Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.
- Albert Einstein

City planners aren’t usually on the list of people we associate with paradigm-shifting embers of wisdom. Spiritual leaders, artists, and philosophers — yes — they have sparked our collective imagination and shaped the course of society throughout history. While Be the change you wish to see in the world and I have a Dream will forever be guiding lights in our journey through a complex and often confusing world, it’s clear that each generation brings with it the need for new symbols and archetypes in response to the struggles of its time.

It was at last month’s Ecocity World Summit in Istanbul that I thought I’d heard a concept expressed that reflects and encompasses so much of the millennial Zeitgeist, as a theme to embrace as well as aspire to: The Power of Nearness

It’s slowly but surely seeping into our collective consciousness that the road to reversing climate change leads through cities. Cities cover less than 1% of the earth’s surface but are responsible for up to 75% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. With almost 60% of the world’s population and growing living in cities it is high time to inspire new story lines that shift our attention to the built environment.

While Ecocity 2009 presented a wide range of nuts and bolts programs and strategies by planners and policy makers from around the world, the most hopeful moments came whenever speakers were able to connect their planning ideas not only with why it’s so important to rethink our cities but to the idea that high density living is about more than just reducing carbon: If designed right, cities can connect us back to nature, to each other, to our shared humanity.

For three days I was busy listening to speakers, facilitating breakout sessions, and interviewing visionaries. After reading through my notes and listening to my transcripts I realized there’s no way I could do justice to all the compelling voices and ideas espoused at the conference in one diary. Instead, I’ll be sprinkling this smorgasbord of urban foresight from Istanbul throughout various posts in the coming weeks and months. But what better way to start than with Brent Toderian, Director of Planning for the City of Vancouver, Canada, who not only gave us a great unifying theme to wrap our minds around but showed how to transform a strong vision into bold and concrete action.

THE POWER OF NEARNESS Brent Toderian knows about the power of bold thinking and changing conventional wisdom as he’s been instrumental in implementing the Vancouver EcoDensity initiative recently adopted by his city. EcoDensity is a Charter that commits the City of Vancouver and its citizens to address change more proactively and adapt the city and its way of life to meet the challenges we all face. Based on the premise that strategically located, sustainably designed density can reduce the city’s ecological footprint while making Vancouver more livable and affordable, Toderian said that they are now reviewing every existing rule in their planning department in order to identify possible carbon reductions.

This theme resonated so strongly with me because it compresses the complexity of the global ecological crisis into one powerful truth: There’s nothing to fear from living closer to one another; just the opposite — we can and will gain from it. It’s like the Yes We Can of climate change, impressing upon people that cities don’t have to be the drab and noisy concrete jungles branded into our collective consciousness from a century of unimaginative city planning. It is up to a new generation of planners and architects to change this prevailing perception by showing that healthy cities are living, breathing ecosystems. Inverting the transportation pyramid as we currently know it is the structural cornerstone for creating that mental shift, and Mr. Toderian laid it out in very simple terms.

One of the big hurdles not only in making our cities more livable but addressing a whole range of ecological problems including climate change is an economic system that is based on perpetual growth and lack of accountability for “externalities.” You know you’re living on borrowed time and wealth when things like resource depletion, loss of biodiversity, and toxic emissions are not proportionally factored into your economic equation. While the concept of “We don’t let the market dictate our planning” sounds like a Bolshevik plot to free-market fetishists south of the border, it was refreshing to hear an English-speaking decision maker utter these words as if he was ordering eggs for breakfast.

DON’T LET THE MARKET DICTATE PLANNING “We don’t let the market dictate our planning,” says Toderian, a strategy that enables the city to pour money into the kind of projects that make urban living desirable, like public art and cultural facilities. By encouraging candid, city-wide dialogue around an evolving urbanism, with bold opportunities around sustainability, creativity and architectural risk taking, Vancouver really sets an example for other car-centric North American cities on how to engage their residents in the process of enacting the structural change that is needed to transition into a low-carbon economy and experience the power of nearness.

The way to think about it is that the market is like a toddler: He wants everything and he wants it now. The idea of a “free” market is like letting your toddler do as he wishes: Pull twenty books from the shelf, eat a pound of candy, run into the street. But we all know that just to survive the toddler needs basic supervision. If we want him to keep his teeth and grow up to be a healthy adult, we have to feed him vegetables even though he wants candy. And leaving everything sprawled out on the floor eventually hampers everyone’s creativity because you’re wasting energy digging through the chaos.

