New "City forest" in Alingsås, Sweden

I was on my way to Skövde, but I forgot my key so I went off the train in Alingsås, and why not take a walk and see the new neighborhood there?

"Stadsskogen" - the city in the forest is built right now, first people have moved in in some of the new buildings.
It will be a small village, but a part of the city center, close to nature and the lake Mjörn. 1000 housing and 3000 people will be living here, in houses and apartments. Ultimately, the "City Forest" will include a range of public venues such as shops / crafts, restaurants, cafes, plazas and playgrounds, all belonging to the image of a living city. It is also planned for children and the elderly, and school in the area.
Some houses have been here for decades. I wonder what they say now, when they will live next to high building and close to other people.
The main point is to have the nature close, with small paths, water and "wild" nature close to the houses. With my stubbornness "never walk the same road twice" I tried out the forest when I walked down a non-completed road. It was quite "wild"- I guess it was mainly cause they are cutting trees for the views and the feeling of nature..!


The buildings are so-called "passive houses", which requires almost no heating. The smaller houses have "smart" solution architecture, with small windows to north and bigger to the south for "free" radiator. All material is as far as possible environmentally friendly sound.

Here is a garage under the dirt, the entry was hiding in a corner so everything look like a small hill. The roof will probably be a "green roof" with special plants to reduce heat and water.

Take a look at the little film about City Forest under "links"- quite cozy!

Received awards for environmental solutions in Hammarby Sjöstad, Stockholm, Sweden

Some people call this city for the most beautiful in the world. Water, old buildings, squares, public transportation (mainly subway and buses) and environmental projects. So what happen in the Hammarby Sjöstad, the sustainable neighborhood? I took the subway-tvärbanan-walked there one day, guessing my way, were in a good mood and had my camera without any sim-card, so no pictures. But it look modern, lawn very shortcut, some flora in the seashore and they have their own ferry.
This district has received awards for it's environmental management.

*Environmentally good materials for the buildings
*Renewable energy from solar energy, fuel cells (better batteries), district heating, electricity and biogas from the waste from the area
*Waste water supply biogas production which is used for gas cookers, buses and cars
*Bicycle paths
*Few parking lots

What's wrong?
Straight streets built for cars, no people. Can they meet somewhere? There is a lot of restaurants and cafés in the area, but I couldn't see any ordinary stores like stores for food, small business for local people and so on. The neighborhood feels very empty.

It's not only about climate change

The disaster planet earth is facing, and then all of us ontop of it, is not only climate change. Instead it's about several different things. It seems as some people think that this planet have enough resources to feed and give production to every one of the 6,8 billion people in this planet. Sure, we know that is not possible. We just have too many problem to deal with.

Air pollution (smog, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, ground level ozone etc. causes mainly from production and traffic)
Soil erosion (removement of trees and plants, monoculture agriculture, changed waterlevels and directions, change of flow)
Water shortage (soil losses their water-holding characteristics by removement of covering plants, agriculture with intense irrigation, lowering of groundwater level and change waterways i.e cities, industry, cotton production, parks, golf, water games etc)
Nutrients availability in soil decreases (monoculture agriculture, overuse of of fertilizers)

Two questions; Is this something to work with in a global way or is it for local projects? And are the solutions about the physical things, as low-energy, passive buildings, biogas cars, organic cotton, or the way of thinking and doing?

What can we learn if we open up our minds and think more in the ecological way? (i.e in this sentense not meaning buying organic/sustainable goods but instead take a closer look at the meaning of the word ecology; as the study about distribution and abundance of population in interactions with the environment)

For human population or the ecology of humans that would mean; why do we live where we live; what do we need around us in such a place? Can we be their for a longer time? Can the population grow in the specific area? How big is the area? Is it expandable?

