In 1976, the Supreme Court of the United States decided a case about the powers of local governments. American Mini Theaters, a small movie theater chain, opened two adult movie theaters showing pornographic films in the city of Detroit, Michigan. The town’s ordinances prohibited these theaters from opening due to their proximity to residential areas, and other buildings with specified regulated uses. American Mini Theaters felt this infringed on their 14th amendment right to due process, and their First Amendment right to free speech. After much back and forth between the lower courts, the Supreme Court made the ultimate decision: the City of Detroit was allowed to forbid American Mini Theaters from opening their adult theaters. This allowed for a wider understanding of police powers and the dynamics therein for American cities and planning. What follows is a Twitter and faux blogpost dramatization of these court cases.
References
Bancroft, Angus. 2000. “‘No Interest in Land’: Legal and Spatial Enclosure of Gypsy-Travellers in Britain.” Space & Polity 4 (1)
Bowles, S. (1991). “What Markets Can – And Cannot – Do”. In: Challenge 34.4
Abby is in her first year of the City and Regional Planning Master’s Program, and is looking forward to sharing all she has learned with her future employers. She previously studied Sociology and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. Before coming to UNC, Abby could be found galivanting through her native Philadelphia (Go Birds!). Her planning interests include climate adaptations, sustainable development, and fostering community engagement. Outside of planning, you can find her grabbing a bagel sandwich, watching horror movies, and wishing for better public transit.
100 million. That’s how many Americans, including 28 million children, do not have access to a neighborhood park.[1] Despite the seeming abundance of local natural spaces, lack of park access is a problem here in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, too – according to The Trust for Public Land, a combined 23,909 residents (~30%) of both towns live farther than a 10 minute walk from a municipal park.
Parks are an important public resource known to reduce pollution, enhance water quality, increase climate resilience, provide cooling, and improve mental and physical health.[2] In the case of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, thousands of children are not able to experience the improved health and cognitive function, strong motor coordination, reduced stress, and enhanced social skills that having a neighborhood natural environment to play in can provide.[3]
Despite the known importance of the outdoors to child health and well-being, not all families live in a place that provides equitable access to these spaces. US census tracts with large numbers of families with children under 18 are nearly twice as likely to live in nature-deprived areas than families without.[1]And where parks exist, those in nonwhite neighborhoods are on average half as large and nearly five times as crowded as those in majority-white neighborhoods.[2]
So how did we get here? The inequitable access to natural spaces seen today is the direct result of racist city planning policies such as segregation, zoning, and redlining that restricted access to recreational amenities including parks for Black families.[3]Discrimination and racism have profoundly impacted human settlement and natural preservation patterns in the US, leading to the barriers to parks and recreation still present in Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and beyond.[4]
Chapel Hill Community Center Park (Source: Town of Chapel Hill, NC)
Fortunately, there is something we can do to ensure every child, no matter their demographics, has access to a neighborhood park to play in. Chapel Hill and Carrboro should follow the lead of New York City’s “Schoolyards to Playgrounds” program, a creative policy solution to limited available space and funding for the creation of new community parks. Launched in 2007 by former mayor Michael Bloomberg, this project included a $111 million investment to “transform 290 schoolyards into vibrant community parks by 2010.”[5]
The city identified schoolyards as both an available and underutilized resource. Only used a few hours a day by just the school population, these recreational facilities offered tremendous potential to improve neighborhood health and well-being.[6]The rest of the time, most schoolyards were locked and closed to the surrounding community during evenings, weekends, and school breaks.[7] Hundreds of existing playgrounds, many only needing minimal renovations, could become a key community resource for physical, mental, and environmental health benefits.[8]
NYC’s program prioritized the immediate opening of 69 schools that already had well-maintained playgrounds to the public, and then focused on improvements to the remaining schools, such as adding play equipment, turf fields, gardens, sports courts, benches, trees, and outdoor classrooms.[9]Between 2007 and 2013, this partnership between the Parks & Recreation department and the school district transformed approximately 150 “part-time schoolyards” into full-time playgrounds open to the entire community.[10]The program also provides a manual for breaking down institutional barriers and practicing successful community participatory design – through a 6 month process, the city enlisted kids and their families to envision an accessible, inclusive, and overall fun space for children.[11]
P.S. 213 Schoolyard Renovation in Brooklyn (Source: Trust for Public Land)
Despite the Schoolyard to Playgrounds program’s promise and initial success, the city is far behind its ambitious goal of 290 newly available public parks and over a decade beyond the initial target date. There are also notable equity concerns, as neighborhoods in the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan have not reaped the benefits of the program and still have far too few playgrounds despite experiencing a tremendous increase in population nine years and younger.[12]The anticipated benefits of increased park access, such as improved child physical and respiratory health, student academic performance, air quality, temperature, overall community health, and community safety remain unavailable to far too many young children across the city.[13]
If NYC’s program teaches us anything, it is the importance of dedicated funding for recreational facilities maintenance, whether a schoolyard or a public park. As of 2019, the city ranks 48th in playgrounds per capita among the 100 largest US cities, and 521 park playgrounds have been found to have at least one hazardous feature requiring immediate attention.[14] Since the launch of Schoolyards to Playgrounds, the child population has also grown substantially in neighborhoods across the city, yet the expansion of recreational spaces and opportunities has not kept up. With fewer than five playgrounds per 10,000 children in 15 neighborhoods, as well as over 25 percent of playgrounds in many districts designated “unacceptable” by inspectors, NYC offers a cautionary tale as to the financial support necessary to make a program successful and sustainable.[15] This innovative schoolyards-to-playgrounds model has since been replicated in cities across the US, including Philadelphia, Newark, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.[16] Chapel Hill and Carrboro should consider joining this growing list of cities using creative policy solutions to turn underutilized school playgrounds into parks the entire neighborhood can enjoy. But as we learned from New York City, this program cannot be successful without the widespread support of departments, schools, businesses, and community members across Chapel Hill and Carrboro. It is time for us to work together to make our community healthier, safer, and more fun for all residents young and old.
[2] Bright, R. M., Davin, E., O’Halloran, T., Pongratz, J., Zhao, K., & Cescatti, A. (2017, March 27). Local temperature response to land cover and management change driven by non-radiative processes. Nature Climate Change, 7, 296-302
[3] Strife, S., & Downey, L. (2009, March). Childhood Development and Access to Nature: A New Direction for Environmental Inequality Research. (122, Ed.) Organization & Environment, 22(1), 99.
Emma Vinella-Brusher is a third-year dual degree Master’s student in City and Regional Planning and Public Health interested in equity, mobility, and food security. Born and raised in Oakland, CA, she received her undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies from Carleton College before spending four years at the U.S. Department of Transportation in Cambridge, MA. In her free time, Emma enjoys running, bike rides, live music, and laughing at her own jokes.
Edited by Ryan Ford
Featured image: Playground. Source: RODNAE Productions
The Cheonggyecheon stream in Seoul, South Korea is considered a masterpiece of urban infrastructure, revolutionizing how cities look at old infrastructure and imagine change. Though it is best known for being a picturesque greenspace cutting through one of the most dense cities on the planet, what truly sets Cheonggyecheon apart is how it directly altered Seoul’s decision-making process. Previously, Seoul believed in its technical rational ability to push forward its solutions and decisions using a method called DAD, or decide, announce, then defend. This directly followed the Rational Actor Model, where the government is the sole actor and decision maker, and decisions are seen as rational choices that maximize value toward the state’s ends (Allison 1999, 274).
