Rough content and links leading to a paper on Sustainable Global Cities  is presented below. This page, with a goal of facilitating the creation of a more sustainable city, is in its formative stage. It's formal opening, via a post on our blog, will occur about February 15.

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Towards a Sustainable City

The terms ‘sustainability’, ‘sustainable’ and ‘sustaining’ often vary in meaning causing confusion to those who wish to educate or plan for sustainable communities. The confusion can be reduced to some extent if we remember that concepts are born, not in vacuum, but within a socio-political context. By tracing the socio-political origin and development of ‘sustainability’ it is possible to acquire a better understanding of this contested term, which, to many, may seem more a buzz word than an expression of a new way of looking at reality.

'Sustainability' was first used in the foreword to Limits to Growth, authored by Donella Meadows and her team at MIT in the early 1970’s. ‘Sustainability’, here, was considered a holistic concept, indicating a worldview that integrated the social, economic, and ecological dimensions of reality.  Also writing in the 70’s, William Ruckelshaus, the head of the new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, considered this worldview a conceptual revolution - a totally new way of conceiving reality and of planning and evaluating. He compared the significance of the sustainability revolution to that of the Agricultural Revolution of the late Neolithic and the Industrial Revolution of a couple of hundred years ago. Again, sustainability was viewed holistically.

In the 1980’s, the Brundtland Report, Our Common  Future, whose conclusions were widely accepted by the international community, brought a new meaning to the term with the introduction of the notion ‘sustainable development’, which became an economic development paradigm for third world countries. ‘Sustainable development’ emphasized economic growth, underemphasized social concerns, and limited the notion of sustainability to its ecological dimension.  It became the hook on which the various meanings of development could be hung. Being ambiguous, one can argue, the term found wide acceptance on account of that ambiguity. This usage of sustainability as economic development with an ecological dimension was further reinforced by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development  - also known as the Earth Summit - held in Rio in June 1992. In government documents resulting from the conference, development was viewed primarily in economic terms giving only a secondary emphasis to the environment, though the conference’s official title took the environment as its focus.

Contextual Sustainability

Though never completely absent from various discussions since the 1970s, the modern holistic notion of sustainability was re-introduced and refined by Dr. Frans C. Verhagan at a Bethel, Kansas conference on peace in the early 1990’s. In a paper on sustainability, Dr. Verhagan proposed a values approach for understanding sustainability using the concept of 'contextual sustainability.’ This held the Earth to be the primary context and essential foundation of all social activity and that ecological sustainability is key to achieving a culture of peace. Reciprocally, respect for human rights characterizes the social context essential for ecological sustainability: a society whose norms are based on nonviolence, social justice, intergenerational equity and participatory decision-making. Dr. Verhagan concluded that from this perspective, contextual sustainability is another way of understanding peace.

Presently, in common parlance, sustainability is understood to mean ecological sustainability. Speaking of life styles, people may refer to them as being sustainable in the meaning of environmentally friendly. If a company takes environmentally sound steps, it is considered by many to be sustainable. Discovering mays to make our city sustainable is the focus of this page.

• www.sustainable.nyc - Who gets it and what does it do?
• www.food.sustainable.nyc - And housing. and energy. and transportation.sustainable.nyc are these useful?
• www.greenbuildings.nyc - And green this and green that?
  
• Other sustainable names - Think synonyms or acronyms.
  

Tools

Miscellaneous Materials

• Urban areas contribute about 80% of global carbon emissions. They would seem to be the area where effort should be focused.
  

• CO2 comes directly through transportation and industry. Indirectly through the fluxes of energy and agricultural products into the cities.

• Agriculture sector: 20%

• Industry-energy-transportation: 75%

• Other: 5%

• Food & Sustainability
  

• Tourism - On the efficiency of trains, see http://www.o-keating.com/hsr/aircraft.htm.
  

• Communication - Organization, identification, and decision-making are amongst the areas where a TLD will play a role. Do these contribute to sustainability?
  

• Social - The Social Sustainability of Cities: Diversity and the Management of Change By Mario Polèse, Richard E. Stren 

  Read "See Social Sustainable of Cities"

  Cities are a locus of human diversity, where people with varying degrees of wealth and status share an association within a particular urban boundary. Despite the common geography, sharp social divisions characterize many cities. High levels of urban violence bear witness to the difficult challenge of creating socially cohesive and inclusive cities. The devastated inner cities of many large American urban centres exemplify the failure of urban development. With an enlightened democratic approach to policy reform, however, cities can achieve social sustainability.Some cities have been more successful than others in creating environments conducive to the cohabitation of a diverse population. In this collection of original essays, case studies of ten cities (Montreal and Toronto in Canada, Miami and Baltimore in the United States, Geneva and Rotterdam in Europe, S-o Paulo and San Salvador in South America, and Nairobi and Cape Town in South Africa) are presented and analysed in terms of social sustainability. The volume as a whole looks at the policies, institutions, and planning and social processes that can have the effect of integrating diverse groups and cultural practices in a just and equitable fashion.The authors conclude that policies conducive to social sustainability should, among other things, seek to promote fiscal equalization, weave communities within the metropolis into a cohesive whole, and ideally, provide transport systems that ensure equal access to public services and workplaces, all within the framework of an open and democratic local governance structure.

