Green Cities

Picture Credit: Stefano Boeri Architetti and al., 2016-2020, Bosco verticale di nanchino,  URL : https://www.stefanoboeriarchitetti.net/project/torri-nanjing/ 

In 1987, the Bruntland Commission published its report, Our Common Future, in an effort to link the issues of economic development and environmental stability. This report provided the oft-cited definition of sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (United Nations General Assembly, 1987). The sustainable development meets three pillars: environnemental, social and economic (United Nations General Assembly, 1987), which are defined as follows:

• The environmental pillar refers to the issue of rejecting acts that are harmful to our planet so that our ecosystems, biodiversity, fauna, and flora might be preserved.
• The social pillar or the human pillar: Sustainable development encompasses the fight against social exclusion, generalized access to goods and services, working conditions, improving employee training and diversity, and the development of fair and local trade.
• The economic pillar: Sustainable development involves changing production and consumption patterns by introducing actions to ensure that economic growth is not to the detriment of the environment and society.

Increasing consideration is given to the principles of sustainable development. The local level is often seen as conducive to its implementation and a lot of cities assimilate the concept. Sustainable cities,” “green-cities,” and “eco-cities” aim to be economically viable, socially livable, and environmentally friendly (Brodhag, 2006). Putting more elements of nature in the city is conducive to better living conditions (Fuller and al., 2007), which attracts new inhabitants and develops tourism. However, the term “city” can cover very different realities. Sustainable development strategies in cities also cover a lot of possibilities: creating an eco-neighborhood and changing an entire metropole into a sustainable city are, for instance, two different projects. It is an idea frequently mentioned in projects, but which is also problematic.

Sustainable development is not a label with precise goals but a very vague concept, which does not guarantee effective improvements. Thus, cities or companies can use it as a main thread in their development policy to ensure their attractiveness and influence. Moreover, the arrangements based on sustainable development goals can fail to reach social justice goals, since many studies on eco-neighborhoods observe that they are often inhabited by affluent people, or that when social diversity is respected, they are made for the lifestyles of affluent people (Klaus R, 2014). 

We can also criticize the adjective of “green” that cities appropriate and which derives from the concept of sustainable development. One of the problems is that it tends to reduce sustainable city goals to environmental goals, setting aside social and economic goals. Now, the aim is no longer to reintegrate nature into the city for the well-being of people or to make cities pretty, but to safeguard the environment. The technical and hygienic vision of the city (as opposed to nature) is called into question. The idea is to value a city in which nature and people protect each other and each have their place. For example, in the eco-district of Bo01 in Malmö, Sweden, basins of vegetation are used to ensure permeability of soils. The terms used to speak of sustainable cities develop a harmonious and peaceful idea of nature with plants. This can lead to a distorted and idealized vision of reality: nature also includes disturbing elements, such as tsunamis, hurricanes, and rising sea levels. There is a version of nature to be avoided at all costs because they endanger populations (Blanc, 1996). This perception of nature can lead to a relationship that doesn’t favor the respect of the entirety of what actually is biodiversity. 

On a global level, the popularity of the term can represent an advantage but also a problem. Its popularity can be linked to its relative vagueness and will to satisfy different goals, which makes it consensual. Thus, some people think it doesn’t put into question real factors of environmental or social problems: it does not question production structures, which are crucial to the production of economic, social, and environmental inequalities at the local and global levels and also essential to the exploitation of environmental resources. That is why talk about green cities or the concept of sustainable cities can be seen as changes are approved by the capitalist system to ensure its sustainability (Wallis, 2010). 

In conclusion, to become green, our cities must begin their ecological transition. This term corresponds better with the idea of changing the economic and social system rather than the concept of of sustainable development.

Moreover, the term of “sustainable development” can be contradicted. Indeed, “development” can refer to weak sustainability. This sustainability, supported by economists, is based on the principle of saying that the capital generated by growth will make it possible to find solutions to compensate for environmental damage. In contrast, strong sustainability, defended by ecologists, is based on a production system that respects ecosystems so as not to disrupt and degrade them. The ecological transition is an evolution towards a new economic and social model, a model of sustainable development that renews our ways of consuming, producing, working, and living together to meet the major environmental challenges.  

This article was written by Alexane Duveau-Chipaux in collaboration with Benjamin Terrasse and Marion Le Bouard, all Master’s students in the Museum’s “Society and Biodiversity” specialization.

Bibliography:

BLANC N., 1996, La Nature dans la cité, Université Paris 1, thèse de doctorat sous la direction de N. Mathieu, 400p.

Brodhag, C., & Taliere, S. (2006). Sustainable development strategies: Tools for policy coherence. Natural Resources Forum, 136-145.

Fuller R. A., Irvine K. N., Devine-wrigh P., Warren P. H. And Gaston K. J. (2007) Psychological benefits of greenspace increase with biodiversity, Biology Letters 5, 5 p ; DOI : 10.1098/rsbl.2007.0149 

Klaus R. Kunzmann (2014) Smart Cities: A New Paradigm of Urban Development, in “Crios, Critica degli ordinamenti spaziali” 1/2014, pp. 9-20, doi: 10.7373/77140

United Nations General Assembly. (1987). Report of the world commission on environment and development: Our common future. Oslo, Norway: United Nations General Assembly, Development and International Co-operation: Environment.

Wallis, Victor. (2010). Beyond “Green Capitalism”. Monthly Review. 61. 32. 10.14452/MR-061-09-2010-02_3.