Is it even possible to have an society which take those things under consideration? A community based on knowledge in ecology, the ecological city in balance with nature? Do we have to build new cities to manage that? Or can we rebuild houses/neighbourhood's/areas/villages/big cities?? Is it impossible to rebuild whole cities in balance with nature? Small project starts here and there, with small areas with "sustainable" neighbourhood. How can this be enough? Sunpanels on houses, some trees in town and streets without cars. What about the whole spectra, with the whole society and problems to that? What about consumption for instance? What about our ecological footprint? Is it possible do decrease it if we live in such a city? How can we manage to handle the environmental disaster that is close to come?

To argue about climate change is real or not is just a waste of time. We don't have time if it's true, and if it's not, all those small projects now running is a necessity for all the other problem we face.

Last,

Do we need more landarea to expand production (that would be in another planet), do we need more transports (international trade) or do we need (the first real) ecocities that are based on the balance of human and nature, which take care for people and nature and thinks about the consequenses even in the future?

A perfect example of an ecocity area in Malmö, Sweden?

The Western Harbour (Västra hamnen, Malmö, Sweden) is a mix of housing, cafes and small restaurants, shops, schools, squares, closeness to the ocean and opportunity for other people to go and enjoy.

The buildings is both big (as Turning Torso, 54 floors) and small (with 2 floors), and have different appereance. Between the buildings. water flows and water loving plants have been planted. Not planted as in organised parks but instead a bit messy as nature should be.

One of my favourites was also the little greenhouse with tropical plants, right next to a restaurant so you can go in there and eat in windy days and the open storm water system.

From the beginning a dirty industry area, now one of the most attractive areas to live in. An area which also allows other citizens to use the seafront. Maybe not so much a city as a residential area, but it's very very close and it has potential to be more.

A touch of Amsterdam

Windshield and a greenhouse in the same time









Creativity

Urban area, old Christiana gardening and bicycles in Copenhagen, Denmark

Yes, you can feel that you are close to the ocean, you can see that they have their rebuilding programs and they also have huge project for the environment.

Copenhagen have been rewarded as "the most liveable city in the world". In 2006 Copenhagen Municipality received the European Environmental Management Award, the price was for the holistic environmental long-term planning. Copenhagen also have the largest market for organic food, 45% in the municipally sector and 36% of the inhabitants bicycle to work, schools and university.

But Copenhagen, where is the cosiness? Where is the squares and the fun?

I didn't have the feeling of connection between different areas in this city. It was a bit tricky to find things, everything felt in the back of something else.



When arriving from the airport, I saw an area of new buildings, something that almost have some of the elements for a ecocity. I decided to walk there the next day, even if I didn't know what or where it was.

I found it, and it turned out that it was a new area next to the water. It was a rainy day, very cold and windy and right before this neighborhood there was a huge mall, I walked thought it to warm myself. And was a bit confused over what was going on here.The white buildings was quite nice. On the other side I met this grotesque building (first picture) where every apartment seems to have their own balcony behind glass. In the base of the building was nothing! Just asphalt. I guess it was a underground system with a parking house.

Even if the new area has lot of greenspots, closeness to water (bathing and boats) and a long and narrow park along the water, it felt very boring. With no people at all (because of the rain? the newish feeling, or the contruction? everyone in the mall?!), straight and lifeless squares, a lot of paths but not cosy (enough).

You can see green spots in Copenhagen, but when you walk there it hard to find it. In Christiania, for example, it's still some gardening and green spots, houses with green corners and some special apperience.



Christiania is just a remnant of what it have been. But we found some cosy spots. Small houses, small gardens and a lot of green...














 I also like the bridge between the houses!

















Also, this building with greens- made a special appearence of this road in Copenhagen.

Terrasse house and green spots in Warsaw, Poland

Warsaw with Ecocity elements?

One example is that a quater of Warsaw is greenspace! Which many, today, are nagged in the edges when building new houses. Best way to hinder that is to build compact and high like in the innercity of Warsaw.

