On National Environment Day, multiple figures come to light that involve different areas of the environmental factor, including its effect on urbanization and cities.
This is evidenced by the United Nations (UN), in its Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 Cities and Communities, by revealing that the world’s cities occupy only 3% of the earth, but represent between 60% and 80% of energy consumption and 75% of carbon emissions.
SDG 11 also indicates that rapid urbanization is putting pressure on freshwater and wastewater supplies. Moreover, six years ago 90% of city dwellers breathed air that did not meet the standards set by the World Health Organization (WHO), which caused 4.2 million deaths from air pollution.
Urban planning
This background shows that urban planning is vital to human development, care and protection of the environmental environment. From this perspective, Beatriz Mella, director of the new CIUDHAD center of the U. Andrés Bello and specialist in the field, explains that cities must advance and plan as “Sustainable Cities”.
“Moving towards Sustainable Cities implies considering with equal importance the economic, social, environmental development and governance that allows us to make consensual decisions among those who live in cities,” he says.
In environmental terms, public policies play a preponderant role in protecting, preventing and encouraging care for the environment, however, Mella, indicates that, according to the current state of the country and global, “Sustainable Cities have the challenge of being thought of as an urgency to improve the quality of life of people today, and into the years to come.”
“Changing the way decision makers think is relevant, and that the way they generate policies and actions determined to improve sustainability in its various dimensions is explicit. Local and regional governments have a great responsibility because they have a scale that allows them to better understand and transform their territories,” he says.
Accelerate sustainability
The expert of the U. Andrés Bello considers that “the responsibility lies in establishing what are the mechanisms and tools that allow accelerating sustainability processes in the long term”.
“This means, not only to raise it as a problem, but to raise what are the instances at the level of financing, planning, technical skills that exist. Also include regional governments, incorporate them into technical tables and decision-making processes. It is urgent to find mechanisms to incorporate better processes of participation and co-production from and with communities, especially today that have problems related to social and environmental sustainability, so that the changes are profound, “he argues.
In this context, the director of CIUDHAD UNAB, details that the importance of urban planning for Sustainable Cities is fundamental, especially because of its implication for environmental sustainability, which is one of the pillars that are contemplated when moving towards the construction of these cities more friendly to biodiversity.
Consider costs
“It should be considered that it is about building environments that consider the impacts and costs of being urbanized, as in general are the costs of environmental pollution; atmospheric and acoustic, in addition, of other effects that we are seeing that are increasingly impacting local scales, such as climate change through heat islands or greenhouse pollutants, “he says.
The expert in urban health, citizen participation and the right to the city of the Creative Campus of the U. Andrés Bello, adds that “a sustainable environment to consider planning and projecting harmonization strategies, such as; green areas with low water consumption and sustainably thought of the environmental costs of water, in which there are shade and recreation spaces that are associated with the existing vegetation in these environments”.
“For example, one way to plan sustainably from the environment is to consider low-water vegetation projects and, for this initiative, to involve a community helping to decide when, where and how it will be managed. This is advancing social sustainability and governance. If that prOyecto allows to promote local economies, the project is implemented with the various pillars of sustainability”, he highlights.
Housing and transport
Likewise, Mella carries out a much more detailed analysis when planning Sustainable Cities help to reduce environmental and atmospheric pollution, but it covers much more.
“Pollution is also linked to industry and its processes, which are important in the progress of a city. For example, in the area of construction, which is one of the industries that emits the most environmental pollutants, we think about the availability of clean materials and processes, which implies a challenge, because today there is a deficit of housing, it requires accelerating the construction processes, “he explains.
Another of the edges that the urban planner analyzes is pollution by transport, which is one of the industries that generates the most pollution in cities.
“For that, policies that are focused on promoting and encouraging the use of sustainable mobility through public transport are important. Currently, the Government is working on projects that promote the electromobility of public transport, not only in Santiago, but also in regions. That’s critical because it allows the bus fleet to lower emissions considerably,” he says.
In addition, Mella comments that “more than 40% of trips in Santiago are made on foot and to facilitate the continued increase in the number of citizens on foot, it is necessary to generate pavement recovery programs. Which helps to generate more spaces for pedestrians and cyclists safely.”
Finally, in the same vein, he adds that, “even, think about a road redistribution of the streets. That 80 or 90% is not constituted for the use of the car, but that a greater percentage of the profile of the road is included for pedestrian uses and active mobility, which are not only bicycles, but are a series of micromobilities that are emerging as a result of the use of new technologies”, Concludes.
Follow us on
