Download GEOG 346: Day 2

GEOG 346: Day 2
Changing Issues in the Management
Of Cities and Regions
Housekeeping Items
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Anyone need a course outline?
The sides and the course outline are up on the web site.
Beatley for next week is on reserve, as are the first two
chapters of Montgomery (1 & 6), a new reading for Week
11 (Baeker, Chs. 2-4) and Alexander and Shaw will be on
very soon.
Today we have a special guest – Ting Pan, a planner with
the Regional District of Nanaimo, who will tell you about
the issues that the region, or at least its planners, see as
the emerging issues of the future.
She will also tell you about a recent Request for
Proposals whereby the region selected a consultant to
develop a sustainability guidebook to assist with
developers and other property owners in their site
development activities.
Characteristics of an Ecocity (from Ecocity Builders)
Climate Change and What Can Be Done
About It
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As the IPCC points out, the building sector is an area of huge
importance for greenhouse gas mitigation:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/presentations/poznan-COP-14/diane-urgevorsatz.pdf
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In Canada, following the lead of the International Council for Local
Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), the Federation of Canadian
Municipalities has initiated the Partners for Climate Protection
(PCP) Program. It involves 5 ‘milestones’:
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creating a greenhouse gas inventory and forecast;
setting an emissions reduction target;
developing a local action plan;
implementing the local plan or set of activities;
monitoring progress and reporting results.
For examples of municipal initiatives in Canada, see
http://www.fcm.ca/home/programs/partners-for-climate-protection.htm.
Climate Change and What Can Be
Done About It
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Over 240 communities in Canada that have undertaken the
program, and two of the most ambitious advanced are the
City of North Vancouver and the Resort Municipality of
Whistler. Both have completed all five steps.
Internationally, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Amsterdam, parts
of Germany, and Curitiba in Brazil are in the vanguard of
tackling greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), often ahead of
their respective national governments.
Climate Change and What Can Be
Done About It
 Despite
national government inaction, some cities are taking
action. The U.S. refused to sign Kyoto. As of six years ago, 500
U.S. cities, led by Seattle, agreed to support it and to implement
its provisions to the extent they could.
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Europe, cities are doing much more, as we will see [see also
the book on Post-Carbon Cities by Daniel Lerch and Urbanism in
the Age of Climate Change by Peter Calthorpe].
Greg Nickles, former
mayor of Seattle
Why Are Cities So Central?
According to Condon, cities are responsible for 80% of GHGs –
“by the way we build and arrange our cities, by all the stuff we
put in them, [and] by how we move from one building to the
next.”
• After World War II, Canadian and American federal governments
encouraged sprawl through a number of mechanisms:
guaranteed mortgages, tax deductions on mortgage interest,
freeway construction, and ‘red-lining’ of certain neighbourhoods.
• In addition, the inefficient creation of infrastructure to service
sprawled subdivisions (water, sewer, roads, police, fire,
community centres, schools, etc.) has been subsidized by the
taxpayer.
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Why Are Cities So Central?
In addition to the added cost, there is also the embodied energy associated
with such infrastructure which has ecological impacts. Embodied energy,
as defined by Wikipedia, is “the sum of all the energy required to produce
goods or services, considered as if that energy was incorporated or
'embodied' in the product itself.”
• Sprawl led to a drop in urban population densities in Canada from 6803
per square mile in 1960 to 4000 in 2006. Meanwhile Boston grew from
345 square miles in 1950 to 1736 in 2000, a near five-fold increase in
size.
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Why Are Cities So Central?
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How many of you grew up in the
suburbs? Why did your parents move
there? What is your evaluation of the
strengths and weaknesses of suburban
environments?
House prices are cheaper, but there
are added transport costs [see
Montgomery] (partly subsidized) and
the already mentioned ecological
impacts from infrastructure and
additional driving.
In addition, sprawl has facilitated
segregation by class, income, race and
ethnicity – though more so in the U.S.
than in Canada. It has also facilitated
the ‘hollowing out’ of central cities.