As the Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project began, Lee Myung-Bak’s new government integrated multiple organizations into the decision-making process, creating a system akin to the Governmental Politics model. This allowed for public concerns to appear to be heard and conflicts attempted to be remedied, rather than ignored. However, as conflicts occurred with the Merchant’s Guild and cultural groups, it became clear that Seoul was not fully using the Governmental Politics model. Only certain solutions and decisions were fully implemented, while others were purposefully suppressed. Overall, however, the change in decision making that occurred within the Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project marks a notable change in how Seoul’s conceptualized its problem solving, altering its strict Rational Actor Model to a more inclusive yet still politically biased blend of Rational Actor and Governmental Politics models. Cheonggyecheon serves as the foundation of the decision-making model that Seoul is renowned for today, one that prizes the idea of sharing power and public identity in decision-making and stands in stark contrast to the rational models of the past.
Background
During the late 1990s, the crumbling highway at the heart of downtown Seoul began to attract attention. The highway, built in the 1970s, had several safety concerns as the amount of traffic started to cause noticeable wear (Kang 2016). City officials planned to repair the eighteen-lane highway; however, a group of academics began to suggest removing the highway and restoring the historic stream on which the highway was built (Worldbank 2015). During the Seoul Mayoral Election of 2002, candidate Lee Myung-Bak championed this cause, making it central to his campaign. This aided his campaign tremendously, as it played into the public’s want for increased interaction in public administration, and his subsequent election created a need to include the public in decisions.
Before the Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project (CRP), Seoul believed it could act in absolute power, thinking it acted in “technical rationality and pressed ahead with projects by monopolizing information and forcing stakeholders to follow them” (Hwang et al. 2016, 207). Seoul followed this ideology with DAD, highlighting how the government would privately decide on a solution to an issue, announce it, and instead of seeking improvement, it would defend the solution (Hwang et al. 2016, 14). This aligns with the idea of agenda setting as well, as DAD was thought to “promote a project with ‘technological’ rationality as the absolute criteria while minimizing the negative aspects (project delays, social costs) associated with ‘procedural rationality’” (Hwang et al. 2016, 16). Seoul limited the amount of interaction that those outsides of the decision making process could have while presenting decisions it made as the most “rational” choice that could be made, downplaying any conflict that occurred with residents. This resulted in distrust in the decision making process between residents of Seoul and the government that the new mayor sought to remedy.
Past and Present
Knowing the public wished for a higher level of impact on the decision-making process, the new mayor started to change how Seoul made decisions. Upon creation of the CRP, multiple organizations were formed to assist in public engagement, including the Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project Headquarters (CRPH), the Seoul Development Institute (SDI), and the Cheonggyecheon Restoration Citizen’s Committee (Lah 2012, 4). This is an example of the Government Politics decision making model, which highlights the different organizational compositions in decision making processes, as the committees acted as different advisory and decision-making channels for Cheonggyecheon.
Lee Myung-Bak purposefully chose to involve these different organizations, all with different objectives and foundations, to attempt to fully consider all possible concerns, creating a noticeable shift in how Seoul made decisions. These groups had the power to shape Cheonggyecheon, with the Citizens Committee postponing the start of the project until cultural relevancy decisions were made by the three organizations (Hwang et al 2016, 147). This is actualized power, not a form of venue shopping to shift focus away from protests which were common under the DAD model.
Conflict Resolution Revolution
The CRP was built upon the idea of the revitalization of Seoul and its culture. Lee Myung-Bak wished to push Seoul’s cultural identity, and accordingly prioritized the restoration of the cultural heritage surrounding Cheonggyecheon. Following the Governmental Politics Model, cultural groups raised concerns over Gwangtonggyo Bridge, the largest historical bridge of the Cheonggyecheon Stream. Cultural groups wished to have the bridge be placed according to historical accuracy, which the city did not believe possible. To prevent conflict, Seoul utilized agenda setting by stating the bridge would be built according to CRP but would be reevaluated later. This placated the cultural groups, who were presented with the choice of having no control at all, reminiscent of the Rational Actor Model, or could discuss and re-evaluate, similar to the Governmental Politics Model. Presented with this, the cultural groups closed their arguments (Kang 2017).
The largest opposition faced by the CRP were merchants of the local area, who feared the demolishing of the highway would not revitalize the economy and instead would lead to loss (Yoon 2018, 14). These individuals feared the project, and though the CRP claimed to be reflective of local needs, all committees and meetings were lacking any local opposition leaders and were purposefully “excluded from the decision-making process even though they were direct stakeholders” (Hwang et al 2016, 71). This made the public doubt this democratic decision and believe the government was reverting to its “rational methods” (Hwang et al 2016, 73). In response, Seoul created a “governance scheme” to mitigate conflict while appearing to integrate public concern (Hwang et al 2016, 72). This reduced conflict by making external forces feel involved, while the city pursued its own desires. Merchants talked to the city and felt as if they were contributing, while government officials rarely integrated their concerns into the project. This is the venue setting, changing the arena of conflict from the streets to privately held meetings, and shows that the CRP was using a Rational Actor Model, despite presenting itself as a more publicly cognizant Governmental Politics model. The core of the Governmental Politics model is that “what happens is understood instead as a result of bargaining games among players in the national governments” (Allison 1999, 275); however, there was little bargaining with this process. Seoul believed that it was making “rational” choices but wished to make others feel that they were helping to create decisions to stop public outcry (Lah 2012, 10).
Seoul utilized factors such as agenda setting to make their “rational” choices seem like the best decisions while making the public believe they are vital. Or the city used venue shopping to change how opposing forces could express their issues to not attract negative attention and promote their ideals over the concerns of others (Hwang et al. 2016). This false image of cooperation correlates with the fact that the two yearlong construction of the CRP began nearly a year before the “Cheonggyecheon Restoration Master Plan” was published, meaning that concerns could not be integrated until a year into the construction process (Worldbank 2015). That is not to say that there was no integration of external views and concerns, as the city did listen to the SDI and Citizens Committee when concerns were raised about flooding, safety, and transportation, but instead shows that the image of unity between the City’s government and residents was often more important to the CRP than implementing these concerns. This conflict between rationality and outreach is why the CRP showcases how models cannot function in practical application. There is no true expression of any decision-making model, instead, there is a mix of models.
Citations
Allison, Graham. 1999. “Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis.” In Foreign Policy: Theories, Actors, Cases. Edited by Steve Smith. 256-83. London: Longman Publishing.
Nik Reasor is a first-year Master’s student in City and Regional Planning at Chapel Hill where he specializes in Land Use and Environmental Policy. In particular, Nik is interested in climate change adaptation and how to best help disadvantaged communities survive the challenges the future presents. Previously, Nik earned his BA in Sociocultural Anthropology, Medieval studies, and Urban Planning at UNC. You can usually catch him around Chapel Hill biking to local cafes to catch up on work or at the gym coaching UNC’s boxing team.
