrounds and conditions, and to improve their access to nearby public spaces, service facilities, and entertainment outlets, professional planners and architects can help to strengthen wide-ranging social interactions that can translate into collective trust, communal sentiment, and place identity. (Chen, Orum, and Paulsen, 2013; pg. 342).

The Smart City Movement

One of the biggest trends for evaluating how we will make a difference in the cities of the future is the widespread concept as well as implementation of the smart city. Smart city initiatives are popping up all over the United States, but are especially making huge strides in cities globally. Smart cities can be described as “hyper-connected cities technologically equipped to improve the lives of their residents.”(AXA, 2017).

When discussing smart cities, there are a myriad of possibilities and techniques implemented with the use of technology intended to make the city a more efficient place. Every city using smart city processes has different intended outcomes and techniques. In the near future, the smart city movement may prove revolutionary to the way we study cities and how we plan and govern cities and incorporate its residents into the urban planning process.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the current challenges the city poses today will only be magnified in the city of tomorrow if major changes aren’t effectuated. It has become evident that we cannot fix these problems by doing the same things that we have been doing in planning cities of the past. It is essential that we implement technology and creativity in our processes if we hope to fix major threats the environment, poverty, and numerous other inequalities faced in cities around the world. Through creative new processes and technological advances the world has a hopeful future to not only reduce these threats but to make the residents of urban populations healthier and happier than ever before.

References

100 Resilient Cities. (n.d.). About Us. Retrieved December 01, 2017, from http://www.100resilientcities.org/

AXA. (2017, March 30). Smart Cities: Step into the city of the future! Retrieved December 1, 2017, from (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKWuj1OlDPo

Chen, X., Orum, A. M., & Paulsen, K. E. (2018). Introduction to Cities: How Place and Space Shape Human Experience. S.l.: WILEY-BLACKWELL.

Complexity Labs. (2017, May 18). The Rise of Sustainability. Retrieved December 01, 2017, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_skrxnh7Ik.

TEDEducation. (2013, September 12). Urbanization and the future of cities - Vance Kite. Retrieved December 01, 2017, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKnAJCSGSdk.

The Louisiansa Disaster Recovery Foundation. (2008). GreeNOLA: A Strategy for a Sustainable New Orleans. Retrieved December 1, 2017, from https://www.bing.com/cr?IG=D720360DC0F2409787613F3142AD14E1&CID=3CFF44EF686160E329514FA469676178&rd=1&h=RRPGHYyNmyT9l3QIX05UKk5ar5FdQtJraEbj-iVwpuM&v=1&r=https%3a%2f%2fnola.gov%2fgetattachment%2fbece551e-5cf8-421c-ac27-48db26194c40%2fAppendix-Ch-13-GreeNOLA-A-Strategy-for-a-Sustainab%2f&p=DevEx,5039.1

United Nations. (1987, December 11). Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development. Retrieved December 01, 2017, from http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/42/ares42-187.html

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