Essay suggesting urban management practises based on ecological principles and design, supported by social participation in a habitat of ever-developing sustainability.

1. The role of environmental resources management and ecology into current urban
planning processes and as tools for future greener cities
“Buildings should be good neighbours.” That’s what modernist architect Paul Thiry stated,
and today this concept is still valid and relevant into nowadays’ cities and urban areas.
While city dwellers in London and New York can count on smart transport options allowing
them to choose low-carbon footprint displacements on foot, by bicycle, by bus or train or a
combination of all, as according to Adams (2009) and Sovacool & Brown (2010), people in
road-predominant metropolis like Singapore live in a context of three times the number of
motor vehicles per kilometre, in a comparison to London.
Giving a broader panorama, from the last century to now, urbanization process have been
responsible for a change from 20% rate of people living in urban areas to more than 50% in
2010 and with estimations of 70% by 2050 (World Health Organization, n.d.).
Under this pace, the only solution to such urban growth and environmental resources stress
depends on the urban management based on ecological principles and environmental
processes, systems and designs. In this essay, will be exposed the main related background,
best practices and model proposals to an imminent future implementation.
During 60s and 70s, counterculture movement acted as background to inspire environmental-
aware concepts and further brought up initiatives about conservation and anthropogenic
impacts on environment, as in some books cases (Carson, 1962) and discussion groups such
as Club of Rome, which published “Limits to Growth” book and its approach on economic
and population growth’s stresses in a limited resources nature (Meadows, 1972).
Some few years later, during late 70s and 80s, the concept of urban ecology started to arise,
concerning ecological interrelations urban, man-made environment have with its natural

2. surroundings. Into this context, urbanization can be introduced as an anthropic influence on
environmental characteristics such as air temperature, water cycles and ecological processes,
leading to more heterogeneous, geometrically intricate and ecologically fragmented states
(Zhang et al. 2004 apud Andersson, E. 2006).
Added to urban environments and their ecological aspects, it is also relevant to take economic
and social factors into such environment’s account, bringing to discussion the concept of
sustainability. From Brundtland Report, sustainable development can be defined as what
“seeks to meet the needs and aspirations of the present without compromising the ability to
meet those of the future” (Development, 1987). It can, thus, be managed as a conceptual goal
to be pursued and measured while under application, offering space to be validated or
changed if judged necessary.
In such context cities’ environmental management are carried out, many data and information
generated point there is plenty of space for changes and improvements to the reach of state-
of-art or best current practices in sustainable green cities. According to electronic journal
“Environment & Urbanization”, the major topics of concern in urban studies nowadays are,
among others: urban poverty, health, housing, governance and development, violence and
law, and rural-urban linkages (SagePub, 2014). Still, concerns in energy, transport and land
use are still relevant, as the below graphs 1, 2 and can describe (IPCC, 2014 and Newman &
Kenworthy, 1989).

3. Figure 01 – Average built-up area per person (m2) in 1990 (yellow) and 2000 (blue) for 120
cities. Sources: Angel et al., (2005) apud IPCC, (2014)

4. Figure 02 - Trends in the different drivers for global heating and cooling thermal energy
consumption in residential and commercial buildings. Sources: Historic data (1980–2000)
from (Ürge-Vorsatz et al., 2013a); projection data (2010–2050) based on frozen efficiency
scenario in (Ürge-Vorsatz et al., 2013b), both presented in (IPCC, 2014)
Regarding sustainability aspects, Hong Kong displays a case of urban sprawl’s stress increase
over environmental resources along time. Its region configures a non-local dependence on
ecosystemic services as food, materials and waste disposition, characterizing unsustainable
aspects of development and a large environmental footprint. In late 80s the city of Hong
Kong was characterised for having around 25-50% of its electricity demanded from a low-
efficient urban design, with consumption patterns backed by advertising (Newcombe, 1979).
Yet, from Warren-Rhodes, K. & Koenig, A. (2001) study, it is calculated a 5 -7ha per capita
ecological footprint, with virtually all of it demanded outside Hong Kong and 60% of such
total coming from other countries or world’s areas.
As following, figure 03 outlines Hong Kong’s agricultural, forest and marine appropriated
areas (noted A, F and M, respectively) in 1997. Legends “s” and “a” stand for, respectively,
seafood consumption and mariculture areas.

