Efficient Cities of the Future

Here's how to create sustainable cities and regions, using advanced transportation as a means to bring about smarter land use. "Sustainable" entails: 1) Accommodating large-scale population growth, 2) Meeting the Kyoto protocol, 3) Stopping excess human consumption of land, 4) Dramatically curtailing auto use, 5) Reducing residential energy/resource consumption with vibrant (but smaller) stacked housing, 6) Lowering the cost of living, 7) Providing improved job access to lower income workers. Through this simple step-by-step plan, you'll also shed pounds, meet neighbors, hang out in public spaces, and pay lower taxes. "Human settlement patterns" is the second most important sustainability topic (after population).

Here's the plan: Small square footage in-fill housing and retail, really tiny/inexpensive housing via beds that fold into the wall (Murphy beds), personal solo driving reduction contracts, "walk to work" housing priority policy, personal traffic mitigation fees, supportive "tipping point" culture, homes for un-housed, area-wide automated smart parking, folding shopping carts, and all the usual stuff. Two-car families sell one car. As the real-estate gradually changes, asphalt-dominated superblocks are transformed into walkable, New Urbanist locales. Walking, biking, electric scooters, and Personal Rapid Transit enable more than 50% of trips (commute, errands, recreation, etc.) to be made without driving alone. Each of the nation's 200 30,000-employee business parks can be transformed into huge transit villages of two square miles or more. http://www.cities21.org/efficientSuburbs2020.htm

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Engineers for a Sustainable World -- Annual Conference, October 5-9, 2005 Austin, TX

Details on the special conference session on Efficient Cities

Included in this Session Program:

• A Day In The Life of New Mobility: http://www.movingtheeconomy.ca/content/ditl.html
• Moving the City: A Guided Tour of the Transport Integration Strategy in Bremen, Germany. Transit, cycling, carsharing, and taxis working together. Traffic calming to favor bikes over cars. Intelligent tramways. Integrated smart card. One umbrella organization for 35 transit operators: http://www.movingtheeconomy.ca/content/csPDF/BremenVideoSummary.pdf
• Dr. Joe Zietsman, representing one of the world's premier transportation research institutes, the Texas Transportation Institute. Joe is an expert on sustainable transportation and smart growth. Topic: Our Role in Creating a Sustainable Transportation System. Description:
  If we had a time-machine and were able to send ourselves 50 years into the future – what would we see and what would we encounter? We know for a fact that it will be a vastly different world than what we live in now. What would the transportation system be like and how will it influence or be influenced by factors such as – infrastructure, modes, communication, land-use, and energy. When we use our visionary skills to imagine this new transportation system we realize that there are several possibilities on how the future might play out – some more positive than others. This emphasizes the role that engineers need to play to ensure a more “sustainable transportation system.” What do we mean by a “sustainable transportation system” and what can engineers do to ensure such as system. In this presentation we will explore a few scenarios for the future transportation system, what a sustainable transportation system is, and what we as current and future engineers can do to ensure a more sustainable transportation system. http://www.cities21.org/OurRole4SustainableTransportation090105.doc
• Topic: A Central Texas growth vision, with an emphasis on land use, transportation and the environment. Accommodate explosive growth while preserving and enhancing quality of life, natural resources, and economic prosperity. Sally Campbell, Executive Director, Envision Central Texas.
• Topic: Efficient Suburbia 2020: Small square footage in-fill housing and retail, really tiny/inexpensive housing via beds that fold into the wall (Murphy beds), personal solo driving reduction contracts, "walk to work" housing priority policy, personal traffic mitigation fees, supportive "tipping point" culture, homeless integration, area-wide automated smart parking, folding shopping carts, and all the usual stuff. Two-car families sell one car. As the real-estate gradually changes, asphalt-dominated superblocks are transformed into walkable, New Urbanist locales. Walking, biking, electric scooters, and Personal Rapid Transit enable more than 50% of trips (commute, errands, recreation, etc.) to be made without driving alone. Each of the nation's 200 20,000-employee business parks can be transformed into huge transit villages of two square miles or more. Steve Raney, Cities21. http://www.cities21.org/efficientSuburbs2020.htm

