Concepts Of Sustainability And Environment: A Discussion

Discussion

Discuss about the Concepts of Sustainability and Environment.

The concept of sustainability and environment is not new in today’s society. Sustainability is the ability to endure. As such, the concepts of sustainability and environment of the human ways of life refers to the ability of the environment to endure those ways of life.  It is an obvious fact that the global population is in a consistent increase especially now that technology developments have reduced mortality rates and increased the average life span of humans. In line with this context, the idea of urban planning and policy has been to create and assist in the definition of a location within an urban environment. In so doing, urban policy can influence the decisions to craft and construct urban sites through the spatial construct mechanism and a manipulation of the existent activities within the space.  The contemporary urban policy has to provide advanced mechanisms that allow individuals, policymakers and planners to fully explore the possible ways of planning and developing communities capable of meeting the long-term needs of people and those of the environment within the human society (Wheeler, and Beatley, 2014). This is what is known as the idea to deliver ‘sustainable cities’- that is, an urban environment that is capable of providing today’s resources without compromising the availability of resources for future generations (WCED1987 in Williams, 2013).

Achieving the idea of sustainable cities in urban policy and planning developments is a complex endeavour.  The idea of sustainability consists of a wide variety of interrelated issues that are challenging to the ingrained beliefs concerning the interaction between governance, nature and cultures (Spaargaren, 2011). As such this study reviews Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City vision of an ideal city in his book “Garden Cities of To-morrow” which looks at how sustainable urban policy can be achieved. Howard’s work remains an important reference tool for modern policy decisions. However, the compact design is in critic of Howard’s ideas and is representation of modern ideas to sustainable urban policy and planning. Still, Howard is revolutionary icon whose utopia in urban planning is still evident in many of the world’s cities.

Though Howard pioneered modern urban development planning contemporary urban policy continues to shift more compact approach.

“Garden Cities of Tomorrow”

Ebenezer Howard developed the “Garden Cities of Tomorrow” in 1898. Therefore, the idea of sustainable urban policy and planning is not a new concept; however, it still attracts growing importance in contemporary societies the world over. This is because Howard’s work is one of the most visionary and influential exploration of urban planning. The vision of Garden Cities detailed an approach to address the issues of the industrial city in fashion that had no prior execution before it. This work was so influential that it inspired the construction of eleven satellite cities around London through the British New Town Programme and two garden cities, Welwyn and Letchworth, in the early years of the twentieth century (Wheeler, and Beatley, 2014). Howard’s book was revolutionary as a breakthrough in the planning of urban settings, as it delivered the earliest record of ideas attempting to balance rural and urban developments. This vision can be utilized in evaluation of modern urban policy attempting to develop sustainable cities on a global scale (Wheeler, and Beatley, 2014).

Garden Cities of Tomorrow

A rapid growth in urban areas was being experienced as a result of the industrial revolution, posing major problems to British country planners. With the overwhelming movement of people to urban areas in search of employment, the urban population grew fast and resources were strained. City resources like housing and infrastructure quickly became unsanitary, polluted and expensive because of overcrowding. At the same time, there was a decline in wages for the farming community hindering developments in rural areas. These circumstances led to an uncontrollable migration of people from rural to urban areas, leaving many to question their decisions on whether to live in isolated rural areas or to move to a city (Hall, 2014). Consequently, the industrial cities of the nineteenth century continued to be congested and polluted with unplanned slum areas of impoverished proletariat (Culpin, 2015). This fashion continued to characterize British urban areas changing the face of its landscape.

Growth patterns seen during the industrial revolution are today mirrored in developing countries that are continuously emerging on global markets. There has been more than a double increment in the global population since 1950 and the United Nations Population Division indicates that approximately two-thirds of the total human population will be living in urban areas by 2030 (LeGates, and Stout, 2015; Heilig, 2012). These growth patterns are very similar to those of the industrial revolution and similar problems in urban policy can be expected with continued straining on urban resources. Developing countries are already showing similar symptoms with the observed growth of slums (Kabisch, and Haase, 2011). Slum areas are typically characterized by the common lack of basic services, overcrowding, unsafe living environments, and poor sanitation. Therefore, it is necessary that urban policy consider alternatives to turn observed urban growth patterns into plans that can become sustainable environments while ensuring that the needs of the society are met.

Garden cities have been identified as appropriate examples of sustainable urban developments with vital lessons for contemporary urban planning and policy. For a city to be termed a sustainable urban environment, its structure must be able to create an environment that’s friendly and resourceful in terms of form, energy efficiency and general life activities (Goldewijk, Beusen, and Janssen, 2010). More, sustainable urban environments need to achieve aspiration concerns of retaining a buffer stock of its basic resource within regenerative capacity (Ignatieva, Stewart, and Meurk, 2011). In line with this findings, Hartig et al. (2015) reports that sustainable urban principles should entail: acknowledgement of the idea of environmental thresholds; develop social justice and equity; forming inclusive decision making approaches. Howard was able to see the intense overcrowding during industrial revolution, and the problems that came with it such as pollution, sanitation, public health, and services. His concept of Garden Cities was responding to this, planning communities to ease the congestion in the city and the declining numbers in the rural areas. Together with the various founders, Garden City was an effort at creating a modern day utopia in urban planning (Echenique et al., 2012).

