Cities

Question 1

What are some environmental consequences of a city’s metabolism?

Answer 1

• Temp
• Water
• Food
• Wood, minerals, energy, materials
• Clean water
• Biodiversity, habitat

Question 2

What determines a city’s appetite?

Answer 2

Population

Question 3

Population isn’t all that matters.. What also matters to consumption patterns, energy sources?

Answer 3

• physical location, built environment, culture, and governance affect these things

Question 4

How do infrastructure choices impact greenhouse gas emissions and climate change?

Answer 4

• 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

Question 5

Urban density affects what?

Answer 5

• energy use (transp, heating)
• greenhouse gas emissions

Question 6

Cities have ___ emissions per unit of land

Answer 6

HIGH

Question 7

Cities have ___ emissions per person

Answer 7

LOW

Question 8

What are the key points on urban environments?

Answer 8

• 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

Question 9

What are urban environmental justice issues?

Answer 9

Environmental justice: the unequal distribution of nature’s benefits and the risks of exposure to hazards

Question 10

What are the benefits and risks associated with urban environmental justice?

Answer 10

Benefits:
- clean air and water
- shade
- parks
- comfortable temps
- beautiful spaces

Risks:
- pollution
- garbage
- flooding
- extreme heat
- storms

Question 11

What are the two issues with urban environmental justice?

Answer 11

1. Unequal access to green space
   - lower tree cover in areas with higher % minority populations
2. Gentrification
   - urban redevelopemnt that increases property values + rental
   - push low-income residents out

Question 12

What is ‘Green gentrification’?

Answer 12

• Gentrification caused by efforts to increase park space, reduce pollution, or other sustainability projects
• aka environmental gentrification, ecological gentrification, eco-gentrification

Question 13

In the reading “making cities just green enough”, what benefits does green space in cities have?

Answer 13

• Physical
• psychological benefits

Question 14

How are the green space benefits in cities distributed?

Answer 14

unevenly

• white and affluent neighbourhoods tend to have better access to urban parks than minorities and low-income neighbourhoods

Question 15

What are some green gentrification examples?

Answer 15

• 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

Question 16

How can we avoid green gentrification?

Answer 16

Community consultation is crucial
- brooklyn residents pushed for environmental clean-up AND for industry to stay in their neighbourhood

Question 17

Innovation in cities is possible but it is much harder _____

Answer 17

Nationally

Question 18

What is resilience?

Answer 18

The ability to recover quickly from adversity

the ability to return to the original form after disturbance

Question 19

Resilience helps keep a _____ stable

Answer 19

system

Question 20

What is the tipping point?

Answer 20

a threshold beyond which a transition occurs

may be difficult or impossible to return to the prev state

Question 21

How can positive tipping points be achieved?

Answer 21

Come from mandates requiring:
- Phasing out coal power
- rising proportion of renewable energy sales
- rising proportion of electric vehicle sales

Question 22

What is a weaker measure than mandates requiring specific actions?

Answer 22

Taxation

Question 23

How are the stresses that cities might be exposed to?

Answer 23

• 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

Question 24

What factors influence resilience?

Answer 24

diff groups of people experience:
- unequal risk of exposures to a threat
- unequal resources and capacity to cope

Question 25

What is resilience working towards (goals)?

Answer 25

work toward improvement, not just stability

• reduce inequalities
• enhance urban ecosystems
• improve health, quality of life
• strengthen social ties

Question 26

What are some examples of actions that support urban resilience?

Answer 26

• 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)