In the last 15 years, humanity has reached two unprecedented milestones: more than half the world’s population now lives in urbanized locations, and, in 2011, the world population reached the 7 billion mark. According to UN-Habitat, the world population took 123 years to double from 1 to 2 billion but “only” 33 years to cross the 3 billion threshold.
The speed and scale at which urban populations continue to grow is transforming how we extract natural resources from our planet’s finite resources. This transformation brings with it
the need to find ways to ensure a reasonable standard of living for generations to come, including the poorest.
Sustainable urban development encompasses the full range of measures that will ensure our natural resources and rich biodiversity are
not irreversibly compromised in feeding the demands of our rapidly urbanizing planet and the people that dwell in cities—not just now, but for as long as cities and urban activities exist. Sustainable urban development is both an essential and aspirational goal for the very survival of our planet and its rich biodiversity.
For much of known urban history (almost 5,000 to 7,000 years), populations living in urban areas have had a small ecological footprint. Urban areas developed primarily as markets for agrarian commodities and services, and in the process, they brought populations together and offered innovative opportunities for art, science, and culture that did not exist in agrarian and rural communities.
Sustainability stands on three pillars: our environment, our society, and our economy. These pillars must be considered together
if any outcome hopes to be sustainable.
Sustainable urban areas will not only be sensitive to the environment and use replenishable natural resources, their populations will live in conditions focused on health and well-being for all, not merely consumption and luxury for a few. Similarly, sustainable urban areas will run on economies built by skills and jobs that don’t exploit natural resources without replenishment.
Many of our current global cities currently fall short of meeting these social, economic, and environmental aspirations. There is, however, much good practice already emerging in cities that considers the needs of different aspects of society. Global cities are starting to create businesses and jobs that use materials such as water and energy carefully, and with the least possible impact on the environment.
Several countries are now using data and digital tools to track and manage their social, economic, and environmental practices, and to enhance their city systems and urban development. These “smart cities” are better able to track the use (and abuse) of natural resources to operate city services, create services and jobs, and sustain families.
In the context of global agreements such as the 2015 Paris Agreement (where countries are committed to quantified
targets for greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity protection), digital information and analytics are essential to sustainable urban development. Indeed, smart cities provide excellent opportunities to track resource flows and keep urban development firmly on the sustainability track.
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Developing countries today have some of the largest and fastest urbanizing settlements in the world. International organizations expect the further migration of millions of people due to a range of factors, such as climate change pushing people out of rural areas to look for security and livelihoods in urban centers.
Cities in the developing world are still grappling with improving the security, services, and opportunities available to urban populations. The biggest advantage for cities in developing countries is that they still have the choice to:
Protect water, air, and biodiversity from pollution and over-exploitation
Use renewable energy over fossil fuel-based energy
Manage urban expansion and reduce sprawl
Create economies based on adapting greener ways of working and manufacturing
Promote local resources so as to minimize their global footprint
Issues such as climate change, however, are outside the hands of single cities and countries. Therefore, developing countries must engage at global forums (e.g., the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference) to seek investments and technologies that will support sustainable urban development across the world.
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Benefits of sustainable urban development
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Nature itself provides a huge opportunity for making urban development sustainable. Cities can adopt cleaner technology and robust systems already present in nature.
Planners and architects are increasingly choosing nature-based solutions to harder, more rigid alternatives.
For example, mangroves are a far more sustainable option for coastal protection than concrete floodwalls. Also, greening cities through the careful selection and planting of trees can reduce the need for mechanical technology for cooling or drainage.
The global, networked cities of the 21st century are something our planet has never seen before. Digital communication across New York, London, Mumbai, Singapore, and Tokyo is now commonplace thanks to huge advances made in technology such as extra-orbital satellites and fiber-optic data transmission. And global travel is faster and far more spread than ever before in history (even considering our current COVID-19-related restrictions).
Some Asian megacities have more than
20 million people living in close proximity, practicing professions that draw upon natural resources but don’t necessarily return much to nature. One example of these professions is finance, which allows entire populations to consume products developed from the mining and extractive industries (e.g., smartphones); working financial capital, however, isn’t always invested back into replenishing
natural resources.
This is the key challenge sustainable urban development attempts to address. How do we create cities and urban activities that return more than—if not equal to—what we extract from nature? How do we create cities and urban activities that give back at least as much as they take from nature?
The combined wisdom of global scientists, think tanks, communities, and governments recognizes that cities are already damaging our planet. Before this ecological damage (and its impact on the livelihoods of numerous urban and rural communities) becomes irreversible, cities must transform the systems on which they operate. These systems include, but are not limited to, power, transportation, the mobility of people and supply chains, financial capital, and jobs.
Much of these systems rely on energy extracted from fossil fuels; little of such extraction is invested back into repairing and rejuvenating this natural capital.
Replacing fossils fuels with clear forms of energy, as well as restoring the environment and our planet’s biodiversity, is therefore
a fundamental characteristic of sustainable urban development.
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