Edited by Ryan Ford
Featured Image: Cheonggyecheon Stream in Seoul. Photo Credit: Nik Reasor
This past May, I started working with the Southeast and Caribbean Disaster Resilience Partnership (SCDRP) as a Program Coordinator. The SCDRP is a coalition of public and private organizations that collectively seeks to strengthen the resilience of communities to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of natural hazards and climate change. SCDRP is the broadest regional collaborative network for professionals in emergency management, climate adaptation, disaster preparedness, recovery, and resilience in the U.S. Southeast and the Caribbean.
This was a position that piqued my interest because of my passion for urban planning and communication. I’ve always enjoyed doing creative work and creating content as well as event planning. In the past, I was able to work in positions that allowed me to plan conferences and learn graphic design. But working with SCDRP has been a unique opportunity for me to apply these interests of mine to disaster resilience. Through this partnership, I have met many inspiring professionals in the field and have been able to envision the type of career I want to pursue after graduate school.
SCDRP’s Mission, Vision, & Objectives
Over the past couple of years, our network has evolved into a cross-sectoral, regional forum for resilience professionals from the public, private, and non-government sectors. SCDRP provides a forum to build relationships and deepen communities’ resilience capacity through targeted regional coordination events, outreach to and engagement with government officials and businesses, support for public policy research, and hosting an annual regional convening.
The partnership was originally named the Southeast Disaster Recovery Partnership. It was awarded a 2016 Coastal Resilience Grant that funded projects in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. In January 2019, the partnership wanted to bring the value of the network to Caribbean territories and continue sharing lessons learned. It also changed the “R” in its title from “Recovery” to “Resilience” and became the Southeast and Caribbean Disaster Resilience Partnership.
SCDRP is an affiliate program of the Southeast Coastal Ocean Observing Regional Association (SECOORA). SECOORA’s region spans the coastal areas of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. SECOORA’s mission is to observe, understand, and increase awareness of our coastal ocean; promoting knowledge, economic and environmental health through strong regional partnerships. Together, SCDRP and SECOORA work in tandem to increase community engagement throughout the Southeast and Caribbean.
The scale of disasters and climate-related impacts faced in the U.S. Southeast and Caribbean territories and nations require vested interests to protect and transform high-risk communities. SCDRP’s efforts reflect a deep commitment to collaboration across sectors to strengthen the region’s capacity to address common issues resulting from disaster and climate impacts.
Leveraging the SCDRP’s network of resilience, recovery, and adaptation professionals, the Partnership is expanding the monthly webinar to Caribbean countries, directly engaging Caribbean participants, and arranging featured speakers from Caribbean nations to enhance peer-to-peer learning opportunities across the region and internationally. This work will continue to help maintain networks of experts in the United States and the greater Caribbean. This initiative will facilitate information-sharing about successful disaster preparedness, adaptation, and resilience projects throughout the four U.S. Southeast States, two U.S. Caribbean territories, and multiple Caribbean nations.
Our current members range from those who focus on response and recovery planning to those who are interested in long-term climate adaptation. By convening an extensive and growing network of professionals from the public and private sectors who focus on building resilience in the Southeast and Caribbean region, the SCDRP has the potential to serve as the primary resource for knowledge, information, and best practices in resilience and climate adaptation.
We host virtual monthly partnership meetings on the fourth Thursday of every month at 10 am EST, where we hear from guest speakers and share resources. During our August meeting, we heard from Dr. Greg Guannel about the work of the Caribbean Green Technology Center (CGTC) in the U.S. Virgin Islands (https://youtu.be/4maZ3iJT948). We also host annual working meetings focused on the exchange of recovery and resilience information. Our 2023 Annual Meeting will take place in Miami, Florida on January 24th and 25th. All are welcome to attend, including students! This is a great opportunity to meet other professionals in the disaster resilience field.
If you’d like to learn more and join our future meetings, check out our website: scdrp.secoora.org.
Josephine Jeni Justin is a second year Masters of City and Regional Planning student at UNC Chapel Hill. She is pursuing a Natural Hazards Resilience certificate and is specializing in land use and environmental planning and transportation planning. Currently, she is working with the Southeast and Disaster Resilience Partnership (SCDRP) as a Program Coordinator and San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) as an Innovation Team intern. She completed her undergraduate degree in Political Science and Communication Studies at UNC Charlotte. Before starting her master’s program, she worked with the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) and as an AmeriCorps California Climate Action Corps Fellow with the City of Los Angeles’ Climate Emergency Mobilization Office (CEMO). Josephine is passionate about pursuing a career at the intersection of community engagement, environmental justice, and storytelling.
Looking for some podcasts to listen to while walking to class, doing chores, or avoiding homework? Check out some of our favorite urbanist (or urbanist-adjacent) podcasts and featured episodes below. And if you’re looking for, even more, our September 2020 post includes a few more recommendations.
99% Invisible 323- The House that Came in the Mail Again Design is everywhere in our lives, perhaps most importantly in the places where we’ve just stopped noticing. 99% Invisible is a weekly exploration of the process and power of design and architecture.
Starting in 1908, the company that offered America everything, Sears, began offering what just might be its most audacious product line ever: houses.
Decoder Ring (Slate Podcasts) The Mall is Dead (Long Live the Mall) Decoder Ring is a show about cracking cultural mysteries. In each episode, host Willa Paskin takes a cultural question, object, or habit; examines its history; and tries to figure out what it means and why it matters.
In this episode, author Alexandra Lange explains the atriums, escalators, and food courts of the singular suburban space of the mall.
How to Save a Planet (Gimlet) Make Biking Cool (Again)! Join us, journalist Alex Bumberg and a crew of climate nerds, as we bring you smart, inspiring stories about the climate change mess we’re in and how we can get ourselves out of it.
In this episode, the hosts look at how cycling developed its dorky reputation and counter it with some propaganda of their own.
Next City (Straw Hut Media) The Business That’s Owned by an Idea Each week Lucas Grindley, executive director at Next City, will sit down with trailblazers to discuss urban issues that get overlooked. At the end of the day, it’s all about focusing the world’s attention on the good ideas that we hope will grow.
This episode discusses Artisan Firebrand Bakery, an Oakland bakery owned by a “perpetual purpose trust” where the majority owner is the business’ mission itself.
Created and hosted by award-winning journalist Farai Chideya, Our Body Politic is unapologetically centered on reporting on not just how women of color experience the major political events of today, but how they’re impacting those very issues.
This episode features author Dr. Marisa Franco, who shares insights on the mental and physical benefits of social interactions and community building and how in times of loneliness, people are prone to inadvertently sabotage these critical bonds.
Outside’s longstanding literary storytelling tradition comes to life in audio with features that will entertain, inspire, and inform listeners.
This episode presents the story of a very enterprising librarian who came to a struggling town in Maine and took action on a novel idea: What if, in addition to loaning books, we started lending outdoor gear?
Jeff Wood of The Overhead Wire interviews public officials and advocates about transportation and urban planning policy.
This episode features Dr. V Kelly Turner, Director of Urban Environment Research at UCLA’s Luskin Center for Innovation, and covers how to think about, measure, and regulate urban heat.
The War on Cars brings you news and commentary on the latest developments in the worldwide fight to under a century’s worth of damage wrought by the automobile and to make cities better.
In this episode, the hosts take a look back at author Ray Bradbury’s dystopian vision in his short story “Pedestrian” and talk about how walking contributes to our essential humanity, and what we lose when we build environments that make it impossible for people to walk.
Technopolis is a podcast from CityLab about how cities are changing with new technology.
