Blueprints for a Green City

Integrating urban nature into cities reduces emissions, saves money, and promotes equity.RMI November 14, 2022  Zach Clayton,  Mia RebacRMIk,  Julia Meisel,  Shelby Kuenzli Global challenges are pushing cities to their breaking point. Worsening air pollution, regular extreme heat, severe flooding, and other climate-induced extreme weather events claim thousands of lives and do hundreds of billions of dollars in damage every year. Despite these daunting challenges, local governments are Despite these daunting challenges, local governments are taking the lead on climate action in many ways.  In their fight to mitigate and adapt to climate change, cities must use every tool available.  Urban nature is a solution we cannot afford to overlook. Many benefits of nature are well known, like recreation, biodiversity, and carbon sequestration. But urban nature — such as a city’s forests, street trees, and bodies of water — delivers countless additional benefits including climate mitigation (lower energy use and emissions), jobs, community connectedness, pollution mitigation, and heat mitigation. In economic terms, these benefits add up........ 

The global value of urban nature’s benefits is nine times the costs, delivering tremendous value for cities and communities. Despite this immense value, few cities are optimizing their use of nature as a climate and resilience solution. RMI’s new report, Growing to Its Potential: The Value of Urban Nature for Communities, Investors, and the Climate,helps local decision makers and investors make the case for investing in urban nature. In the report, we quantify the overall value of nature’s benefits in cities and — for the first time — specifically quantify urban nature’s potential to reduce energy consumption and associated emissions at the city level. In six cities across the globe, we found urban nature has the power to help cities meet their climate mitigation goals by measurably reducing building energy use, the carbon footprint of stormwater management systems, and transportation emissions.

Urban Nature Eases Our Relentless Energy Demand.......Planting trees and adding green roofs to buildings can cool cities naturally, reducing building energy use and peak demand while saving residents money and increasing their comfort. For homes and businesses, nearby trees and green roofs provide ambient cooling, shade, and insulation that reduce the need for air conditioning or heating, lowering both energy bills and greenhouse gas emissions. Greater tree canopy on a city-wide scale can reduce the need for air conditioning and lower peak electricity demand enough, so expensive and polluting natural gas “peaker” plants don’t need to start operating. Utilities could also avoid building new natural gas peaker plants in the future.Cities like Sacramento, California, have been taking advantage of the benefits of urban trees for over 30 years. In 1990, the municipal utility and the Sacramento Tree Foundation began providing residents with free shade trees to lower their electricity bills, and through this and other programs, the Foundation has planted 1.5 million trees to date. The Foundation estimates the trees it has planted in disadvantaged Sacramento communities can save residents $1.3 million from lower energy bills over the trees’ lifetimes. While these are remarkable accomplishments, less-shaded neighborhoods still need more trees so all residents can enjoy their health, economic, and environmental benefits......read on, there's much more https://rmi.org/blueprints-for-a-green-city/

Urban rewilding and why it’s a win-win-win! Curious EarthVictoria Johnsen May 14, 2024     More people than ever are living in cities, and accordingly, urban centres are ever-expanding. However, many cities and their residents are struggling with the multiple threats of the climate and nature crises, poor air quality, and worsening mental health. To try and combat these issues some cities are now looking to go green, literally! Whether we call it urban rewilding, greening, or even ‘depaving’, the idea is the same – to replace concrete with plants – and the benefits are huge. 

Greening our cities can have multiple benefits, for both people and the planet. Here are just some of the reasons why it’s time to go wild.....So, what are these benefits?

