4.3 - What attempts have been made to find sustainable solutions to problems faced by cities?

Greenwich Millenium
1. Used to be 212 acres of the most contaminated land in the country (Largest gas works in EU)
2. Saving water
  1. Rain falling on dome roof used for toilets
  2. Rain falling on supermarket roof used to water plants
  3. Waste water from baths, showers and wash basins in village homes is filtered + used to flush toilets + water plants
3. Saving energy
  1. Supermarkets use electricity for light, heat and fridges
    1. Makes some of its own - wind + solar power
    2. Has banks of earth on each side to keep warm in winter and cool in summer
    3. Glass roof lets light in
4. Village houses
  1. Well insulated to keep heat in
  2. Sheltered from cold winds
  3. South-facing glass walls - traps sun's heat
5. Cutting traffic
  1. Car = pollution - clogging up streets
  2. Good bus service
  3. Tube station beside dome
  4. Lots of cycle tracks
  5. Many parking spaces
  6. Order from supermarket over the internet - shopping delivered
Abu Dhabi, Masdar (Carbon neutral city)
1. World's first carbon neutral city
2. Designed to be without cars and skyscrapers - powered by the sun
3. Only way to survive inhospitable terrain is with technological support
4. Need to combine 21st century engineering with traditional desert architecture
5. Built the biggest solar farm in the middle-east to power city and offset inevitable burning of diesel and baking of cement in construction
6. 1 projected = circle of mirrors reflecting towards a tower
  1. Heat energy powers heat and drive generators
7. Narrow street - buildings shade one another
8. Surrounded by a wall - stops over-expansion
9. Wind towers encourage a breeze - cools streets with no energy use
10. Conventional cars must be checked in at gates
11. Pedestrianised streets - 'foot friendly'
12. Personal rapid transport + pod-cars
  1. Driverless vehicles guided by magnetic sensors - powered by solar energy
13. Quality of air will be better than anywhere in the Gulf + world
14. On top of wind tower, light portrays energy efficiency - Red = too much Blue = just right
  1. 45m tall + visible for miles around
Curitiba, South Brazil
1. Pop 3 million
2. 99% are happy with the city
3. Prioritising people over cars
4. Lots of green spaces, pedestrianised roads
5. No graffiti
6. Appeals across generations
7. Jaime Lerner - Urban planner for Curitiba - was an architecture student + now mayor - good experience
  1. Given task of demolishing buildings to widen road
    1. Did the opposite - opened paving + a malll
8. Public transport
  1. Pop 10x in 50yrs
  2. Once clogged with cars
  3. Created main artificial traffic routes with 3 main paths
    1. One in
    2. One out
    3. One 2-way road with bus routes
  4. 2 million people transported each day
  5. It is not subsided - pays for itself
  6. Triple articulated buses - 3 carriages
    1. 200x less expensive than subways - no tunnels needed
    2. Buses becoming slow - people buying tickets on buses + queuing
      1. Created platforms - glass boarding tubes - buying tickets elsewhere
    3. During peak hours - buses every 60s and always full
9. Parkland/ open space
  1. Extensive network of paths
  2. Large network of parks circle city - greenbelt
  3. Built parks in 2 months
  4. Increased land value + created 'leisure paradise'
  5. Well maintained, variety of landscape
  6. Parks also allowed flooding - cheaper than hard engineering
  7. Sheep put in for maintenance of grass + land - much cheaper than machinery
  8. Has 4x recommended green space per resident
  9. Slums do border the edges of the city - Favelas
10. Helping poor
  1. Equation of co-responsibility
    1. Poor people clean up their surroundings and in return the govt feeds them
      1. People can live off of this
    2. Give food rather than money - people will not buy correct things to live off of
  2. Little can be done to improve housing quality
    1. Housing build illegally on wetlands
      1. The govt will reclaim the suburb but residents will be moved to a better suburb with power and roads
Keep Leicester Cool
1. Series of steps to encourage people to reduce usage - publicity
2. Insulating housing
3. Switch to renewable energy
  1. E.g. solar panels - Govts reducing costs of tech - money saved pays off in long run
4. Recycling
5. Composting - reduces landfill sites being filled
6. Make gardens greener - plants absorb co2
7. Review methods of travel - reduce amount of petrol used
8. 'Think before you fly' - uses enormous amounts of fuel
9. Buy local goods - reduce transport needed for delivery + boosts local economy
10. Save water - reduce impacts of climate change

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4.3 - What attempts have been made to find sustainable solutions to problems faced by cities?

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	Created by RoryFlynn2 almost 11 years ago