A small intro to Ecocities

Thesis work #2

Rutherford (2004) giving us the number that eighty percent of the American population now living in metropolitan regions. "Thats just America", you might think, but the fact is that half of the worlds population living in the cities.

Acually there are a lot of consepts that trying to greening or making the cities more ecological sustainable for example ecovillage, garden city and green building's and roofs, but all of this theories ONLY GOES TO PARTS of the city. The teory about ecocities presented from Register (2006) takes al other teories under its wings. Richard Register, the founder of the organization Ecocity Builder says in the conference 1990 "Cities and town is the largest things human built and the way we are building then destroying the planet. Why not instead build cities in balance with nature?" The main point of ecocities is the narrow living, meaning that you build higher houses and and therefore using a smaller area to the city or for human beings homes and surroundings, thinking in 3-dimensional, meaning that you are not limited to walls and roads- there are space in behind and the closeness to al that you need; the stores, the health centre, the nature. You don't have to take your family away from the city to do anything.

”Transportation is what you do when you're not where you want to be”

says Register. There are also gym, cinemas, and rooms for meeting in most of the buildings. Building an ecocity will also give other perspective about our self and the surrounding;

”While it probably won't rid the world of greed, ethnocentrism, and violence, building a nonviolent city that respect other life forms and celebrates human creativity and diversity is consistent with solving those problems”

(Register, 2006). But accordning to Myllylä and Kuvaja (2005) urban areas in South often fail when it comes to the basic idea of socal structures, which are often taken for granted in the discuss about sustainable cities. They mean that to build a ecocity you have to consider; locally defined development agendas, local resources and challenges, also take equity and social justice in resource allocation as much as use the word sustainability as a motivation and transparent administration, efficency and flexibility in service provision and co-operation between authorities.

Myllylä, S. & Kuvaja, K., 2005. Societal premises for sustanable development in a large southern cities. Global Environmental Change, 15, p. 224-237

Register, R., 2006. Ecocities-rebuilding cities in balance with nature. New society publishers, Canada. Availaby at: http://books.google.se/books

Rutherford, R.H., 2004. Regreening the Metropolis: Pathway to more ecological cities. New York Academy of Sciences, 1023, p.49-61