Another thing that I observed was the greenspace infront of the central station; the grass was not only ordinare grass as in lawn, instead a mix with small green plants, especially Plantago spp, it looked more like a landscape than a small park or a lawn- very nice and "wild". Also higher plants lived here, made different levels and colors of the "lawn".

When visited the Palace of Arts and Culture we aslo saw this building with terrasses and a small green house in the top? (tried to zoom in first picture above), and you can also see corridores with trees and green space in this city (last picture).


I guess that Warsaw having a lot better transit network (trams, buses, subway), more green areas and more rebuildning than many many other cities. Since joining the European Union 2004, Wasaw had experienced the biggest economic boom in its history. What will the consequences be in a soon future?

Abstract

It's not new at al; planet earth is in an urgent need of something new that have the solution on global climate change, starving, unhealthy people, soil loss, water shortage, biodiversity loss and high human population increase rate. Sustainability is a word that is used more and more in every level in the society around the planet and the concept from the small organisation Ecocity Builders is certainly one of the broadest, including everyone on the planet to take action. The founder Richard Register has now 40 years of experience and means that the change is going to slow. He mean that the organisation have the answer on what the human need now; we have to rebuild cities to be more dense in the same time be rebuild to a better place to live in. This paper investigate how to spread information from a small organisation to a broad target group, and what strategies the organisation use to go from information spreading to real life action meaning actually rebuild the cities to ecocities.

Introduction (draft and first part)
Rutherford (2004) gives us the number that eighty percent of the American population are now living in metropolitan regions. Worldwide we have a number of half the world’s population living in cities. And more will come. If we take a closer look at the largest cities "mega cities" some of them like Mexico City have grown from 2.9 million to 22.1 million from 1950 to 2004, Jakarta from 1.5 to 16.0, Istanbul 1.1 to 11.1 meaning growing 10 times in around 50 years, some even more extreme is Seoul-Injon that have grown from 1.0 to 21.9 and Dhaka 40 times from 0.4 to 15.9 (Planet of slums, but there is a homepage...). Mumbai is estimated to grown to 33 million to 2025 (2.9 million in 1950 and 19.1 million people in 2004) and to be the largest city in the world, even if it’s not sure its biologically or ecologically sustainable (Planet of slums, but there is a investigation). When people are moving there so fast the cities is not prepared for it and slums will be the result. One of five people in the cities in the world are living in the slums. There is a need to do something for the cities.

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

Pathway from the village of Hjo center to pure nature, Sweden

Went to Hjo today and visited a close friends mother. She told me that the city council have made a new path under the most trafficked road from Jönköping so we took a walk in the neighborhood and here are some pictures.

The path takes you from the town the whole way to Mullsjön, a popular lake. All the way there, you would be close to the creek Hjoån, whish is quite big. As you can see in the pictures there are some old houses left from the past, in the picture an old mill that is now used for temporary uses, like art gallery, lecture hall for Öring (Salmo trutta) excursions and more. You can also find signs on the path that explain what you can see there. The excursion of Öring is held in the night and you can see them spawn. For a price of 100 Skr (12 dollar) you will first have a small lecture, then the group walk to watch them and after that it is time for fika (coffee and talking).

Before, it was mostly people in the neighborhood who used the path to take a walk with their dog, also my friends mother. Now, with the rebuilding and lenghten under the road instead of trying to go over it, the path lead somewhere. Such a thing removed the barrier of the big road and gave the people the ability to walk or bike in the nature to the nature. I like to call this an Ecocity thought, even if Hjo is a small village with a lot of cars, this is a big initiative and should be use in different areas.

Some concluding remarks right now

Thesis work #5

Richard Register said in several times that things going to slow with the concept. He have worked with this around 40 years. My own interpretation was that Ecocity Builders have a lot of different project running right now, more than before and much larger and broader. I think they have a good chance to give their message to other, like neighborhood, city council, interested people.

