Maged Senbel

The ecological footprint: a non-monetary metric of human consumption applied to North America

Abstract This paper employs ecological footprint analysis as a potential non-monetary metric of human consumption and ecological productivity in a simulation-modeling framework, applied to North America. The ecological footprint provides an indirect basis for considering the long-term ecological risk and sustainability of human settlements, regions or, in this case, a continent. We examine several scenarios for human consumption, ecological productivity and material efficiency, to explore which variables have influence on the ecological budget of North America over the coming century. Only one scenario, which assumes considerable reductions in human consumption, is likely to yield an ecological surplus. Unlike monetary measures of societal well-being, ecological footprint analysis shows that increased economic activity and consumption creates deficits in terms of the balance of ecological productivity and consumption in a region, and may reduce long-term ecological sustainability. Several advantages and disadvantages of this metric are discussed.

Design Empowerment The Limits of Accessible Visualization Media in Neighborhood Densification

Empowering community residents to participate in neighborhood design may help overcome the tension between the urban densification requirements of climate change planning and the political infeasibility of rapid change. This research employed accessible visualization media in public workshops to test the capacity of the media to enable empowerment. In a community facing imminent development we found processes of mitigated empowerment through which residents accessed and generated information, were inspired to act in the face of complex problems, and expressed their ideas. The media did not enable design empowerment in the areas of community inclusion or integration into the design process.

Experiential Learning and the Co-creation of Design Artifacts: A Hybrid Urban Design Studio for Planners

This article examines the experience of a hybrid design studio tailored for beginning students in urban planning. The course combined elements of architectural design studio and planning workshop to advance design literacy, spatial awareness, procedural knowledge, and phenomenological experience. Teams of students undertook staggered weekly sequences of reading, critique, and design assignments focused on physical models of study neighborhoods. Through content analysis of student work, documentary film footage, and postgraduation surveys, I examine the merits of the hybrid studio. The co-creation of a model, which was an iterative and dialogically tested design artifact, heightened experiential learning of urban design.

Local Responses to Regional Mandates: Assessing Municipal Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Targets in British Columbia

Abstract Local governments around the world face external and internal pressures to adopt climate change mitigation strategies. Provincial legislation in the Canadian province of British Columbia has recently mandated that all municipalities adopt targets for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Lack of specificity in the legislation gives rise to the possibility that even if compliance with the legislation is universal it could nonetheless result in minimal reductions in emissions releases. This article examines the response to the legislation of twenty municipalities in British Columbia’s most populous regions. We hypothesized that noncompliance would be rampant and that cities with large populations, high residential densities, lower growth rates, and prior climate change planning work would set more ambitious targets. However, findings indicate that municipal targets vary widely in terms of intensity, target year, and type of reduction and have little or no relationship to population, residential density, or growth rate. We found 90% compliance and some correlation between prior planning activities related to climate change and target intensity. Findings also indicate that despite the wide range of emissions targets by each municipality, provincial per capita targets would be met if each municipality were to achieve the targets that they have set by the 2050 target year.

Examining municipal response to a provincial climate action planning mandate in British Columbia, Canada

The provincial legislature of British Columbia (B.C.), Canada, recently enacted Bill 27, which requires all municipal official community plans to contain greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets and associated policies by the end of May 2010. While the legislation is unique by North American standards in its mandate, it lacks particular design features that scholars believe to be critical for fostering compliance. To examine municipal compliance with Bill 27, we address two research questions: what per cent of B.C. municipalities adopted targets by the legislated deadline, and which factors explain variation in target adoption across municipalities? To help answer these questions, we utilise univariate descriptive statistics, bivariate analyses (including mean comparisons and correlation analysis), and binary logistic regression analysis. We find that nearly two-thirds of municipalities adopted targets by the deadline, and that target adoption across municipalities varies with particular municipal characteristics. Our findings highlight the importance of crafting legislation in a strategic fashion in order to maximise effectiveness, and the potential need for provincial governments to target particular sub-populations for additional education and assistance regarding climate action planning. We suggest directions for future research, including additional analysis of the content of adopted targets and associated policies by B.C. municipalities.

Compact development without transit: life-cycle GHG emissions from four variations of residential density in Vancouver

Numerous studies have shown that compact, mixed-use, transit-oriented developments contribute to reduced use of automobiles and in turn contribute to lower greenhouse gas emissions. When everyday destinations are within walking distance, people are more likely to walk or cycle, and if transit is within walking distance people are more likely to use it. Other studies have shown that compact development enables reductions in building energy consumption that contribute further to emissions savings. The reduced emissions are assumed to rely on the combination of compactness and transit connectedness. However, this combination requires an extensive transit network covering large areas both of residential and of employment destinations. Such networks often do not exist and are too costly to construct. When they do exist, the transit networks often do not reach those outlying neighbourhoods with the greatest potential for future growth and densification. This paper therefore asks what emissions savings compact development can achieve in the absence of high-frequency transit. In an examinination of the life-cycle emissions of four variations of density in three different neighbourhoods in Vancouver, none of which is well served by transit, we found a wide range of emissions profiles. A mixed-use new urbanist development produced 22% fewer emissions than an adjacent development of large single-family homes, both of which were in a transit-poor area on the far edge of a suburban city. A high-density neighbourhood adjacent to a suburban city centre, and one adjacent to a central city centre, produced 50% and 67% fewer emissions than the neighbourhood of large single-family homes. Findings suggest that, while compactness may be most effective when it is coupled with high frequency transit, decoupling the pair and building compactness before or without transit can still yield considerable household emissions reductions.

Leadership in sustainability planning: propagating visions through empathic communication

Despite their lack of decision-making power, planners frequently prevail in advancing strong sustainability agendas. A review of leadership and planning literature suggests that they employ collaborative practice. Using an ethnographic methodology that draws from the stories and actions of six planners with sustainability mandates, supplemented with a survey of their staff and colleagues, this research examines how they do it. Findings suggest that despite variety in their organisational contexts, the planners relied on strong visions and on forging and maintaining relationships to set and implement sustainability mandates. The planners deployed participative and collaborative values selectively in support of their mandates.

Paddling into the urban tsunami

The enormity of today’s challenges to the city-building professions is indisputable. A tempest of environmental and social pressures is brewing at scales and with complexities that planners, urban designers and architects seem ill-equipped to deal with. The challenges of climate change mitigation, and to a lesser extent adaptation, are just being realized by cities attempting to rein in their citizens’ predilections towards low density, dispersed and vehicle-centred development. While climate change takes centre stage in the arena of environmental responsibility, other pressing problems such as ocean acidification and massive deforestation of the tropics continue to grow. In the meantime, as financial capital fluidly moves about the world to leverage optimum conditions for production, and as human populations migrate to escape threats and seek opportunities, social and cultural tensions erupt. Coupled with rapid urbanization, these challenges demand the urgent attention of citybuilding professionals even if it takes them into areas of work that are not traditionally within their sphere of influence. This is the context within which The EcoEdge: Urgent Design Challenges in Building Sustainable Cities situates itself. This is both a tribute to the book’s ambition and a testament to its inevitable overreach.