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Sustainable Development
by mstandaert on August 13, 2006
Smart growth, slow growth, no growth, pro growth? No matter where you fall in among these you're obviously concerned with how communities grow. I'm not so pessimistic as some about the ability to create livable communities that can grow while also being sustainable. NI tend to think that no growth is just as unsustainable as pro growth. As for smart growth and slow growth, many often think they actually mean no growth, which in some cases is true.
So how are we to support people wanting to own homes instead of the vassal like renting apartment for years on end? How do you unsure that growth doesn't overburden the environment, both scenic and unseeable? These are key questions of the day, and I know that we won't be able to answer them here, but maybe we can find small sollutions that go into the larger whole for improving how growth is handled.
From the Chronicle Herald out of Canada, this story on the World Urban Forum in June looks at creating sustainable cities.
Global sustainability challenges discussed at the third World Urban Forum (WUF3) in Vancouver in June are the same things we face locally at the provincial, municipal and neighbourhood level. In some respects, we are meeting those challenges; in other ways we are beginning to catch up with what others are doing around the world; and occasionally we haven't even begun to discuss collectively certain issues, let alone take action.
We have now reached a point in history where half of the world's population lives in cities. In Canada, 80 per cent of the population is urban. Migration from rural areas to cities is expected to continue, with the potential to both concentrate deficiencies, and create opportunities for progress. Our future depends on how we respond, and the World Urban Forum showcased numerous strategies from which we can learn.
Urban planning and management have to consider land-use conflicts, increasing car dependency, and loss of farmland for cities to be socially, economically, culturally and environmentally sustainable. The principles identified in smart growth, as Halifax Regional Municipality is emphasizing, were positively highlighted at WUF3.
One thing that would help, at least from my point of view, is to support rural community development to slow the migration to massive cities. There are so many factors in how to go about this, but one would likely be scaling back farm subsidies in the West. First, they shut out third world farmers from getting a fair value on the market, and second, at home these subsidies often go to large scale farming, or corporate farms that are neither healthy or sustainable. Instead, perhaps if subsidies were scaled back with part of them being retransferred to supporting local family farmers, we could cut back on pollution from shipping agriculture around the globe as well as support community health and fellowship.
Just some random and probably simplistic thoughts here on Sunday morning ... blame the cutback on coffee.
In other news ...
*From Bangladesh, promoting the environment with awards as well as calls to take up eco-friendly sustainable development projects.
*In the Philippines, the key is microfinance.
*Sustainable development blog coverage from Bermuda.
*The British Standards Institution has launched the world's first standard for managing sustainable development.
*Uprising Radio has plenty of interesting items.
*Part of the process of building sustainable communities is supporting good design.
Permalink: Creating Sustainable Cities
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