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