Call for inspirational, 4-page "Efficient Cities of the Future" descriptions

• Peter Schwartz, author of "The Art of the Long View," explains that 80% of high schoolers are pessimistic about the future. If we don't change this pessimism into optimism, then the bleak future will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The job of your 4-page paper is to provide inspirational scenarios. Tell a good story so that our high schoolers (and engineering students) can suspend their pessimism.
• Don't provide a list of policy tools, rather, make your imaginative vision come alive in writing.
• Pick three people in your efficient city and take us through a day in their lives. Make your vision specific. What is life like? How does the city work? Are there new fees? Are there new technologies? Here's a great new mobility example to get your thinking cap started: http://www.movingtheeconomy.ca/content/ditl.html
• Here are some additional examples of inspiring four-page stories, emanating from the California Central Valley Futures Project: A) "New Eden" 2025 scenario for San Juaquin Valley (includes Fresno): clean air, diverse economy, strong ag industry, and highly educated workforce: http://www.greatvalley.org/valley_futures/stories/sjv/new_eden.aspx, B) "Rivers of Gold" for the Sacramento Region - all boats must rise, how to get beyond NIMBY, etc. http://www.greatvalley.org/valley_futures/stories/sac/rios.aspx. These stories generated extensive press coverage.
• What will your city look like? Here's an image to get your thinking cap started, kind of Le Corbusier's towers in a park with a monorail.
• Has government changed? Has the mayor's role changed?
• Describe how you will transform an existing city or region of 10,000 or more people into something that is significantly more sustainable. How much will it change? (Hint: 10% is not sufficient! This paper call is looking for significant advances, not incremental approaches.)
• Explain how increased sustainability is brought about. Make a strong argument.
• Your scheme should have the potential to spread worldwide to impact more than one million people. Make a strong argument.
• Explain the costs/benefits of your scheme. The more cost-effective the better.
• Feel free to take the conference session description to task.
• Papers are due October 1, 2005. Send to cities21 at cities21 dot oh arr gee.

Advocacy

We believe that, if marketed properly, this topic will have broad interest. To that end, we will attempt to spread the Efficient City Descriptions widely via web and the media.

Further viewing & listening:

• Berkeley Professor Robert Cervero presents on transportation, land use, and sustainability, at the Dale Prize Awards presentation at Cal Poly Pomona in May 2004. The video link is: http://video.csupomona.edu/RJZimmer/TransCD-245.asx . Please skip the first 6 minutes.
• Commonwealth Club Broadcast: PETER CALTHORPE | THURSDAY JUNE 2
  Architect; Urban Planner; Principal, Calthorpe Associates; Member, President's Council for Sustainable Development; Founder, Congress for the New Urbanism
  REDESIGNING METROPOLIS: ECOLOGY, COMMUNITY AND THE GREENING OF THE CITY
  Calthorpe is a Berkeley-based architect, urban planner, author and outspoken leader of the New Urbanism movement of urban design, an international movement which advocates reforming the design of the built environment in ways that raise the quality of life and standard of living by creating better places to live. Since launching his practice in 1972, he has combined his experience in the planning and architecture fields to develop an environmental approach to community development and urban design. http://www.commonwealthclub.org/archive/05/05-06calthorpe-audio.html
• Commonwealth Club Broadcast: URBAN TRANSPORTATION | FRIDAY JUNE 3. Speakers: HEATHER FARGO, Mayor, Sacramento, California; JOHN HOLTZCLAW, Senior Policy Advisor, Sierra Club Building Healthy Communities Campaign ; JAIME LERNER, Former Mayor, Curitiba, Brazil; GREG NICKELS, Mayor, Seattle, Washington ; JOHN DIAZ, Editorial Page Editor, San Francisco Chronicle - Moderator ;Other panelists TBA

  URBAN TRANSPORTATION SOLUTIONS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
  Traffic, congestion, pollution – city leaders around the globe confront significant challenges in tackling these and other transportation problems. Join a distinguished panel comprising mayors from cities across the world to explore "Cities on the Move." Experts will present their visionary solutions to transportation problems and how they can effectively use mayoral power to influence planning and other environmental issues.