Or to put it into a city planning context:

What’s going to encourage more innovation and creativity — urban sprawl and tract housing development enabled by free market forces based on mid-20th century ideals and economic models, or a vibrant and verdant inner city driven by plans that put community, the arts, and long-term economic/ecological health before short-term profits?

What I love about Vancouver’s model is that it combines the strengths of the market with the strengths of good planning and basic ecological principles. It recognizes that building a dense urban ecosystem that appeals to our basic human instincts of wanting to connect with nature and with each other is an automatic boost to small business and local commerce. Rather than presenting ecological elements in city planning as sacrifices or restrictions, this forward-thinking approach transcends old ideological battle lines by showing how rich and fulfilling city life can be when vital services and cultural offerings are within walking or biking distance.

While each city has its own unique geographic, social and political challenges, the appeal to our most basic human needs and joys is a universal and unifying principle in our endeavor to transition to a low carbon world. On the surface, the Power of Nearness is a more relevant literal motto for a sprawling North American metropolis like Vancouver than dense and overpopulated megacities like Mumbai or Istanbul. But on a more visceral level I found it to be the perfect rallying cry for everyone present at Ecocity 2009: From Auckland to Freiburg, from Kathmandu to Rio, from Seoul to San Francisco, it’s clear to everyone that the ways in which we manage to live close to each other will determine our resilience and ability to adapt to dwindling natural resources and climate change.

The Alliance for Biking and Walking just released the 2010 Benchmarking Report on bicycling and walking in the U.S. The 192 page report collected and analyzed data from all fifty states and the 51 largest U.S. cities.

From bicycle and pedestrian staffing levels to bike racks on buses, this report is a tour de force of numbers, data and statistics concerning the millions of trips taken every day by foot or bike. The bottom line though is this: While 9.6% of all trips nationwide are people powered, a mere 1.2% of federal transportation funding is spent on bicycling and walking.

While funding for bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure has slightly increased over the last two decades, most federal, state and local funding for transportation still goes toward making room for cars. Bicycle and pedestrian advocates are often portrayed as wanting to take over, asking for more than their share when in reality we are light years away from any kind of proportional representation.

As some prominent members of Congress showed in their reaction to the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the bicycle is not even viewed as a legitimate means of transportation among some members of congress. No wonder that committing $825 million, or 0.3% of the 27.5 billion dollars for highway funds and transportation enhancements to bicycle and pedestrian projects would draw a response like this:

“I think there’s a place for infrastructure, but what kind of infrastructure? Infrastructure to widen highways, to ease congestion for American families? Is it to build some buildings that are necessary?” He stated. “But if we’re talking about beautification projects, or we’re talking about bike paths, Americans are not going to look very kindly on this.”

- Republican House Leader John Boehner on Bikes and Beautification

The results of this chronic neglect of pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure is highlighted in the report:

States with the lowest levels of biking and walking have higher traffic fatalities and chronic disease

The 2010 Benchmarking Report reveals that in almost every state and major U.S. city, bicyclists and pedestrians are at a disproportionate risk of being killed, and receive less than their fair share of transportation dollars.

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It’s obviously not fair to hold the U.S. to the same standard as Europe. After all, most European cities were built and evolved long before the advent of the automobile, establishing strong pedestrian and biking infrastructures in very densely populated areas that were never quite as completely wiped out by the automobile as they were in their American counterparts. However, it is quite eye-opening to look at a chart like this one, just to see what’s possible. Interestingly enough, some of these densely populated European countries like Italy and the U.K. are at the bottom of the chart, along with the big new world countries like Australia, Canada, and the U.S. It looks like narrow alleys and old world cobblestone alone don’t do the trick. Likewise, having big wide roads on a square grid may not be sufficient excuse for the lack of people-powered transportation.

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The next chart is an eye-opener if ever there was one. I hate to look at this as only a matter of money and funding. Certainly how you spend your money on improving bike and pedestrian infrastructure is going to have an effect on how many people you can lure out of their cars and onto their hoofs and pedals, but the numbers don’t lie, you get what you pay for, whether you’re in Europe or North America. You roughly get a 1% increase in biker and walker share for each additional dollar spent on bike and pedestrian infrastructure per resident per year. Whether you’re a city planner in Amsterdam or Portland, investing in bike lanes and pedestrian zones seems to be a surefire way to get people to leave their cars at home or not have one in the first place.