In this episode, the hosts have a discussion with John Zahurancik from Fluence Energy and Rushad Nanavatty of Rocky Mountain Institute on renewable energy for future cities.
What else should we be listening to? Share your recommendations in the comments below!
Emma Vinella-Brusher is a third-year dual degree Master’s student in City and Regional Planning and Public Health interested in equity, mobility, and food security. Born and raised in Oakland, CA, she received her undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies from Carleton College before spending four years at the U.S. Department of Transportation in Cambridge, MA. In her free time, Emma enjoys running, bike rides, live music, and laughing at her own jokes.
This post was originally published on December 3, 2019. As we enter year three of the COVID-19 pandemic, we reflect on another global consequence – mountains of waste. A July 2021 study by MIT found that the pandemic alone has generated 7,200 tons of medical waste every day, largely disposable masks.
By Emily Gvino, MCRP/MPH ’21
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Americans produce 25% more trash than usual between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, generating 1 million tons more waste every week during this time frame.[1] However, the life cycle of this country’s waste poses a critical issue throughout the year. Urban planners, public works departments, and local officials are already dealing with the downstream impacts of our trash generation problems; land use decisions must handle a community’s needs for housing and economic development but also balance the increasing amount of land required to create landfills and resources to facilitate trash management. The upstream causes of waste management should also be the concern of major businesses and employers, such as healthcare organizations. Hospitals – which have relied on single-use plastic items since the 1970s – could step up in an environmental stewardship role for their communities by tackling their plastic waste generation.
The Issue: The Unending Waste Problem
In 2017, representatives from China notified the World Trade Organization of their intent to ban solid waste imports from the United States, Canada, Australia, and other countries at the Committee on Import Licensing.[2] China’s decision marks a monumental shift in global waste management that has sent municipalities and businesses across the United States into a panic. China has long been the main recipient of our garbage, and now manufacturing companies and public works departments alike must scramble to find waste management solutions.[3] Pictures of dump trucks moving debris have been splashed across the news since then, juxtaposed with impoverished workers whose daily job includes sifting through mounds of trash by hand for items that can be recycled. These images dig at our moral sensibilities, as no individual is guilt-free from contributing to this system of unnecessary accumulation. Attention to this issue is framed in the media as a problem for the greedy consumer that gets their coffee to go, orders pizza for dinner in that large cardboard box, and requires multiple plastic bags for every grocery trip.
Source: Center for Sustainable Systems, University of Michigan. 2018. “Municipal Solid Waste Factsheet.” Pub. No. CSS04-15.
For decades, the environmental movement has emphasized these individual choices as the essential mechanisms for preventing impending environmental crises: Don’t buy single-use plastics. Recycle your bottles, cardboard, and paper. Accumulate reusable tote bags and use them whenever you go shopping. The maxim of “reduce, reuse, recycle” has become so ingrained that it stands as a cliché, a slogan for an indifferent public. On a community level, we can do better: a Pew Research Center survey from 2016 found that one in five Americans lives in a community that does not encourage recycling, while half live in a community that encourages “but doesn’t seem overly concerned with” recycling efforts, mirroring this sentiment of apathy.[4]
While our garbage accumulation crisis may seem to be a concern only for environmental advocates, we also face more public health threats due to waste. The World Health Organization reports that mercury poisoning can occur through contact or through waterway contamination by chemicals that leach into water systems from landfills.[5] Without China and other countries to process our waste, more plastic products will end up in landfills and incinerators, which can release toxic chemicals harmful to our health. In Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the Roger Eubanks neighborhood faced the public health and environmental justice consequences of a waste disaster.[6] The community, whose residents are a majority African American, was the site of a landfill and waste transfer station. Meanwhile, the neighborhood was denied sewage service until 2017.[7] The Roger Eubanks neighborhood stands as a lesson for all municipal planners and public works directors of the potential environmental justice issues ahead as we will continue to grapple with our waste problem.
Hospitals: Grounds for Impactful Change
We cannot place the sole blame for our trash crisis on the individual who insists on using plastic straws. Large corporations and business entities have manufactured products with cheap plastics for decades without concern for the consequences down the line.[8] The hospital sector has remained unjustifiably free from the line of fire in the environmental movement. A study published by the American Chemical Society in 2015 found that one hysterectomy, the most common surgical procedure on women in the United States, can produce at a minimum 20 pounds of plastic waste. With 500,000 hysterectomies performed in the US each year, that quickly adds up to 10 to 16.5 million pounds of trash annually from hysterectomies alone.[9] According to the Healthcare Plastics Recycling Council, all U.S. healthcare facilities generate 14,000 tons of waste per day, equivalent to the weight of almost 115 blue whales.[10][11] That level of waste generation presents a terrible dichotomy of hospitals working hard to save patients’ lives while simultaneously polluting the air, contaminating the ground, and massively contributing to landfills in the communities they are aiming to heal.
Understandably, perceived barriers to sustainability abound when discussing the options for hospital systems: concerns about sterile environments and patient safety, cost effectiveness of materials, and the efficiency of hospital operations, from surgery in the operating room to outpatient procedures. Given the evidence that single-use plastics were made for convenience rather than medical hygiene, healthcare systems should not remain exempt from our nation’s larger conversation about how we contribute to landfills.[12]
The snag here is convincing a healthcare system to become a champion of environmental stewardship. However, it’s not a far-fetched plan: for example, the Cleveland Clinic launched a pilot of reducing plastic waste in their operating rooms in 2011 by tackling operating room surgery products that were opened during surgery but unused. Their single-use plastic program diverted these unused products from the regulated medical waste incineration path, recycled and reprocessed the items, and sold products to other healthcare providers at a lower cost. The reprocessed products were created under stricter regulations than the original devices and were resold with a higher safety standard.[13] In 2017 alone, Cleveland Clinic reprocessed 66 tons of plastic that would have otherwise ended up in a landfill. Their secondary program to recycle medical plastics also created 50 jobs in 5 years for those with developmental disabilities. A follow-up study by the Government Accountability Office echoed the idea that reprocessing medical products emphasized the reliability and safety of these products, supporting adoption nationwide.[14]
In fact, healthcare systems are the ideal place to implement innovative changes for a few key reasons: First, they are centers of innovation by nature of their sector. A leading healthcare system can create its own standard for plastic waste reduction and roll it out to all of their hospital locations and facilities. Competitor hospitals will see the cost-savings of other sustainability campaigns—and surrounding media attention – and will want to follow suit both in the service of their community and to help their bottom line.[15] Healthcare systems are major employers for many communities and often tied closely with university and research institutions. Voluntary policy adoption in a healthcare system doesn’t require the same amount of lobbying and leadership buy-in as passing mandatory legislation forcing commercial businesses to adjust their practices. These characteristics create the perfect combination of an organization willing to make systemic change with the resources to accomplish this.
Looking Ahead: Future of Plastic Reduction
Practice Greenhealth, which focuses on environmental initiatives for hospitals, has 1,100 member hospitals, and finds that hospital leadership is interested in making changes but lacks the technical knowledge and support to take steps in the right direction.[16] Stories of hope continue to emerge: Dr. Ravi Gupta, a physician at Inova Fairfax Hospital, advocated for reducing plastic waste and campaigned the hospital administration for a better waste management program. As a result, Inova Fairfax reduced its waste by 1 million pounds in one year while also saving $200,000, and can now market itself as a true sustainable healthcare leader.[17] Inova Fairfax and UNC Healthcare have similar surgical procedure volumes but are on opposite ends of the sustainability leadership spectrum. Inova Fairfax completed 19,402 inpatient surgeries in 2010, while UNC Healthcare completed 20,598.[18] In comparison, UNC Healthcare –despite its connection to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Three Zeros Environmental Initiative –still lacks a sustainability plan or concrete actions regarding the reduction their environmental footprint.
