planted city

Urban Metabolism: ‘Cities, Scaling and Sustainability’ (Video)

From The Santa Fe Institute via YouTube:

Humanity’s greatest social innovation remains the city, says an article in the October 2011 issue of The Atlantic mentioning SFI research that finds surprising statistical regularities among cities, patterns the researchers relate to an underlying “urban metabolism.”

Related:

• ‘A physicist turns the city into an equation’ (New York Times)
• ‘Geoffrey West: The surprising math of cities and corporations’ (TED Talks)

(Infographic: World Bank)

From Earth Sky:

In what might be the first study to report continuous measurements of net CO2 exchange of urban vegetation and soils over a full year or more, scientists from UC Santa Barbara and the University of Minnesota conclude that not only is vegetation important in the uptake of the greenhouse gas, but also that different types of vegetation play different roles. Their findings will be published July 4 in the current issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research – Biogeosciences, a publication of the American Geophysical Union.

“There has been little research of this type in the urban landscape,” said Joe McFadden, an associate professor in the UC Santa Barbara Department of Geography, and a co-author of the study. While continuous CO2 measurements have been made in natural ecosystems all around the globe, only in the past few years have researchers attempted to use them in developed areas such as cities and suburbs, which often contain large amounts of green space.

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The researchers found that typical suburban greenery, such as trees and lawns, played significant roles with respect to CO2 uptake. For nine months out of the year, the suburban landscape was a source of CO2 to the atmosphere; but during the summer, the carbon uptake by vegetation was large enough to balance out fossil fuel emissions of carbon within the neighborhood. Compared to the natural landscape outside the city, the peak daily uptake of CO2 in the suburbs would have been at the low end uptake for a hardwood forest in the region.

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The study was funded by NASA and is a “first step” toward quantifying the role of vegetation in extensive developed areas, like suburbs, which are the parts of urban areas growing most rapidly in the country. Potential uses for this type of research include urban planning –– where land use and vegetation choices are major decisions –– and policy decisions based on reducing greenhouse gases.

(Photo credit: ASLA)

‘The Nature of Cities’

From Biophilic Cities:

The Nature of Cities is a one hour documentary about the projects and people in cities across the world who believe that, even as we become more urbanized, we must reclaim an essential piece of our humanness - our connection to the nature around us. Amazing projects in cities around the globe have already begun this task.

The Nature of Cities explores both the nature in our own backyards - Austin and San Diego and the possibilities in projects of cities of the future - Malmo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Freiburg, Amsterdam and Paris.

The film features sustainable communities professor Timothy Beatley as he tours these places with city planners, landscape architects, ecologists and residents. Commentary by Richard Louv (Last Child in the Woods) and Dr. Stephen Kellert (Biophilic Design) provide the background for looking at the living possibilities of how we can be in an urban environment integrated with the nature around us.

You can read more about the film here.