Despite some of those depressing international rankings for the U.S. there is a lot of reason for optimism. The momentum is going in the right direction. As you can see from the chart, cities like Portland are way ahead of the curve for U.S. standards, and it’s no coincidence: In addition to above average funding it is tireless advocacy work by citizens and dedicated city officials that makes a difference. Same in San Francisco, where 16% of people ride a bicycle regularly and one in every 76 residents (11,000 total) is a member of the SF Bicycle Coalition. Also, while the share of the federal highway fund dedicated to biking and walking is still painfully low, at least there is some acknowledgment in the Recovery Act of the importance of people-powered infrastructure in light of massive problems of congestion, obesity, cost of energy, and climate change.

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Please check out the just released 2010 Benchmarking Report and show the Alliance for Biking & Walking some love. It really is a tremendous resource not only for government officials, advocates, and those working to promote bicycling and walking, but for anyone interested in connecting dots between things like transportation funding, public health, education, and climate change. As the report concludes:

In these times of high gas prices, a warming climate, increasing traffic congestion, and expanding waistlines, increasing bicycling and walking are goals that are clearly in the public interest. As this report shows, where bicycling and walking levels are higher, obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes levels are lower. Higher levels of bicycling and walking also coincide with increased bicycle and pedestrian safety and higher levels of physical activity. Increasing bicycling and walking can help solve many of the largest problems facing our nation. As this report indicates, many states and cities are making progress toward promoting safe access for bicyclists and pedestrians, but much more remains to be done.

I’ll leave you with a video I produced for a previous post, Talking the Walk.

Brent Toderian, Director of Planning, Vancouver, BC, CANADA
In 2006, Brent Toderian was appointed the City of Vancouver’s Director of Cent Planning, succeeding celebrated Co-Directos Larry Beasley and Dr,. Ann Mcafee. his broad mandate involves current planning, including the many projects related to the 2010 Winter Olympics, and visioning/CityPlans, including the new “EcoDensity” citywide initiative recently adopted by the City. EcoDensity is based on the premise that strategically located, sustainably designed density can reduce the City’s ecological footprint while making vancouver more sustainable, livable and affordable. Since arriving, Brent’s been encouraging candid, city-wide dialogue around an evolving urbanism, with bold opportunities around sustainability, creativity and architectural risk taking. Vancouver Ecodensity: http://www.vancouverecodensity.ca

Rusong Wang, President, Ecological Society of China, Co-convener, Ecocity World Summit 2008, CHINA
Mr Rusong Wang is head of the Center for Ecological and Environmental Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Science and has been one of the pioneering leaders in ecological city theory and support of those practicing the sciences and arts of ecocity building. He is one of the founders of the Ecological Society of China and he has been one of the most accomplished ecologists and champion of solutions in waste treatment and pollution abatement for the health delivery systems in China. Internationally he is known as one of the founders of SCOPE – Scientific Committee on Problems in the Environment. Rusong has convend many conferences for SCOPE kindred to the International Ecocity Conferences. He expounds a theory based on ancient Chinese tradition and on remapping cities for reshaping them for minimum energy demand and maximum ecodiversity. He is also a member of the Peoples Congress of China. Ecological Society of China: http://www.rcees.ac.cn/dse/en/team

Hiroaki Suzuki, Lead Urban Specialist, Finance Economics & Urban Department, the World Bank
Hiroaki Suzuki has more than 20 years of the World Bank operational experiences in infrastructure sector and public sector management. Having worked in East Asia and Pacific Region, as East Asia Urban Sector Leader/China Urban Sector Coordinator for the last five years, he recently joined the World Bank’s corporate Finance Economics & Urban Department (FEU). He is the principal author of “Eco2 cities: Ecological Cities as Economic Cities (www.worldbank.org/eco2)”. Eco2 cities initiative which helps cities in developing countries achieve ecological and economic sustainability is a World Bank’s new urban sector business line which has been adopted as an integral part of the World Bank’s new urban sector strategy which will be launched, soon.