A multifaceted campaign with accompanying policies to decrease plastic waste in hospitals could make a dramatic impact. The Cleveland Clinic was able to record substantial improvements with a simple, two-pronged approach for reprocessing single use plastics for resale and recycling other medical plastics. Change doesn’t have to come in sweeping steps; 90% of IV bags do not need to be processed as regulated medical waste and redirecting IV bags alone could reduce hospital plastic waste by 10%.[19] Practice Greenhealth reports that recycling the blue wrap, which wraps surgical instruments for sterilization, could divert over 255 million pounds of waste per year.[20] Better yet, blue wraps are made with #5 plastic, one of the easiest plastic types to reuse or reprocess. Case studies across the United States have found that plastic waste reduction programs can carry significant cost savings, an added bonus.[21]
Source: Gibbens, S. (2019, October 4). Can medical care exist without plastic? The National Geographic. Retrieved from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/10/can-medical-care-exist-without-plastic
Hospital leadership should invest planning efforts and resources into medical waste reduction programs, for the sake of their patients, communities, and bottom line. By starting small with plastic waste reprocessing programs – even for a single product – they can create a huge impact.
Featured image: Plastic tubes, test strips and insertion devices that have accumulated after many months before they are discarded as medical waste. Laura Forlano.
About the author: Emily Gvino is a second-year master’s student seeking dual degrees from the Department of City and Regional Planning and the Gillings School of Global Public Health. Her research interests involve how the built environment can address social justice issues and the impact of climate change and the environment on health. Prior to attending UNC, Emily earned her bachelor’s degree in urban & environmental planning and Spanish at the University of Virginia.
[1] Doran, G., & Kidwell, J. (2016, December). Creative Ways to Cut Your Holiday Waste. The EPA Blog. Retrieved from https://blog.epa.gov/2016/12/21/creative-ways-to-cut-your-holiday-waste/
[2] WTO. (2017). China’s import ban on solid waste queried at import licensing meeting. World Trade Organization, (October 2017), 2017–2019. Retrieved from https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news17_e/impl_03oct17_e.htm
[3] Semuels, A. (2019, March 5). What Happens Now That China Won’t Take U.S. Recycling – The Atlantic. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/china-has-stopped-accepting-our-trash/584131/
[4] Pew Research Center. (2016, October 7). Recycling perceptions, realities vary widely in U.S. Retrieved November 23, 2019, from FactTank website: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/07/perceptions-and-realities-of-recycling-vary-widely-from-place-to-place/
[5] Health care solid waste. (n.d.). Retrieved November 23, 2019, from World Health Organization (WHO) website: https://www.who.int/sustainable-development/health-sector/health-risks/solid-waste/en/
[6] UNC Center for Civil Rights. (2017). The State of Exclusion: Orange County, N.C. – An In-depth Analysis of the Legacy of Segregated Communities. 1–10. Retrieved from www.uncinclusionproject.org
[7] Friend, E. (2016, December 27). Sewer lines approved for Rogers Road as ‘reparations’ for housing Orange County landfill. The News and Observer. Retrieved from https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/community/chapel-hill-news/article122983359.html
[8] Hodges, S. (2017). Hospitals as factories of medical garbage. Anthropology and Medicine, 24(3), 319–333. https://doi.org/10.1080/13648470.2017.1389165
[9] Thiel, C. L., Eckelman, M., Guido, R., Huddleston, M., Landis, A. E., Sherman, J., … Bilec, M. M. (2015). Environmental impacts of surgical procedures: Life cycle assessment of hysterectomy in the United States. Environmental Science and Technology, 49(3), 1779–1786. https://doi.org/10.1021/es504719g
[10] Healthcare Plastics Recycling Solutions for Hospitals. (2019). Retrieved November 23, 2019, from Healthcare Plastics Recycling Council website: https://www.hprc.org/hospitals
[11] Mallos, N. (2013, May 14). What Does 10 Million Pounds of Trash Look Like? Ocean Conservancy. Retrieved from https://oceanconservancy.org/blog/2013/05/14/what-does-10-million-pounds-of-trash-look-like
[12] Hodges, Sarah. (2017) Hospitals as factories of medical garbage, Anthropology & Medicine, 24:3, 319-333, DOI: 10.1080/13648470.2017.1389165
[13] Additionally: I’m trying to find a header photo for her. Does it need to be open source if I cite it at the bottom? And either way, is there a special way to cite the header photo?
[14] Williamson, R. (2008). REPROCESSED SINGLE-USE MEDICAL DEVICES: FDA Oversight Has Increased, and Available Information Does Not Indicate That Use Presents an Elevated Health Risk. (January), 38. Retrieved from https://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08147.pdf
[15] Health Research & Educational Trust. (2014, May). Environmental sustainability in hospitals: The value of efficiency. Chicago, IL: Health Research & Educational Trust. Accessed at www.hpoe.org
[16] Chen, I. (2010, July 5). In World of Throwaways, Making a Dent in Medical Waste. The New York. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/health/06waste.html
[17] Nix, M. (2011). Case Study: Inova Fairfax Hospital: Regulated Medical Waste Reduction and Minimization Demographic. Retrieved from www.GreeningTheOR.org
[18] Nix, M. (2011). Case Study: Inova Fairfax Hospital: Regulated Medical Waste Reduction and Minimization Demographic. Retrieved from www.GreeningTheOR.org
Embracing Excellence: The University of North Carolina Health Care System 2010 Annual Report. (2010).
[19] Gibbens, S. (2019, October 4). Can medical care exist without plastic? The National Geographic. Retrieved from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/10/can-medical-care-exist-without-plastic
[20] Bodkin, C. (2018, November 1). Blue Wrap and the Circular Economy. Practice Greenhealth. Retrieved from https://practicegreenhealth.org/about/news/blue-wrap-and-circular-economy
[21] Kaplan, S., Sadler, B., Little, K., Franz, C., & Orris, P. (2012). Can Sustainable Hospitals Help Bend the Health Care Cost Curve? The Commonwealth Fund, 29(1641). Retrieved from www.hpoe.orgcontact:hpoe@aha.orgor
When I tell people that the High Line is my least favorite park in New York City, their jaws instantly drop. I am aware that some view my opinion as blasphemous, but when we critically assess the High Line’s impact, it’s clear it wasn’t designed to benefit all New Yorkers.
Please, don’t get me wrong, it has some very good qualities. It has reinvented adaptive reuse as glamorous and inspired countless cities to revive their abandoned spaces. And yes, for those who only care about looks, the High Line is breathtaking. However, my disdain for the High Line is because City Hall has used parks and open space as a tool to rebrand neighborhoods as luxury. This only attracts more wealthy newcomers and displaces and excludes native New Yorkers.