Contemporary Urban Growth Patterns

Evaluating Howard’s design in relation to contemporary urban policy design reveals the origin of the idea of sustainability. His idea includes a wide space of green areas-for agriculture as well as recreation practices.  These green areas are advantageous in terms of social advantage and carbon sinks in the journey towards sustainable urban planning.   

Modern sustainable development aims at public policy and urban planning. Until the 1970s, modern city plans and designs focused on future developments. Focus was on fresh start- new cities built in a manner free of the provincialism and commotions of the nineteenth century cities associated with Howard’s Garden City development (Ahern, 2011). The characteristic of Garden Cities was a pattern of spatial zoning with different land uses being given to different areas (see figure 1). However, current patterns of urban planning seem to be shifting away from this approach since it has been considered that the new compact city idea is a better way of creating a more sustainable urban plan. Compact city suggests the use of high density wholly integrated mixed-use urban forms. The preference of this urban form by many planners can be attributed to the perceived pros of mixed-use planning like commuter distances reduction and the associated impact of reduced emissions, conservation of the greenbelts, more efficient provision and use of public infrastructure, as well as the rejuvenation and revitalization of inner urban areas (Dempsey, et al., 2011). Essentially, more and more urban planners create and adopt mixed-use developments so as to achieve sustainable economic stability and improve the vibrancy and vitality of areas that would probably not be achieved through spatial development.  

Figure 1: Garden Cities pattern of spatial zoning

Evaluating this approach against the Garden City idea reveals several advantages. First, the brownfield development is better utilized through the preservation and protection of Greenfield locations from associated urban development threats. Because of the increased need for urban policy to employee a sustainable approach, brownfield sites have continued to be important strategic targets for the achievement of housing needs and development across urban regions through the reuse of lands previously developed. The Planning and Policy Guidance Note 3 (2010) further emphasized these, advocating for planners to build 60% of new housings on brownfield locations (Spaargaren, 2011). New communities developed on Greenfield are lesser concern to the long-term environmental effects. The effects of land loss to urban development are typically not thoroughly developed into the cost of the natural environment. However, the idea of urban forms is more than simply the density and green/brown choices- the main concern is on spatial forms of human activities (Berardi, 2013).

Sustainability of the Garden City Design

Howard designed the Garden City structure in a pragmatic and cautious manner that appeared reasonable to the common citizen (Hall, and Pfeiffer, 2013). Even though Howard’s approach to balance rural and urban development is still widely important to the development of sustainable communities, developed countries seem to have taken a shift. Rather than the intense dense city of the nineteenth century characterized by a shortage of decent housing, basic sanitation, and clean water, there are now relatively low density cities with suburbs that are heavily dependent on automobiles,  infrastructure and quality housing but with a lot more other problems (Barthel, and Isendahl, 2013).  The pragmatic application of the Garden City in developing countries needs to put to question since Howard’s settlements were basically designed for development of extremely low density housing. Howard cites in his work that the ideal population size for the garden City is 32,000 people on a 6,000 acres site of the cheap rural lands.  This land would be divided into 1,000 acres for the city surrounded by 5,000 acres of farmland (green-belt) (Li, et al., 2012).  Clearly, this figures are not sustainable in modern times within, still many don’t take note of Howard’s social cities vision of a multi-centred Garden City with green space. Figure 2 shows the illustration to this approach for a 58,000 central town surrounded by six garden cities around its perimeter, each with a population of 32,000 (19).

Figure2: Design of the Garden Cities

Conclusion

The experiments of the British Garden City were largely influential policy-expression during the industrial revolution era, concerning the immediate problem of large cities (Spaargaren, 2011). The growth of highly populated and unsanitary urban environments was a great concern to urban planners who sank themselves into developing alternatives to make urban development sustainable. This revolutionary idea put Ebenezer Howard on the map of sustainability and environment.  Howard envisioned Garden Cities that were humane, social and surrounded by farmlands, thereby developing an idea with a new balance between the natural environment and the cities. Utopian or visionary writings of this nature give more than just help in the expansion of the framework of probable ideas for a generation of urban planners. Though literatures tend to be scornful of idealism of every nature, it has often proved to be vitally influential and successful (Wheeler, and Beatley, 2014). Howard’s ideas on Garden Cities were so successful that he actually witnessed several of this cities built before his demise. Though his ideas were not practical beyond his vision, his ideas on the development of sustainable communities are to be considered the foundation of modern urban policy and planning. Howard’s vision might have failed to materialise as a whole but influenced the development of modern cities, and the twentieth century city life (LeGates, and Stout, 2015). This study recommends that further studies should be conducted to establish a way to integrate the Garden City model in the modern context as it could go a long way to assisting policy makers achieve sustainability goals.

Sustainable Development in Contemporary Urban Environment

The study is in agreement with LeGates, and Stout (2015), that Howard’s ideas are of paramount importance in urban planning. Therefore, contemporary urban planners need to consider Howard’s visions in urban policy for city developments. As such, further studies need to be done to integrate modern ideas of compact urban policy with Ebenezer Howard’s ideas for a more sustainable development.

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