Sudarshan Tiwari, Architect and City Historian, Katmandu, NEPAL
Dr Tiwari is an architect and cultural historian and scholar of the Katmandu Valley of Nepal. Sudarshan earned degrees in architecture from the University of Delhi and the University of Hawaii. He has served in the faculty of Tribhuvan University’s Institute of Engineering for more than 25 years, and was Dean of the Institute between 1988 and 1992. His own interest drew him to the study of Nepali historical architecture, urbanism and conservation, which led to a PhD from Tribhuvan University, Katmandu, for his work on the ancient settlements of the Katmandu Valley. Sudarshan Tiwari: www.himalassociation.org/himalbooks

Richard Register, President, Ecocity Builders, Founder of the International Ecocity Conference Series, USA
Mr. Richard Register is the world’s leading author, illustrator and theorist in ecological city design and planning. He is also an activist on local projects, from creek restoration and urban gardening to street and building redesign, working with environmentalists, developers and politicians to get a better city built and running. Mr Register is founder of Ecocity Builders, a California non-profit corporation. He convened the First international Ecocity Conference in 1990 and advised on all subsequent conferences in the series. These evens have involved approximately 5,000 people and 625 speakers to dates. His latest book is Ecocities – Rebuilding Cities in Balance with Nature. Ecocity Builders:  www.ecocitybuilders.org

Ambika Shukla, Director, People For Animals, INDIA
Ambika Shukla of New Delhi is widely considered one of Asia’s leading advocates to protect animals and wildlife. Educated in the United States, she has worked with numerous global organisations such as the World Wildlife Federation in drawing attention to the subject of cruelty to animals. She runs a nonprofit, nonpartisan organisation called People for Animals, which operates animal shelters in virtually all of India’s 29 states. Ms Shukla is a popular speaker on the lecture circuit in India, South-east Asia, Europe and the United States.

Andrew McKillop, energy expert and economic analyst, FRANCE
Andrew McKillop is a writer and consultant on oil and energy economics. Since 1975 he has worked in energy, economic and scientific organizations in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and North America. These include the Canada Science Council, the ILO, European Commission, Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and South Pacific, and the World Bank. He is a founding member of the Asian chapter of the International Association of Energy Economics. He has published widely in journals including the Ecologist, the New Scientist and Le Monde Diplomatique. He writes and consults about the impact of oil prices on the economy and currently advises the ECOHABITAT sustainable housing and property development project near the French, Belgium and Luxemburg borders.

Suha Ozkan, Architect, Urban Planner, Historian, Theorist, Founding Chairman, World Architecture Community, TURKEY
Dr. Özkan has undertaken extensive research on the theory and history of architecture, design, vernacular form, and emergency housing, and has published over 300 articles and numerous monographs. These have been translated into French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Bhasa. At METU, he taught architectural design and design theory for fifteen years, and became Associate Dean of the Faculty of Architecture in 1978. Then he was appointed as Vice-President of the university in 1979-1982. He taught and lectured extensively in North America, Europe, Central-, South-, and Southeast Asia, and throughout the Middle East. Presently he is the Founding Chairman of World Architecture Community {WAC} a Geneva and Istanbul based international consultancy company. WAC has established an internet based interactive World-wide architecture and planning community which has been breaking world records among architectural sites since August 2008. In 2008 he curated an exhibition on contemporary Turkish architecture entitled 7 Architects from 7 Hills which was displayed in Turin at Palazzo Bertalazone di San Fermo.

Janet Larsen, Research Director, Earth Policy Institute, Washington DC, USA
Ms Larsen is Director of Research at Earth Policy Institute, the think tank founded by Lester Brown advocating for a “Plan B,” a systematic approach to planning at all levels of government, especially national, for conservation of resources, biology and climate via major government and education changes around the world. Janet manages the research program with Lester Brown, planning new projects and coordinating the efforts of the research team. She uses her interdisciplinary background in researching the Eco-Economy Updates, and the Eco-Economy Indicators, similar to her work at the Worldwatch Institute on the Issue Alerts, State of the World and vital Signs. Earth Policy Institute: www.earth-policy.org

Beng Lee Ong, Director (Eco-city Project Office), Ministry of National Development, SINGAPORE
Mr Ong Beng Lee was appointed to the Singapore Administrative Service in 1990. In his current appointment as Director of the Eco-city Project Office in the Ministry of National Development, he helps to formulate policies and programs for the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city, and oversees its smooth implementation in close partnership with the relevant Chinese authorities and Singapore agencies, and the joint venture company undertaking the development of the Eco-city. Mr Ong read Philosophy, Politics and Economics in Oxford University on an Overseas Merit Scholarship (Open) from 1985 to 1988, and attended the Programme for Management Development at Harvard Business School in 2001. Prior to his current appointment, he had served in various Government agencies, including the Ministries of Trade and Industry, Home Affairs and Defense.