The creation of the High Line began in 2004 when then-Mayor Bloomberg supported the creation of the West Chelsea Special District.[i] This zoning change cemented the High Line into the city’s zoning map and allowed for it to begin developing as a park. Coincidentally, it was during this time that Bloomberg and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYEDC), the city’s economic development arm, also began a covert operation to rebrand New York as a city of opulence.[ii]
The goal of the rebranding was to attract key investors and residents to the city. Bloomberg’s development strategy viewed New York City as a product with a distinct brand. Bloomberg and NYEDC decided — without input from New Yorkers — upon a brand of luxury.
As Julien Brash writes in Bloomberg’s New York: Class and Governance in the Luxury City, “If New York City is a business, it isn’t Wal-Mart…It’s a high-end product even a luxury product.” Knowing that rebranding was the principal economic development strategy during Bloomberg’s tenure, it isn’t hard to see that the unprecedented public spaces that have been created since are a direct manifestation of that policy.
Some may protest, “But public spaces and parks are good! We should be building more!” And they are completely right. However, the city should build parks in neighborhoods like Mott Haven and Bushwick, which the non-profit New Yorkers For Parks has found to be vastly underserved by open space.[iii] Instead, the city develops extravagant parks in places like Chelsea and Brooklyn Heights, which aid in rebranding entire neighborhoods and ultimately displaces families.
Governments should create parks to provide necessary open space to existing residents, not to catalyze real estate investment and attract a wealthier class. Since the High Line opened in 2009, the median household income of the surrounding area has increased from $80,747 to $141,672.[iv] This is an increase of about 23%, while the overall household income of New York City has only increased by 7%.
Anyone who visits the High Line (including the 7,000,000 annual visitors) can see this.[v] When walking along the path, one would expect to see beautiful views of the Hudson. In reality, it’s hard to see anything other than the backside of countless million-dollar apartments, which have sprouted up mere inches from the rail. This is not to mention the fact that the park has now finished its final stretch, which circumvents Hudson Yards, the largest real estate development in the history of the United States.
I’m sure the designers and community activists who fight tirelessly for these parks are well-intentioned. Unfortunately, what the High Line and many of New York’s other luxury open spaces say, is that only individuals in the highest income bracket are entitled to well-designed, highly programmed open spaces. What makes this statement even more gut-wrenching, is that it’s not just real estate developers and billionaires saying this, the city is too.
In 1961, Jane Jacobs wrote, “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”[vi]
This directly translates to how the city should use parks and open spaces. The High Line and others like it, were developed because a small group of people decided what the city should be and who it should serve. However, public space is meant to be shared by the public—everyone.
To achieve this, parks and open space planning should be more participatory, focusing on the needs of every person in that community. Secondly, open space interventions should also be developed in areas that truly need them, not high-income neighborhoods in Manhattan. Lastly, both administrative and community-led tools like downzoning, rent controls, and 197A plans should be implemented to make sure that amenities like parks don’t displace existing communities.
Now, the next time the city promises a new park, regardless of where it may be, I hope you pay attention. Because at the end of the day, it is up to us, New Yorkers, to reclaim our public spaces.
[vi] Jacobs, J. (1961). The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
Eve Lettau is a second-year Master’s student in City and Regional planning, studying equitable economic development. She’s passionate about how good jobs create access to good housing opportunities and vice versa. Originally from the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, she received undergraduate degrees in Economics and Public and Urban Affairs from Virginia Tech. In her free time she spends time hiking with her 2 year old puppy or taking care of her much-too-large plant collection.
With the Town of Carrboro’s first-ever comprehensive planning effort currently under way, our community has a unique opportunity to assess where we’re at and chart a better vision for the future. This is a call for Carrboro’s Town Council to abolish parking minimums in Carrboro, which will help to move our town toward a more racially and economically equitable, sustainable, and economically vibrant future. You can urge the Council to end parking minimums by sending them an email at council@townofcarrboro.org, or by signing up to speak at a Council meeting.
Parking minimums have received recent attention in a number of cities and towns across the U.S. as communities have reckoned with antiquated policies that subsidize driving, mandate large areas of impermeable surface, increase the costs of housing, and degrade natural environments and the aesthetic characters of neighborhoods. Cities such as Minneapolis, MN,[1] and Berkeley, CA,[2] have recently moved to eliminate parking minimums. Carrboro should follow suit.
In this article, I first provide a brief background on parking minimums and how they operate in Carrboro. Then, I look at how removing parking minimums can help to address three interrelated issues: 1) racial and economic inequities; 2) environmental sustainability; and 3) the economic health of our community.
Background
Parking minimums are unfortunately common in towns and cities across the U.S. As car ownership became increasingly widespread beginning in the 1920s and accelerating dramatically post-war,[3] parking minimums in turn became bread-and-butter planning policy.[4] In response to fears that free, on-street parking would become overwhelmed unless there were also sufficient off-street spaces, and through pseudo-scientific assessments of how many off-street spaces are needed, planners created parking minimums.
These minimums require a specific number of parking spaces for each new development, with the total required parking dependent on characteristics such as the number of bedrooms (for residential development) or the square footage (e.g., for retail or office uses). But because the number of parking spaces is usually based on the peak demand—for example, calculating the number of parking spaces required for a mall based on the number of cars expected the day before Christmas—minimums almost always require more spaces than are actually needed. And because parking minimums bundle parking costs in with other expenses, such as the cost of your housing or the price of food at the grocery store, they both force non-drivers to pay for parking and hide the true costs of these requirements. In the words of UCLA Professor Donald Shoup:[5]
“[Parking minimums] increase traffic congestion, pollute the air, encourage sprawl, raise housing costs, degrade urban design, prevent walkability, damage the economy, and penalize everyone who cannot afford a car.”
So how do parking minimums work in Carrboro? Carrboro’s Land Use Ordinance (LUO) establishes the parking minimums that apply to different types of development. Table 1 highlights some of the most common types of residential development and their required parking levels, but don’t forget that parking minimums apply to retail, office, and other land uses as well! (They’ve been omitted here for brevity; you can avail yourself of them in detail on pages 425-430 of the LUO.)
Table 1. Carrboro’s Parking Minimums
Type of development
requirement
Single-family detached houses
Two per unit, plus one per rented room.
Spaces in a garage don’t count.
Duplexes and triplexes
Two per unit; one-bedroom units only require one.
Multi-family residences
One space per bedroom, plus one per four units.
Except if “each dwelling unit has an entrance and living space on the ground floor”:
Two per unit; one-bedroom units only require one.
Except if the unit is limited to low- or moderate-income residents or the elderly:
One per unit.
The product of Carrboro’s minimums is a streetscape overwhelmed by empty parking, as shown below.
Parking lots dominate Weaver St. just one block from the heart of town. Photo credit: Google Maps 2021
Racial and Economic Inequities
Parking minimums disproportionately impact lower-income residents of our community, who are less likely to own a car,[6],[7] are more likely to live in multi-family housing[8]—which has the highest parking requirements per unit—and for whom the added costs of unneeded parking represent a greater share of their income.[9] Though parking minimums might appear to be “race neutral”, they also disproportionately affect Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC) community members, who, due to systemic racism, are more likely to be lower-income.[10]
By making residents pay for parking in order to obtain housing, buy groceries, or get a haircut, parking minimums directly contribute to issues of housing unaffordability and effectively impose a regressive sales taxi on other goods and services. One recent study estimates that each residential parking space costs $800 per year,[11] and Carrboro’s parking minimums require at least two parking spaces per unit. This means that we’re forcing households to pay hundreds of dollars each year for parking in order to obtain housing… even if those households don’t own a single car.
i While the costs of parking, which are bundled into the costs of goods and services, are undoubtedly regressive, the sales tax analogy is imperfect. Sales taxes generate revenues for the taxing government, and consumers can clearly identify the impact of a sales tax on their bill or receipt, in contrast to parking costs (among other differences).