Abandoned house in Detroit
Why Are Cities So Central?
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East St Louis has lost over
50% of its population and
Detroit has lost 61%. Much of
the city, which was once a
vibrant metropolis, is now a
wasteland being re-colonized
by artists and other intrepid
types (see “Requiem for
Detroit?”).
So, if cities are a big part of
the problem, they can also be
a big part of the solution!
How is this so?
Earthworks Urban Farm, Detroit:
www.cskdetroit.org/EWG/
Why Are Cities So Central?
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Land use patterns and
transportation (automobile
dependence) are inextricably
linked. From 1997 to 2010,
Canada’s vehicle emissions
increased by 35%. The least
automobile dependent major
city in Canada is Montreal, and
there only 4% of all houses are
single-family dwellings.
In addition to direct production
of GHGs by cars, there is the
contribution made by related
manufacturing and
infrastructure, the total of
which Condon estimates as
constituting 40% of the total of
all GHGs.
Climate Change and Water Security
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Map: Details from a map showing the impact of a global
temperature rise of 4ºC (source: Lopez-Gunn, 2009)
Climate Change Impacts
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) says that, even with an 80% cut in GHG
emissions, we will see a 2°Celsius increase in global
temperatures. That will likely result in a loss of 50% of
all species, not to mention other dire environmental
consequences.
 And yet, as evidenced by the recent New York round
of climate talks, we are seeing no robust action on
climate change, except for the hopeful agreement
between the U.S. and China. Indeed, Canada has
become one of the biggest obstructionist nations on
the planet. Al Gore has some pointed metaphors
about the current exploitation of the oil sands.
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Objective re Adapting to Change, City of Richmond, BC: “Build a community that is
adaptable and resilient to impacts from climate change and other changing
conditions.”
With a two-metre rise in sea level and no new dikes (left), Vancouver will lose land in
Southlands. With a seven-metre rise (right), downtown and Stanley Park could become
islands. Bing Thom Architects maps (Source: Georgia Straight)
Climate Change and Water Security
Examples of climate security potentially threatening
human security
 Possible abrupt change of Asian monsoon to a substantially drier
state
 Potential loss of water storage capacity in Himalayan glaciers
 Reduced water availability in the Indo-Gangetic plain
 Increased numbers of forced migrants as a result of severe climate
impacts
 Disputes between states, already concerned over electric power
and water-sharing (e.g. Egypt and Ethiopia)
 Hydroelectricity becoming less reliable, potential knock-on effect on
the economy and loss of hydro-electric power schemes
 Loss of summer meltwater from the Hindu Kush/Himalayan/Tibet
glaciers that 22% of global population rely on; damage to Tibetan
permafrost
 Impacts on great rivers of Asia: Yangtze-Brahmaputra-Ganges-Huang
Ho-Indus-Mekong-Salween
 Flooding as glacial dams burst
Climate Change and Water Security
For some urban regions much more than others, climate change will pose
challenges in terms of maintaining adequate supplies of water. Los Angeles, for
instance, already gets its water from hundreds of miles away.
 Spanish analyst, Elena Lopez-Gunn, notes the water security issues raised by
climate change:
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Climate change and water -- Direct and Indirect effects of
climate variability and change
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Unpredictable changes in water availability
Flood magnitude and flooding impacts
Sea-level rise
Probability of extreme storms
Changes in rainfall intensity, duration and frequency
Impact on yield of water resources
Probability and duration of droughts
Saline water intrusion into reservoirs/aquifers
Coastal land loss due to erosion and submergence
Impact on drainage network system
Snow melt, impact on glaciers
Climate Change and Water Security
What threats are potentially facing BC
communities?
 What can be done by cities, regions, and
the institutions within them to reduce
the production of greenhouse gases and
to reduce the threat of water shortages
and flooding?
 What is doing be done elsewhere more
specifically in this regard?
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