Walter Hood, Principal, HOOD Design, Professor, University of California at Berkeley, USA

Through his pioneering work as an ‘urbanist,’ Hood has integrated architectural features such as playgrounds, plazas and squares into city sites whose pasts are vibrant but forgotten. By reflecting the shifting cultural composition and respecting the evolving nature of neighborhoods throughout San Francisco and Oakland, he has created an oasis in these areas, and through his close involvement with the local communities, he developed tailored solutions for Bay Area based parks while retaining a cohesive artistic vision. Hood is also professor and former Chair of the Landscape Architecture Department at the University of California, Berkeley, and principal of Hood Design in Oakland, CA. He has exhibited and lectured on his professional projects and theoretical works nationally and abroad. He is currently researching and writing a book entitled Urban Landscapes: American Landscape Typologies.” HOOD Design: www.wjhooddesign.com

Mitchell Joachim, co-founder Terreform ONE, USA

Mitchell Joachim is acknowledged as an innovator in ecological design and urban design. He is also a researcher and architectural educator. Mitchell Joachim’s specific professional interest has been adapting principles of physical and social ecology to architecture, urban design, transport, and environmental planning. He is a Co-Founder at Terrefuge and Terreform ONE. Currently he is faculty at Columbia University and Parsons. Formerly an architect at Gehry Partners, and Pei Cobb Freed. He has been awarded the Moshe Safdie Research Fellowship, and the Martin Family Society Fellow for Sustainability. He won the History Channel and Infiniti Design Excellence Award for the City of the Future, and Time Magazine Best Invention of the Year 2007, MIT Car w/ MIT Smart Cities. His project, Fab Tree Hab, has been exhibited at MoMA and widely published. He was selected by Wired magazine for “The 2008 Smart List: 15 People the Next President Should Listen To”. Rolling Stone magazine honored Mitchell as an agent of change in “The 100 People Who Are Changing America”.

Today: David Hall & Matthew Hardy

David Hall, Founder, NewVista, CEO, Novatek, Provo, Utah, USA

Mr Hall is the visionary behind NewVista, a large scale metropolitan concept with the potential to have world-wide economic and social viability and to be massively scalable and ecologically sustainable. NewVista is a Megalopolis composed of 50 interconnected communities. Each NewVista Community is a self sustaining system of villages and public squares supported by areas for agriculture, industry and its own local energy and food production. A NewVista is a walkable community, with no personal cars or trucks. NewVista has a repeatable pattern that enables scalability from region to household. Mr Hall is also CEO of Novatek, founded in 1985 as a consulting company specializing in applications for Super Materials, including synthetic diamond. Novatek began producing industrial diamond products in the 1990s, mostly for the Oil & Gas industry. In 2004 Novatek sold the Oil & Gas diamond manufacturing division to Reed-Hyclog. In 2005 the IntelliServ division was sold to Grant-Prideco, now owned by NOV. Novatek is currently working on projects ranging from drilling tools to diamond products for asphalt, mining and construction. NewVista: http://www.newvistavillage.com

Tuesday, December 15, 09:00-12:30 Session 1 & 2: The Ecocity Challenge – Metrics, Guidelines, Criteria, Principles of Ecocities

Matthew Hardy, Senior Lecturer in Architecture & Urbanism, INBANTU

Matthew Hardy is the Senior Lecturer in Architecture & Urbanism for the The International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture & Urbanism. Matthew trained as an architect at the University of Adelaide, South Australia, holds a PhD in architectural history from the University of Wales, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. His PhD research, based at the Prince of Wales’s Institute of Architecture, London, was a study of Hippocratic attitudes to climate and their influence on house planning in the classical tradition. He was tasked with the early development of INTBAU from its instigation as a research project in late 2002 until its convergence with The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment (PFBE) in early 2009.

Monday, December 14, 11:00-12:30 Session 2: Legacy, Equity and Design