Being Sustainable is not Enough... towards Regenerative Urbanism

[Music]

our cities are in peril

and our behaviors have surpassed the

expectations

of the 20th century modernized cities

that we designed

we’re currently living beyond our

planetary boundaries

and in this climate emergency era our

cities need to live

breathe function operate and even behave

differently

and the responsibility is on us each one

of

us but the interesting thing is that our

cities have always been

quite adaptive because you’re mainly

made up of us

and if you look around our cities have

constantly changed with us

however sometimes that change has not

always been that good

you see prior to industrialization our

cities were more in sync with nature

because societies depended on nature for

their well-being

they were mainly a gradient societies

however industrialization changed

something fundamental

we learn to mend nature or at least we

think we learn to man nature

we moved water reclaimed land

industrialized food production and many

more such things

and 21st century has seen this

exacerbating

especially with the growth of

urbanization in asia

so what do we need to do differently now

well to start with being sustainable

is not enough anymore

we’ve reached a tipping point where

being sustainable

or in other words just sustaining a

retaining nature

is not going to help us to keep the

earth temperatures from

rising beyond 1.5 degrees celsius

and we’ve been told by various global

organizations including the ipcc the

intergovernmental panel for climate

change

that it’s a point of no return if we

aren’t able to control that

we’ll probably see more droughts more

flash floods

more storms and sadly more lives

and livelihoods lost so we need to go

beyond

some say we need to move towards being

restorative

so what does restorative mean it means

whatever resources we use we give the

same back to nature

sadly the rate at which we’re going

we’ll need to do

way a lot more and we need to move

quickly towards being regenerative

so what does regenerative mean

it simply means to restore to a better

higher or a more worthy state

to give new life or energy to be more

active and more successful

so as an example it is not just about

making zero carbon cities but it is in

fact about

making oxygen positive cities or carbon

negative cities

can we design something where human

systems and natural systems

can not just cohabit but co-evolve or

flourish together

because that’s what regenerative cities

would truly mean

so how do we do this well

our actions need to work at both levels

which is top down and bottom up

let’s start with top down

our cities need to operate differently

and hence there is a huge responsibility

on our governments

as well as city planners and designers

like me

we can no longer design our cities the

way we have always been doing especially

since the middle of 20th century

where cities were designed for

automobiles people

lived and worked miles apart there was

vast suburbanization massive use of

natural resources such as land

energy water etc

now within this ecosystem let’s look at

two examples

let’s start with streets we live in

those

our streets also need to feel different

we need to make streets not roads

the success of this would be when we

stop building roads for cars and start

designing streets for people

can our roads change to beautiful lush

green community parks

and fields where our food grows for our

families

or where our children can breathe fresh

air and play safely in our neighborhoods

can we live in a city where we can

access most of our basic needs

within 10 minutes of walking

and once we can keep talking about our

streets

our buildings need to look operate and

feel different too

no more can we design tall glass towers

just because we can our buildings are

responsible for more than 40 percent of

our global carbon emissions

wouldn’t it be great if our buildings

could act like trees and absorb co2 and

emit oxygen

it’s called biophilic design how

different would our cities look

if every building was also a farmhouse

producing food for us

and electricity that would power

computers and mobile phones

that you’re using right now to watch

this

and you know what all of this is

possible

since there are very smart people

already testing these ideas to come to

fruition

now let’s talk about us the society

the bottom up it’s very easy to put the

owners on

our governments but we need to

change as a society as well and this is

where the bottom up comes in

collectivism is more important than ever

societies need to act as a collective

and go beyond the individual desires

look at the cities that responded well

to the covet 19 pandemic

and analyze the collective behaviors

in most cases you’ll realize that the

success was when the society came

together

and trusted the systems in place

we need to develop a common

understanding of the issues at stake

our responses may be different but the

comprehension

of the threat needs to be the same

the this power of collectivism can help

change societal behaviors

we need to question all our actions that

we always thought were normal

how are my clothes made how is my

community doing

what food am i eating what’s happening

to the trash that i’m generating

every single day where do my avocados

come from

all of these are right questions

questions with probably

very different answers and in some cases

no answers but if you do not ask these

questions

they’ll never be an answer and we’ll

carry on doing exactly what we’ve been

doing

this past century so let’s get together

and ask the most important question in

this climate emergency era

what do i need to do now to go beyond

being sustainable

thank you

you