Environmental Sustainability
Parking requirements, beyond creating and sustaining racial and economic inequities, are also environmentally destructive in terms of both our community’s natural environment and the effects parking and driving have on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
By legally requiring unneeded parking spaces as part of new construction, parking minimums require development to pave over more of our community’s land, converting open space to impermeable surface and leading to serious stormwater runoff problems. Further, because parking minimums effectively subsidize the cost of driving,[12] and thus induce more driving, they contribute significantly to transportation-related GHG emissions.[13] And because parking minimums reserve otherwise valuable land for parking, they push other development outward.[14] This contributes to lower-density, sprawling development patterns, which in turn are directly related to higher levels of driving and GHG emissions.[15] Finally, the process of creating and maintaining parking generates GHG emissions in and of itself.[16]
Economic Vitality
The negative economic effects of parking minimums stem from many of the issues introduced above. Carrboro’s parking minimums force residents (and everyone else who might want to do something in town) to pay for parking, instead of spending their money on local goods and services. Parking payments don’t accrue to the Town government, the way sales tax revenue would, nor do they redound to local business owners. This money just goes toward the costs of installing, maintaining, and paying the taxes on parking.
Speaking of taxes, lost property tax revenue is another huge, hidden expense of parking. Instead of more valuable and productive uses of our community’s land, such as housing, businesses, and offices, we waste acres of our most valuable land on mostly-unoccupied pavement. Because the per-square-foot tax assessments of parking are so low, parking mandates preclude more robust public revenues. When we come up short for funding critical community services such as our schools, subsidized affordable housing, libraries, and parks, the prevalence of low-tax-value parking is significantly to blame.
Conclusion
Our community already has too much unneeded parking; there’s no good reason to require more of it. Ending parking minimums doesn’t mean prohibiting new parking—it just means allowing new development to build more appropriate quantities of parking going forward. As one of very few places in the country with a free public transit system, and as the densest municipality in the state, Carrboro is ideally positioned to take this progressive step forward. Ending parking minimums will support our community’s economic health, align with our climate change goals, and serve to remove one significant but invisible policy that perpetuates racial and economic inequity.
Will is a second-year master’s student in the Department of City and Regional Planning. Prior to UNC, he worked in public health and social services research with a nonprofit in Philadelphia. Will’s academic interests include land use policy, affordable housing, and the relationship between the built environment and health.
Edited by Emma Vinella-Brusher
Featured image: Front yard or parking lot? The perverse outcomes of Carrboro’s parking minimums. Image source: Author.
[1] Muzzy, Emalyn. 2021. “Minneapolis Planning Commission approves a parking requirement change that may impact future developments new UMN.” The Minnesota Daily. Retrieved May 5, 2021 from: https://mndaily.com/267426/news/ctparkingmin/.
[6] Nicholas Klein and Michael Smart. 2019. “Life events, poverty, and car ownership in the United States: A mobility biography approach.” Journal of Transport and Land Use. http://dx.doi.org/10.5198/jtlu.2019.1482.
[11] Victoria Transport Policy Institute. 2020. “Transportation Cost and Benefit Analysis II – Parking Costs.” Retrieved from: https://www.vtpi.org/tca/tca0504.pdf.
[14] Sofia Franco, Bowman Cutter and Autumn DeWoody. 2010. “Do Parking Requirements Significantly Increase the Area Dedicated to Parking? A Test of The Effect of Parking Requirements Values in Los Angeles County.” Retrieved from: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/20403/.
[15] István László Bart. 2010. “Urban Sprawl and climate change: A statistical exploration of cause and effect, with policy options for the EU.” Land Use Policy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2009.03.003.
[16] Mikhail Chester, Arpad Horvath, and Samer Madanat. 2010. “Parking infrastructure: energy, emissions, and automobile life-cycle environmental accounting.” Environmental Research Letters. http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/5/3/034001
This week’s post was originally published on February 20, 2020.
By Lizzie Tong
In the realm of sustainability and urban planning, Singapore is often hailed as a city-state worthy of envy and comparison – a Garden City. Through 40 years of rapid economic development and a transformation into an international financial hub, Singapore has been mindful to protect its natural environment, developing a reputation as a leader in green design.
As a small island about half the size of Hong Kong, Singapore has limited resources available for agricultural production, clean water, and energy production. Thus, policymakers have been prudent about maximizing resources and maintaining a healthy and clean environment for citizens to live, work, and play. While Americans have the luxury of escaping city limits to a wild sanctuary, the urban island forces Singaporeans to have a heightened incentive to conserve energy use, minimize water waste, and prevent air pollution.
As a result, the city-state contains almost 50% green cover, over 150 acres of rooftop gardens and green walls, and at least 10% of land is set aside for parks and nature conservation. Further, 80% of households are within a 10-minute walk to a park. The Sustainable Singapore Blueprint details even more rigorous environmental targets for 2030, doubling the amount of skyrise greenery to almost 500 acres, creating over 50 more miles of park connector greenways, and cutting harmful emissions of particulate matter (PM 2.5) in half.
Vertical greenery and historically preserved trees along National University of Singapore. Photo Credit: Lizzie Tong
This path has been present since the founding Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, stated that “the blighted urban jungle of concrete destroys the human spirit. We need the greenery of nature to lift up our spirits.” Since 1967, intentional, careful, long-term master planning directed by the government and the Urban Redevelopment Authority has succeeded in building an environment that citizens are proud of. Singaporeans have an inherent trust in policymakers to succeed in building a livable environment. Simultaneously, by pursuing a green city brand, Singapore has created a one-size-fits-all approach to sustainability.
In Singapore, green roofs, green walls, and skyrise greenery take priority over any other sustainable building solution. Cool roofs, which reflect light that would otherwise be absorbed by building materials, are much less expensive and effective at decreasing city temperatures and mitigating urban heat island. 95% of Singapore’s energy comes from natural gas and yet the Singaporean government has only recently began pushing to increase targets on solar panel coverage. Alternative sustainable building solutions are being pushed to the wayside because of the limited area of rooftops and self-imposed requirements to improve city greenery. In pursuing greenery objectives, nations like the United States overlook more feasible methods of reducing urban heat island and improving other measures, like air quality and overall well-being.
Researchers at the National University of Singapore are developing innovative ways to improve individual well-being in compact, high-density environments. Projects like Cooling Singapore consist of a research team of engineers and climatologists that are determined to collect data on the optimal outdoor thermal comfort (OTC) levels for everyday citizens and create comfortable environments to follow suit. Participants in the research respond to questions on wearable devices, gauging their individuals comfort levels based on temperature, humidity, wind speed, amount of shade, vegetation, and a variety of other factors. The research team then hopes to design indoor and outdoor environments that can be adjusted to individual comfort. For Singapore, improving well-being and livability is the final frontier in urban design – and increasing integrated greenspace is the solution to this challenge.
