Green urbanism

Early Urbanization phase, starting from 3000 BCE to 1800 CE, was of more productive agricultural techniques yielding a surplus that was able to support non-agricultural concentrations of people.

Meeting the growing production and consumption needs of urban populations causes an immense amount of strain on the surround suburban and rural communities.

Some other cities may also go through environmental catastrophes, like cyclone and storm, coastal erosion, sea-level rise, ground instability and changes in biodiversity.

At the end of the World War II, the US government offered its citizens affordable housing through easy loans to boost up the city population and also introduced a new federal Interstate System; combined with a rise of automobile ownership, this gave way to a novel way of life called ‘Suburbia’.

Meanwhile, in the 1950s, the inhabitants of other industrial cities, including Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Cleveland and Philadelphia, had already experienced greener suburban pastures.

The first book describing the comprehensive rebuilding of cities toward balance with nature is "Los Angeles: a History of the Future" (1982) by Paul Glover (activist).

‘The Green Paper on the Urban Development’ published in 1990 has been considered as a ‘milestone’ document in promoting sustainable city projects as a solution to global environmental role (Beatley, 2000).

Firstly, to be regarded as an attractive, creative place and a cultural hub to attract highly skilled workers and Melbourne, Australia was strong competition with arts, museum and university; secondly, to get recognition as a place for secure investment, mention worthy, Dubai, Shanghai, and Singapore have topped in attracting and facilitating global investment capital; and thirdly, to become a leader of green vision by technological advancement and offering environmentally sound lifestyles and also providing green jobs; Hannover and Copenhagen have done well in this field.

The major agenda of the above-mentioned cities are tackling global climate change, biodiversity loss, and also lifting themselves as ‘hosts’ of all environmental challenges.

To address the gap, Timothy Beatley and Steffen Lehmann used the ‘green urbanism’ theory that aims to transform existing cities from fragmentation to compaction.

The three main contemporary planners who have contributed to Green Urbanism Thought are Steffen Lehmann, Timothy Beatley, and Peter Newman.

All of these principles are based on the understanding that urbanization is a key driver of carbon emissions, resource depletion and environmental degradation.

Lehmann uses a strategic case study of the seaport city of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia to build his definition of Green Urbanism.

Lehmann added the phrase also provides a proactive vision of what might be our zero-carbon, fossil fuel free future: overlapping mixed-use activities, living and working building typologies explored on the urban scale, infrastructures systems for renewable energies, public transport and individual energy-efficient building designs.

Newman believes that Green Urbanism can be used to create a more sustainable society that can fight against the ecological impacts of climate change.

Various organizations are calling for a plan of action to promote cities as natural places that have the capability of generating multiple benefits to the environment.

[20] Much of this has to do with laws and incentives that were passed during the leadership of Angela Merkel, who studied physics and earned her doctorate in quantum chemistry and has been nicknamed as "The Climate Chancellor".

[23] It's a rather ambitious project, with most capitals planning to become carbon-neutral close to 2050, but Copenhagen is becoming a trailblazer and proving to others how easy it is to go green without going bankrupt.

[27] The city has bolstered its green urban structure through its Skyrise Greenery initiative which subsidises the building of roof and vertical gardens.

Green Urbanism has grown from textbook methodologies to living action plans that survive beyond the election cycles of city mayors and counsellors.