• Sustainability and Cities - Peter Newman Jeffrey Kenworthy
• From Dan Minor's Beyond Oil NYC
• An energy shortage contingency plan would prepare City government functions for such disruptions by educating City staff, the business community, and the public on energy conservation measures that could be implemented instantly. Portland’s Departments of Planning, Transportation and Sustainable Development prepared a substantial briefing book for task force members. p. 12 After 40 meetings, the group issued a draft report with eleven recommendations for reducing oil use.13 Citizens in Tompkins County, New York have drafted a county management plan to deal with the effects of fuel shocks. (p. 14)
• One way to involve many stakeholders in the decision-making process is interactive community planning forums, such as those conducted after the events of September 11, 2001 by 400 organizations under the leadership of the Municipal Arts Society. Over 200 volunteer workshop facilitators brought together over 3,000 people in 230 workshops to share ideas about rebuilding downtown. Participants melded 19,000 ideas into a report consisting of 49 vision statements. (p. 20)
• City programs that clearly define positive energy choices and explain how and why they reduce energy vulnerability improve the chances that people will adopt these behaviors: (p. 22)
  
• (using the social networking features might fit here.)
• Individual businesses can prepare for fuel volatility with short-term measures and long-term energy and efficiency investments. Each sector has unique energy
  needs, opportunities and resources, and those most at risk from higher energy costs will have the greatest incentive to prepare in advance. Industry-specific
  task forces will bring practical business experience to the City planning process and can help guide private efforts.
• perhaps sector networking
• Major investments will be needed to produce equipment and materials for retrofits, and to build infrastructure for:
  · Solar and wind energy and biofuels
  · Alternative vehicles and mass transit
  · Energy conservation
  · Green building
• serve as a hub for economic development efforts
• supporting services providing shared car and van rides
• Local agriculture, local manufacturing
  
• Higher transportation costs will alter the economics of agriculture and manufacturing. During both World Wars, Americans planted Victory Gardens which at one point were producing roughly 40% of America’s vegetables. (p. 54)
• These days food in the U.S. usually travels 1,500 to 2,500 miles from farm to table, losing nutritional value, sending dollars out of the region and contributing to global warming along the way.
  
• Volatile and increasing fuel prices will make local businesses increasingly competitive with those dependent upon far-flung supply chains. (p. 58)
• Sensors may be useful to turn off lights when no one is around, particularly in rooms that are intermittently vacant, basements, closets, and out-of-the-way places. Building owners should have an energy audit to review lighting, heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, and then carry out recommended repairs and upgrades, install insulation, and plug leaks that waste energy
  
• Greening A Block, a proposed demonstration project to bring state-of-art energy efficiency improvements to a concentrated area in the East Village,
  is expected to cut both heating fuel and electricity use an average of 30%. (p. 64)
  
• numerous sources, including groups listed below,
  
• charts for various ways of saving energy in buildings are laid out in the Feasibility Study for Greening A Block.( 65)
  
• Guidance and resources for saving energy in small buildings is available from GreenHomeNYC66 and New York Energy $mart Communities.(p. 67) Courses are taught by the Association for Energy Affordability, low-cost courses or a one-year certificate program in Building/Housing Superintendency Technology at the Department of Environmental Control Technology, NYC College of Technology, and free courses are available at the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development. (p.68 )
• Con Ed provides energy-saving tips and the option to buy green energy. (p. 69)
  
• With little public debate, the U.S. is moving towards increased reliance on imported liquefied natural gas (LNG). Additional LNG will be imported from facilities that have not yet been built but will be extremely expensive.
• debates discussions
• institute smart metering and time-based rate systems 
• unbundled electricity by separating utility bills from rent
• more intelligent systems
• Greater connectivity and speed in our technological, economic and social systems has given us great benefits. The economic pressure to make things faster and cheaper leads companies to remove all slack in production and distribution. This makes systems more susceptible to sudden and catastrophic breakdown. Damage in one part of a tightly interconnected system can cascade more readily to other parts of the system.
• nervous system
• Addressing the present gap in City emergency planning with creation of an energy shortage contingency plan will address both short- and long-term goals. The preparation and public education needed to conserve energy quickly during fuel volatility events will marshal the broad public support needed to make real progress towards energy independence. These actions will also create jobs, clean the environment, lower energy costs, and confirm New York City’s leadership in energy and environmental policy.

• Aalborg Commitments
  
• ICLEI.org - Local Governments for Sustainability
• Values Based Sustainable Planning
  
• PlanOnline - Values Bases Sustainability Planning
  
• Queens Sustainability Plan
  
• Broadband and Sustainability - See Pew article at http://www.pewinternet.org/pipcomments.asp?r=1228
• CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities
  

• Security of Large Cities: The Climate Factor, Martin Beniston.
  

Key .nyc Pages

• The .nyc Wiki Home Page
• Governance
• The Operating Environment

• The Civics Project

• The Development Environment
• Connecting.nyc Inc. Home Page