• Cooling: The sheer volume of buildings, traffic, and people in cities creates an ‘urban heat-island’ effect, raising the local temperature. Plants and trees can help cool cities by up to 2.9°c. Just 1 single tree can cool as much as 10 air-conditioning units! 
• Improved air quality: Vegetation absorbs pollutants and particulates much better than other surfaces, effectively cleaning our air for us. A Royal Horticultural Society study into urban hedges found that 1m of dense hedge can absorb the pollution produced by a car over a 500 mile drive. 
• Improved water management: Green infrastructure in our cities can reduce flooding, reduce stormwater runoff, and help filter pollution, preventing it from reaching our rivers and oceans. Research has shown that greening our streets can help absorb and retain stormwater at a lower cost than other water control methods. 
• Increased biodiversity: Urban development is one of the biggest threats to wildlife, but with careful planning, our cities can provide important habitats for a wide range of species. Cities that have created even small-scale green spaces have seen an increase in biodiversity, particularly amongst pollinators and birds, with new and even endangered species being spotted. 
• Improved mental health: Studies have shown access to green space reduces stress and anxiety, lowers the risk of depression and helps with overall physical and mental wellbeing. Being more connected to nature also helps people engage more with eco-friendly behaviours.  We’ve taken a curious look at some case studies from around the world which show just how incredible urban greening can be…...
• Medellín, Colombia......In 2016, due to rising concern over increasing temperatures and air pollution, Medellín launched the ‘Corredores Verdes’ (green corridors) 3-year programme. The $16.3 million project aimed to build 30 green corridors around the city, connecting streets, vertical gardens, parks, and the surrounding hills. This involved planting 8,800 trees and 90,000 plants. The corridors were designed to be as natural as possible, with canopies, mid-level, and low-level planting. They used carefully selected species of plants, for example the mango tree (Mangifera indica) chosen for its ability to absorb pollution, and other species chosen for wildlife.  By 2019, research showed that average air temperature had gone from 31.6°c to 27.1°c, and average surface temperatures had dropped a staggering 10°, from 40.5°c to 30.2°c. As a result, Medellín was awarded the prestigious Ashden Award, recognising the success of the project which has achieved far more than its original aims. Beyond the significant reduction in temperature and improvement in air quality, the green corridors have resulted in a reduction in CO2, increased biodiversity, and a 35% increase in people choosing to cycle.  The project has continued to grow since 2019, with the public voting for further investment in green projects. By 2021, a total of 880,000 trees and 2.5 million plants had been introduced , and Medellín now has around 4 million m2 of green space. 
• Milan, Italy ........Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest) apartment complex, built a decade ago, was one of the first architecture projects to place urban reforestation at the very heart of the design. Architect Stefano Boeri designed the buildings as a “home for trees that also houses humans and birds”. The buildings, which include 400 flats and an 11-storey office block, are completely covered by an incredible 21,000 trees, shrubs, and plants. The planting, installed on the building’s specially designed balconies, provides the equivalent of 30,000 m2 of woodland in just 3,000 m2 of surface. The success of this amazing design has since inspired many other urban reforestation buildings around the world, from Cancun, to Sydney to Los Angeles.....and there's - read on     https://curious.earth/blog/green-cities/                           Twenty-seven Skyscrapers from the Future including Green Buildings........    https://ca.pinterest.com/pin/377176537554594799/ 

Metro Vancouver‘- Social Housing’ Is Leaving Low-Income People Out in the Cold. When you think of that term, are you picturing a person earning $85,000?Jean Swanson, a former Vancouver city councillor.10 Sep 2024The Tyee  In May, Victoria’s Housing Justice Project released a report that supported what low-income folks have been telling us directly: when you’re low-income, you cannot afford to rent most new social housing. Single mother of two Toni Love spoke at the project’s May 9 news conference at the legislature, pointing out that housing rules require her to rent a three-bedroom unit and make $85,000 a year to qualify for that unit.

When most people hear the words “social housing,” they imagine housing for low-income people. But now the province — and many municipalities — don’t mandate affordability in social housing. B.C.’s current definition of social housing is “a housing development that the government subsidizes and that either government or a non-profit housing partner owns and/or operates.” In Vancouver, before 2015, social housing was defined as “residential units bought by the government or a non-profit using government funding in order to house seniors, disabled people and low-income families or individuals.” Now, it’s defined as housing owned by a government or non-profit that has 30 percent of the units with rent below BC Housing’s housing income limits, or HILs, meaning your income should be between about $40,000 and $58,000 if you rent a one-bedroom or bachelor apartment, and more for bigger units.

The other 70 per cent of social housing units are generally rented at what’s called “low end of market” — about 10 per cent below market rents. Average market for a two-bedroom apartment in purpose-built rental housing in Vancouver in 2023, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., was $2,181 a month. Low end of market is around $2,000 a month for a one-bedroom apartment, which is more than the total monthly income of a person on social assistance, disability or basic pension, about 74 per cent of the total income of a person earning minimum wage and 57 per cent of the income of a single person earning the median Vancouver income.As a result, many social housing buildings in Vancouver actually exclude low-income people.Except in the Downtown Eastside. There, back in 2014, low-income people on the city’s Local Area Planning Committee fought tooth and nail for a definition of social housing that would include them. They didn’t get all they wanted, but they did get a definition in the Downtown Eastside Official Development Plan that says one-third of social housing has to be “rented at rates no higher than the shelter component of Income Assistance,” which is $500 a month today. But a city council motion passed last year has asked Vancouver city staff to report back on aligning the city’s definition of affordability with the province’s.This is backwards. Instead, the city and province should align their definition and funding of social housing with the Downtown Eastside definition, not the provincial one.

In July, the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction told me via email that there are about 3,530 people in Vancouver with no fixed address. That number represents homeless people on social assistance. Some homeless people, including seniors and people who do not receive social assistance, aren’t counted in that number. We desperately need housing for them, but it doesn’t exist. Vancouver doesn’t even have enough temporary shelter beds for everyone who is homeless......read on   https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2024/09/10/Social-Housing-Low-Income-People/