Unique to Ecocity Builders is the broader view. Richard Register say that mostly every other concept of a sustainable city miss the important part with the denser living, and open up in other areas. The car problem is neither that so important in other concepts as in the Ecocity concept, they usually looking for other fuel or "smaller cars", "but that is the problem, we have to build cities without cars" says Richard.

The organiation can be seen as an information source. Richard Register have his mind full and sometimes I felt it very difficult to go from that and talk about something else (i.e, their communication strategies). Kirstin Miller have the contact to other people and are use to explain things over and over again how to do things. They both work very hard to make things happen.

I think that Ecocity Builders will continue to be an information source basely. Their action will be to interact other people with pictures and examples of things that work.

So far and what I have to work from;

Some notes for thesis work #4

* Litterature review before I left + review through old courses
* Three books from the organisation; Ecocity Berkeley; Building Cities for a Healthy Future, Village Wisdom/Future cities, Ecocities: Rebuilding Cities in Balance with Nature
* Mail contact with both Richard Register and Kirstin Miller
* "Hang around", lunches with clients, Richard Register, Kirstin Miller or both
* Brochures and information papers from the organisation
* Notes from five meetings with project planning
* Sightseeing in Berkeley with Richard Register, went up in the Gaia Building and discussed the Strawberry creek
* Sightseeing to Codornices creek
* Workingday at the Urban Farm project
* Three fulldays at Foundation Center in San Francisco, as a representant from Ecocity Builders I could check their database and take two courses and see one lecture from another company (LFA, Learning For Action)
* Taking root- a film about Wangari Maathai, at the cafe; Coffee for the people. Including a presentation and a discussion with interested people and some organisations in San Francisco
* Walkings thought the cities and took pictures
* Blog at http//environmentalistonamission.blogspot.com to work though thoughts and make it "avaliable" for other in the sence that I have to think of how to present it. As a draft to the report.

Unique thoughts

Notes to thesis #3

Ecocity Builders explores and invents basic concepts in ecological city design. Some ideas are their own, original creations and some are ones invented and pioneered by others that are not getting adequate attention which Ecocity Builders champion vigorously. All are under emphasized or neglected tools that could help enormously with today’s economic, social equity, ecological and even climate and sea rise problems. Further, they help create a context – the ecocity civilization – which could further humankind’s compassionate, creative evolution.

Strategies by others

• Transfer of development rights (TDR) (a legal and real estate development tool)

• Raising cities for floods, tsunamis (used by ancients, neglected in New Orleans)

• Virtues of well-ordered complexity, not simplicity (de Chardin, Soleri and others; indicates three-dimensional layout is healthy, two-dimensional not)

• The anatomy-analogy (complex organisms compared to efficient, healthy cities)

• General anti-car perspectives (criticism muted, a near-taboo, but some others agree with Ecocity Builders that it is important to confront this problem)

• Connecting social justice issues to city design, affordability of transport

Strategies by their own

• Origin of name “ecocities” (1979)

• Keyhole plazas or view plazas (plazas with a corner or side open to view nature)

• Ecocity mapping (a zoning overlay mapping system to direct future urban development and recovery of natural and agricultural land)

• Ecocity fractals, or integral projects (a fraction of the whole with all essential parts present and well organized)

• “Anatomy analogy,” though not new to us, the term is

• The formula/slogan “access by proximity” (the result of well-ordered, three- dimensional complexity in cities)

• The slogan “roll back sprawl” and strategy elements to accommodate regeneration of agriculture, natural areas and features like small waterways, make room for bike and pedestrian paths, recycling yards, parks and sports areas

• Various integrations of ecocity architecture features in clusters of buildings such as live roofs, bridges between buildings, tall solar greenhouses, mid block passageways – halls, alleys and gallerias – at street level articulated together

Mainstream good directions

Not unique or even unusual, there are many mainstream contributions to ecocity development becoming more popular recently. Though they are far from enough to get over the threshold into ecocities, these constitute a strong foundation we can build upon. They include:

