Cities Flashcards
What are some environmental consequences of a city’s metabolism?
- Temp
- Water
- Food
- Wood, minerals, energy, materials
- Clean water
- Biodiversity, habitat
What determines a city’s appetite?
Population
Population isn’t all that matters.. What also matters to consumption patterns, energy sources?
- physical location, built environment, culture, and governance affect these things
How do infrastructure choices impact greenhouse gas emissions and climate change?
- path dependency: infrastructure choices shape long-term GHG emission patterns
- carbon lock-in: infrastructure that makes it difficult to reduce emissions in the future
- carbon lock-out: choices that prevent low-carbon alternatives from being adopted
- Important factors in climate-friendly infrastructure:
1. Density
2. Design
Urban density affects what?
- energy use (transp, heating)
- greenhouse gas emissions
Cities have ___ emissions per unit of land
HIGH
Cities have ___ emissions per person
LOW
What are the key points on urban environments?
- choices abt new infrastructure have long-lasting impacts on the environment and quality of life
- retrofitting old infrastructure is possible but costly
- physical location and policy changes shape urban life
What are urban environmental justice issues?
Environmental justice: the unequal distribution of nature’s benefits and the risks of exposure to hazards
What are the benefits and risks associated with urban environmental justice?
Benefits:
- clean air and water
- shade
- parks
- comfortable temps
- beautiful spaces
Risks:
- pollution
- garbage
- flooding
- extreme heat
- storms
What are the two issues with urban environmental justice?
- Unequal access to green space
- lower tree cover in areas with higher % minority populations - Gentrification
- urban redevelopemnt that increases property values + rental
- push low-income residents out
What is ‘Green gentrification’?
- Gentrification caused by efforts to increase park space, reduce pollution, or other sustainability projects
- aka environmental gentrification, ecological gentrification, eco-gentrification
In the reading “making cities just green enough”, what benefits does green space in cities have?
- Physical
- psychological benefits
How are the green space benefits in cities distributed?
unevenly
- white and affluent neighbourhoods tend to have better access to urban parks than minorities and low-income neighbourhoods
What are some green gentrification examples?
- homeless ppl in Seattle removed to make way for a river restoration project
- residents in Harlem opposed a plan to create parks bc they saw it as a real estate strategy
How can we avoid green gentrification?
Community consultation is crucial
- brooklyn residents pushed for environmental clean-up AND for industry to stay in their neighbourhood
Innovation in cities is possible but it is much harder _____
Nationally
What is resilience?
The ability to recover quickly from adversity
the ability to return to the original form after disturbance
Resilience helps keep a _____ stable
system
What is the tipping point?
a threshold beyond which a transition occurs
may be difficult or impossible to return to the prev state
How can positive tipping points be achieved?
Come from mandates requiring:
- Phasing out coal power
- rising proportion of renewable energy sales
- rising proportion of electric vehicle sales
What is a weaker measure than mandates requiring specific actions?
Taxation
How are the stresses that cities might be exposed to?
- fast or slow
- “natural” or human-caused
- easier or harder to predict
- easier or harder to manage
- more or less severe
- more or less widespread
What factors influence resilience?
diff groups of people experience:
- unequal risk of exposures to a threat
- unequal resources and capacity to cope
What is resilience working towards (goals)?
work toward improvement, not just stability
- reduce inequalities
- enhance urban ecosystems
- improve health, quality of life
- strengthen social ties
What are some examples of actions that support urban resilience?
- urban agriculture / gardening (food security)
- porous pavement, more vegetation (flood control)
- green roofs, light-coloured surfaces (temp)
- community group and events (social ties)
- decentralized energy sources (energy security)
