Urban Planning

Urban Ecology Cools Building, Cities, and Helps Biodiversity

- Adam Clare

Modern cities are full of biodiversity, you just need to know where to look .Urban ecology is a relatively new field of study that examines how isolated urban green infrastructure relates to one another to form an ecological understanding of our cities. This infrastructure includes green roofs, parks, water catchments, and private spaces like yards and balconies.

Cities can help cool their local area by encouraging green infrastructure, and given the heat wave the west coast is currently experience we need to invest in as much green infrastructure as possible.

The addition and maintenance of green infrastructure is now central to urban planning in most cities. This includes planting trees and bushes, naturalizing parks, restoring wetlands and promoting other forms of green infrastructure such as green roofs. Some cities, including Edmonton, have launched goat programs to control noxious weeds.

A complicating factor is that much of the urban greenspace is found in privately owned gardens. Depending on the city, gardens can make up between 16 and 40 per cent of the total urban land cover, and between 35 and 86 per cent of the total greenspace. Governments have little influence over these areas, leaving it up to individual people to make the right decisions.


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Removing Highways Improves Cities

- Adam Clare
Intersection

Urban highways occupy a lot of space that can otherwise be used for parks, housing, offices, or anything else that produces economic benefits. The post war highway building boom in North America destroyed communities (in the USA highways were built to purposefully isolate black communities), fuelled car-dependent suburban developments, and plunged cities into debt to finance the construction. Now, we pay the price for the thoughtlessness of previous generations with unsustainable developments, polluted land, and large swaths of our cities taken over by tarmac.

No more. Cities are removing their highways instead of going further into debt to maintain them (Toronto is an exception to this). As a result new land is essentially being created and new vibrant, prosperous communities are popping up.

Rochester’s Inner Loop, completed in 1965, is one prominent example. This freeway destroyed hundreds of businesses and homes while separating downtown from the rest of the city, the New York Times reports. And in recent years, local officials have been trying to undo the damage.

In 2013, Rochester spent roughly $25 million to take out an eastern segment of the freeway. Apartment buildings have since been built in its place, and smaller roads once separated by the Inner Loop have now been reconnected, facilitating the easy transportation of walkers and bikers in the area. Following the $25 million removal project, over $300 million of private investment was brought into the city, according to a Rochester City Newspaper article.

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Paris’ Cafes Will Stay After the Pandemic

- Adam Clare
Berlin

Cities around the world finally shunned cars from streets and returned the precious urban space to people in order to provide safe socially distanced places for people. These urban improvement efforts started during the COVID-19 pandemic have shown to people that we’ve given too much of our urban landscape to massive metal slabs. Cities which have given people street space get cleaner air, more room, and a more vibrant culture.

Paris has found their additional cafe space keeping the reclaimed space for cafes and social space. Plus, the program is so popular they are providing more space to people.

Under the new regulations, businesses will be allowed to take over up to three parking spots in front of their premises for “summer terraces,” which will open from the beginning of April to the end of October. As the pandemic lifts, florists, book and record stores will also be invited to apply for summer terraces, moving much of their trade outdoors. In addition, businesses can also apply for an “annual terrace” that is open all year round, provided it occupies no more than one parking spot

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