Yet, this blanket sustainability approach of a Garden City may only be worthwhile in certain areas. Research from the Center for Liveable Cities plots cities on a chart with livability against population density and finds that Vancouver City, Sydney, Melbourne, and Singapore rank the highest. Aside from Singapore, these cities with high rankings are also low-density. Singapore is one of the few high-density, compact environments that succeed in prioritizing well-being and livability. While residents of sprawling American cities have the option of escaping to concentrated areas of greenery, integrated greenery is the only option for a nation with limited resources and finite land.
Cloud Dome in Gardens by the Bay. Photo Credit: Lizzie Tong
The 160-foot tall Supertree Grove, powered by photovoltaic cells, along with the Cloud and Flower Domes at Gardens by the Bay are notable attractions. Designs and developments like these contribute to Singapore’s green city brand, driving the city’s tourism industry. Singapore is now the 5th most-visited city in the world. Although the design is envious, a City within a Garden transformation in American cities is likely less feasible. Unless more American city governments decide to stop developing sprawling neighborhoods and start building denser and higher, maximizing a diverse range of sustainable building solutions – cool roofs, solar panels, green roofs – will be the most low-cost, effective way to mitigate urban heat island, air pollution, and improve city well-being.
About the Author: Lizzie Tong studied economics and computer science at UNC and is interested in applying data science to solve challenges tied to urban sustainability. She currently works as a research assistant for the Community Development and Policy Studies Team at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. In her free time, she enjoys trying her hand at oil painting, competitive running, and new Bon Appetite recipes.
When people consider the rapidly expanding suburban sprawl around cities like Atlanta and Raleigh, the typical thoughts are of traffic and lost countryside. People concerned about the environment rightly lament lost rural areas and increased emissions. One issue that I think people fail to consider in planning is how increased contact with nature can be immediately dangerous to people. In the piedmont south, farmland is losing ground not just to suburbs, but to forest. And in the next ten years this region will almost certainly be facing a new negative consequence of reckless land use—bear encounters.
I miss the forests of New England whenever I travel south. There are forests here in the piedmont, but they are either young, patchy, and shrub-like or small and isolated. And compared to the ever-widening northern woods, the southern Appalachians provide only a narrow corridor of forest with seas of farmland on either side. This lack of proper wilderness has generally led me to the assumption that the bear population of eastern North America is like a funnel with Canada as its bowl and the southern blue ridge its narrow spout. The cartographers who made the above map seem to have the same idea. There are isolated populations in eastern North Carolina and Florida, but how can they be significant if they are cut off from Canada? How can these populations exist? As it happens, they are probably not cut off at all.
I was surprised to learn recently that every single town in Connecticut has reported bear sightings this year, even the cities. I had always been taught that bears were only to be found in the state’s northwest corner by the Appalachian Trail. However, my hometown, in the eastern part of the state, had no less than 28 sightings last year. As Connecticut is almost all dense forest maybe this should not be surprising, but if this part of the map, as well as what I’ve generally been taught, is wrong, then how much of the rest of the map is also incorrect? Black bear populations have been rising rapidly in the last 15 years, so the present-day population extent may not yet be adequately understood. While this map was accurate 20 years ago, it may be wildly inaccurate today. Still, this map is fun to look at and it is often posted online. If you read people’s comments, however, almost everything people have to say about it is in the form of personal anecdotes about how there are in fact bears where there should be none. People from the piedmont, lowland south, and Midwest all chimed in when this map went up—agricultural areas that I would never have imagined supporting anything bigger than deer. Someone in an eastern suburb of Charlotte shared a news video of a bear, someone south of Atlanta testified to seeing them all the time, another in central North Carolina, several people in supposedly bear-free parts of Ohio and Illinois, even someone from Maryland, probably the least forested area east of the Appalachians, insisted there were bears.
I went looking for a map that more accurately reflected the state of things, and I was disappointed. At least on the national level, maps barely move beyond the outdated consensus in the first one shown, with the same curious respect for the Virginia-North Carolina border. The most comprehensive work on the contemporary black bear range was the same except for one interesting aspect: it also reported sightings outside the supposed range. The distribution of these sightings clearly shows how the range borders are inaccurate in some places and even arbitrary in others if you look at the Pennsylvania-Ohio border. And what is going on with Connecticut? Not one sighting outside the traditional range where there are, in fact, hundreds.
Map Showing “Sightings” as Different from Range. Source: Scheick, B. & Mccown, J. (2014).
Clearly some of this range data was cobbled together from states with different ideas of what constitutes a range versus isolated sightings. Maybe Connecticut merely has extremely high standards for acknowledging any degree of presence (so much that 150 sightings in one town might not merit even one dot) and maybe Virginia will treat one rumor of a bear as establishing range. Where I found the most subtle consideration of black bear distribution was for North Carolina. The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission has a detailed map showing the gradual expansion of black bear territory east from the mountains and west from the coastal swamps over the past 50 years. The most recent documentation is 2010 with the proper range spilling down from the mountains and from the coast to almost the foot of the piedmont. It also acknowledges some sightings outside this range and contact between the western and eastern bear populations. However, it seems to make a proper distinction between sightings and range. If only this level of observation could be replicated with the same standards for the whole eastern US—there are plenty of more accurate species distribution maps, why not one for black bears?
NC Wildlife Resources Commission Black Bear Range Map. Source: Crystal Cockman.
I have never seen more young forest than in the piedmont in Virginia and North Carolina. Particularly on I-85 between Richmond and Durham it almost looks like a giant Christmas tree farm. What must have been farmland when I was born is now covered with shrub-height loblolly pines. In 50 years, this will be perfect bear habitat, almost like New England or northern Michigan. The problem here is that there is more suburban sprawl in the south—more urban area that was not originally built in a forest—and more being built. Bears have proven themselves quite adaptive to human environments, especially when they are quiet. Given how much of a nuisance bear encounters have become in Connecticut, in a declining region, we can only imagine how it might be in the booming, reforesting, heavily suburbanized sunbelt in the coming decades.
Forest Density in the Mid-Atlantic and Upper South. Source: USDA Forest Service.
When a region’s economy modernizes, it tends to lose farmland and gain forest—being able to afford more unproductive land. This is true in most of the world aside from especially valuable farmland like the California central valley or the Midwest. This brings about the odd consequence of re-wilding, and, in a country like the United States, concurrent suburban expansion bringing humans into maximum contact with nature for better or worse. The south is in the midst of this process. There are almost certainly bears in the Triangle already, it is only a matter of time before most of us see one.
Like many other issues, this is a planning challenge somewhat unique to the United States. Bears are coming! What will we do when tech workers are getting in their cars to drive two hours to work, from their newly built distant suburbs in areas as wild and densely forested as the Smokies? Will people need to pull into their garages and close the door before getting out of their cars? Will people need trashcans that wheel themselves? I would like to think we can do better than this. I mean to say let us grow our cities responsibly; I do not mean to inspire someone to invent a smart trashcan. But invent one if you like.
Feature Image: Bear is Residential Area. Source: LA Times.
About the Author: Evan King is a first year masters student in city and regional planning. His interests include transportation policy in the developing world, light rail, and freight movement on inland waterways. He can found in his free time trying to kayak long distances and making hand-drawn maps. Evan hails from central Connecticut and completed an undergraduate degree in Maryland.