5. Figure 03 – Hong Kong’s appropriated areas of consumption. Source: (Warren-Rhodes, K. &
Koenig, A. 2001)
Backing to global context, current urban environments management is defined in literature as
based on development, implementation or evaluation of punctual solutions centred on cause-
and-effect methods (Truffer et. al, 2010), instead of taking a long-period holistic perspective
accounting unpredictability and complexity (Foxon et al. 2009, de Graaf and van der Brugge
2010, Truffer et al. 2010, apud Ferguson, Brown & Deletic, 2013), which can explain why
cities can still be vulnerable to flooding and smog, for example, tackling such problems with
immediate solutions as canalization and transports taxing or pricing, respectively.
But even though the number of metropolises around the world today can lead to assume the
list of present examples of current urban management under need of sensitive improvement

6. can be easily extended, is also actual the implementation of new lines of thought and models
which consider nature as an integrated part of solution to urban resources management issues.
According to (Lehmann, 2010), “green cities” is a 90s concept for urban environments
aiming zero waste and emission through energy efficiency and reconfiguration of cities’
neighbourhoods, still promoting socio-environmental development. And today, there is a
myriad of suggested tools to achieve such goal.
For example, if the concept of resilience – defined as a system’s capacity to absorb a
disturbance redistributing it while under changes retaining yet the basic functions, structures
identities and feedbacks (Folke et al., 2004 apud Anderson, 2006 and Liao, 2012) - is
considered, it is possible to promote a lower risk solution to flooding, with cities living
without flood control and instead, being able to learn progressively how to adapt and adjust to
work without total failure under dry and wet conditions, through adding to urban planning the
concepts of redundancy, flexibility (i.e., applying dynamic-stability-based designs) and
diversity (i.e., elevated, humidity/waterproof and floatable buildings coexistence) into every
neighbourhood. The following Figure 04 can present a comparative analysis between
proposed resilient models versus current resistant cities.
Figure 04 – resilient models versus resistant cities. Source: (adapted from Liao, 2012)

7. Also, is well-contextualized the utilization of urban ecology techniques creating urban forest
habitats as a complex range of small, discrete systems to larger ones (Sanders, 1984). It is
proved that urban forest have an important result on altering cities’ access to ecological
services, and the range of benefits from its implantation vary from shading, energy
consumption relief, rainfall interception by canopies, urban noise blocking/ amelioration, air
quality improve, urban winds attenuation and biodiversity potentiation (Rowntree, 1986).
In another hand, taking the shift from a mainly landscape management approach to consider
also built structures themselves, there are building life cycle assessment models which have
this role. Proposing the objected built environment a virtual net zero environmental impact
and the ability to actively restore its surroundings as part of its ecosystem, Cascadia Living
Building Challenge (International Living Future Institute, 2012) is an environmental
management tool and certification process which considers the discrete ecosystemic
transition from pristine landscapes to urban areas, availing constructions under 7 main areas
branched into 20 imperative pre-requisites. The areas are: water (with net zero and ecological
flow); energy (with also net zero); site (with respect to limits to growth, urban agriculture,
and car minimally dependent dwellers’ lifestyles); health; materials; equity and beauty.
Similar but precedent to LBC, most accepted and with less mandatory requisites is LEED
built environment assessment and certification process (U. S. Green Building Council Board
of Directors, 2009), and certificates buildings under 4 levels of environmental performance –
Platinum, Gold, Silver and Certified, from the most remarked to the least, respectively.
Now, reviewing Hong Kong into a green buildings certification context today, the city
presents 1.2 mi m² LEED certified and 2mi m² BEAM Plus (green building assessment and
certification system analogue to LEED, used by Honk Kong Building Council) certified areas
(Efficiency, 2013).

8. Adding to cities’ sustainability toolbox are also biomimicry and nanotechnology. According
to (Bar-Cohen 2006a, Allen 2010 apud Lepora, N. et al. 2013), biomimicry can offer a field
to solve science and technological problems from biological technologies enhanced under
millions of years, side by side with manufactured nanomaterials, which in turn can be
presented as alternatives to unhealthy materials such as lead and mercury, since exposure and
handling until their disposal (Lee, et al., 2010).
Having such cases and possibilities of sustainability achievement, seems good judgement to
cite a statement from a prominent writer and activist Jane Jacobs which synthesizes perfectly
a missing gap from the latter exposed examples: “Cities have the capability of providing
something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”
That being said, the main missing gap is social. To effectively consolidate ecosystemic
preservation and sustainable consumption desires, human habitats need to be places where
people have the chance to deeply interact with nature (Miller 2005 apud Andersson, E 2006),
as only a society willing to take part on political action with can represent the human factor
of an urban environment’s resilience (Hayward, 2013).
Thus, from this essay it has been argued that even though human population sprawls under a
fast step putting an unsustainable amount of stress on environmental resources, the most
iconic anthropic habitat can count on tools and principles able to change current patterns and
adapt them in diverse ways leading cities to a new level of sociability, considering human
factor as the core of every consolidated progress in sustainability.
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