• New Urbanist mixed use “Transit Oriented Development”

• Smart Growth initiatives similar to New Urbanists but at higher density and in more genuinely urban form

• Green building features, energy conserving design, good salvage and recycling

• General promotion of renewable energy alternatives

• Organic, meat-minimizing agriculture and diet, urban food growing and farmers markets

• Public and bicycle transportation in general

• Nature regeneration strategies and actions such as creek restoration

• General design integration

• More training and socially equitable opportunities for minorities and lower income people in green jobs

First trip to San Fran

well,
it was really intense .. but it felt like 6 months if you think about it.

San Francisco Bay Area is like a city of its own, with three downtowns; Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco and millions of sites

I stayed and had my nights;
in a co-op for 13 people in one week in suburb, Ashby, Berkeley
in a van one night, at the top of Broadway on the hill where the tunnel is, San Francisco
in a van one night, Buena Vista Park, San Francisco
in a van one night in suburb, Ashby, Berkeley
in another house with 4 people two nights in suburb, Ashby, Berkeley
in the suburb in Rockridge, Oakland for a night in a girls' co-op, 4 people
in the Haight, San Francisco, in an awesome guy 's apartment, the rest of the time

And what about this? Why write this? That is why I think it is very important for my view of the area in relation to the great country USA. You as a foreigner has so much thinking about this country. If you look at a "real American" you are in the wrong location in San Francisco. Here are all vegans, old hippies, old electronic music lovers, open- minded people, a lot of climbing people, gay people and the homeless. Everyone wants to be in the San Fancisco area. I also want to be there. The reason here and nowhere else where I was is comparable with "what do we want to do tonight" instead of "what can we do tonight".

I do not like cities where you can get lost in the grandeur. In San Francisco and Berkeley and Oakland, you always have a feeling of closeness. Although a distance.

So clear is the car is number one transport medium. But not really optimized to run here. It is the simple straight roads, lots of suburbs and a highway that is both large and stressful, but the best way for another to transport is with the subway BART and some buses. If the others do not, the others will take you there.
And why am I discusing this?

Of course the same as my purpuse to be here; Ecocity dimensions

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

Pictures of green and sunny San Francisco

I took my green eyes on me and walked though a pretty large part of the city. Here is some more pictures of "Green eyes in San Francisco".



Despite the cars..


Those pictures were taken under my lunch break between a class and a lecture about evaluation at the Foundation Center in downtown. It was for 1½ hour and I walked up to Broadway highest hill to take some pictures of our "van view" which I forgot to take pictures of before, saw China Town again and feel that I have a pretty good feeling about this city.

I like I like I like.

San Francisco is quite amazing.


Where its not buildings on the hills, like this pictures and the cars on the sloping ground, there was a lot of parks. The view.. you can see the ocean from the streets in the center of the cities. And if you climb up to for example Corona Heights Park, my #1 favourite (where you can read the text "don't feed the coyoties"), you have views in every direction, as far as to Oakland, Berkeley and in the other direction the Pacific ocean.

The green, the closeness to nature is here, its just some things that should be different.. help me to sort that out with comments!

Green San Francisco

I walked from downtown to Haight's area. A lot of green spots, parks, people, buildings and cars..

12 hours walking in San Francisco

Also in San Francisco you can find some trees, terrasses, huges parks. But most of all, there are cars. Everywhere. Small street, big streets, streets from the mainland. The BART system (simple subway), the trams and busses are from the early 70s. Quite good for sure, but a bit crazy. Today we went for free, cause the bus driver didnt have change, he didnt stop at the busstops either- people have to yell at both of them.

San Francisco have the largest number of homeless people I ever seen. I have been told that they have chosen to stay there, coming from other cities. Also the area of Oakland have the most crazy people I ever seen. Someone said that there was a mental house closed down resently. I have no clue.