Tag: Development

Restructuring the Bull City: Urban Form Change in Downtown Durham, North Carolina from 1914 to 2020

November 5, 2021 / odrozd

By Rahi Patel

Intro

The City of Durham is growing. Over the last decade, Durham’s population grew by 22%.[1] With the continued migration of technology firms, biotech startups, and other businesses to the Triangle, Durham is poised to continue its rapid growth for the foreseeable future. As cities like Durham continue growing, governments and citizens will have to contend with changes to the built environment. An analysis of Durham’s historic urban form can help us understand why Durham looks the way it does today and what lessons we should take about the creation, destruction, and revitalization of our cities as we move forward.

Measuring Urban Form

For my senior honors thesis, I sought to measure Durham’s urban form from the beginning of the 20^th century to the present. I used four metrics of urban form for this analysis: direct building frontage, block area, block frontage, and off-street parking. Direct building frontage is the percentage of a block’s perimeter that has buildings abutting the property line. More direct building frontage is desirable because it creates a stronger relationship between buildings and people walking on sidewalks compared to buildings set back from the sidewalk.

Figure 1: Direct building frontage measurement. Source: Rahi Patel

Smaller block sizes and greater amounts of street frontage are desirable because they increase the permeability of the urban fabric, making it easier for people outside vehicles to access destinations throughout downtown.

A limited amount of off-street parking is desirable because off-street parking tends to degrade the experience of street life, creating lots and parking structures that do not encourage people to linger. The space required by off-street parking also pushes homes, businesses, parks, and other destinations further away from each other, eliminating the churn of people that makes urban street life engaging.

Figure 2: Parking decks in downtown Durham, 2020. Source: Rahi Patel

To analyze the historic urban fabric, I used historic maps and satellite images imported into AutoCAD to recreate and measure the buildings, blocks, and streets of Durham throughout the 20^th century.

How Durham’s Urban Fabric Changed

The results of the urban form analysis revealed a loss of cohesive, dense, permeable urban fabric from the beginning of the 20^th century to the present. Most of the change occurred from the 1950s through the 1970s. Average block size increased by 45% between 1950 and 1972. Total street frontage decreased by 10%.

Figures 3 and 4: Building footprints and streets of downtown Durham, 1950 vs. 1972. Source: Rahi Patel

The total amount of land area used for off-street parking increased from just 5 acres in 1950 to 111 acres in 1972. Direct building frontage only decreased slightly, though maps of downtown Durham reveal swaths of building demolition in some areas of downtown.

Figure 5: Change in land area used for off-street parking in downtown Durham, 1914-2020. Source: Rahi Patel

Planning documents published between 1950 and 1972 point us to the causes of these large-scale changes in downtown Durham. The federal government funneled money to American cities to acquire, demolish, and redevelop areas considered to be “blighted” under a program known as urban renewal. In reality, urban renewal programs across the U.S. targeted communities of color for demolition and displacement. Black communities situated close to central business districts were specifically targeted because of their valuable proximity to downtown. Durham was no exception. The Durham Redevelopment Commission displaced 4,057 homes and 502 businesses in the predominantly Black neighborhood of Hayti during the period of urban renewal (not included in the study area but located just southeast of downtown Durham). Plans drawn up by graduate students from UNC’s Department of City and Regional Planning in 1957 reveal the policy and design decisions that planners believed would help revitalize “blighted” areas. These included disconnected and hierarchical roads, separated land uses, building setbacks, and vast open spaces. In Hayti, little redevelopment followed the large-scale demolition of homes and businesses. Downtown also experienced demolition from urban renewal, and much of the destruction was not replaced with new development by 1972.

Figure 6: Existing and proposed land use maps for Hayti, 1957. Source: Durham City Planning Department

In addition to urban renewal, federal homeownership policies pushed planners to substantially restructure the form of downtown Durham’s streets and public spaces. Federal mortgage subsidies allowed white city dwellers to purchase homes in the suburbs. The spread of indoor shopping malls further enticed white suburbanites to avoid downtown businesses. This development pattern impacted Durham’s finances, because significant levels of tax revenue was generated by commercial buildings in downtown. City planners responded to the pressures of suburbanization by attempting to lure suburban shoppers back to downtown businesses. Planners proposed street widenings and the creation of a loop road through downtown to increase ease of access for suburban shoppers. Planners were also concerned with providing large amounts of clearly visible parking throughout downtown to assure suburban shoppers that they would have a place to park. However, it is not clear that any amount of road widening, parking construction, or urban renewal demolition could have competed with the larger political and economic forces that threatened downtown Durham’s future.

Tomorrow’s Bull City

Looking ahead, we have much to learn from the restructuring of Durham’s downtown. The decisions made by a complex web of planners, public officials, and private interests still shape the downtown we know today. 88 acres of downtown Durham’s land area is still devoted to off-street parking (decreased from 111 acres in 1972). A study conducted in 2018 found an excess parking capacity of over 5,000 parking spaces throughout downtown. The Downtown Loop cuts through Durham, creating a hazardous and uninviting environment for people outside vehicles. The Durham Freeway funnels pollution and noise through downtown and Hayti.

Figure 7: A pedestrian crosses Roxbury St. in downtown Durham, 2020. Source: Rahi Patel

Figure 8: Five lanes of one-way traffic converge on Roxbury St. in downtown Durham, 2020. Source: Rahi Patel

As the Bull City’s growth continues to provide new opportunities for redevelopment, Durham residents, city officials, and other stakeholders must decide how, where, when, and for whom that redevelopment will occur. The questions of urban form ultimately influence the daily lives of all a city’s residents: where we live, work, shop, play, relax, and celebrate. Hopefully, an understanding of how we got here will give us the tools to continue moving forward.

[1] Durham City-County Planning Department. https://durhamnc.gov/386/Demographics

Rahi Patel graduated from UNC in May 2021 with majors in Urban Planning (through the Interdisciplinary Studies Program) and Economics. He has interests in sustainable transportation, urban design, and architecture. He is currently a planner in the Transportation Planning Division at the U.S. Department of Transportation Volpe National Transportation Systems Center.

Edited by Eve Lettau

Featured image: Ground Diagram of Downtown Durham, 1950. Courtesy of Rahi Patel.

Chapel Hill: the Next Smart Town?

July 22, 2021 / odrozd

By Jo Kwon

With the introduction of new technologies and the pandemic forcing many people to work from home, the media has increasingly used the term “smart cities.” There will be more smart cities worldwide in the coming years, from Toyota’s Woven City to Copenhagen Connecting. However, some have also been scrapped, like Google’s Sidewalk Toronto project, due to the economic uncertainty caused by COVID-19.[i] So what are smart cities? The term is a buzzword, but most people are not sure what it means. Does it simply mean that smart cities are more intelligent than previous cities? What does it mean to be smart? Is Chapel Hill a smart city?

Many institutions have come up with different definitions. Urban planning news site Planetizen states, “A smart city uses information and communications technology (ICT) to enhance its livability, workability, and sustainability.”[ii] Moreover, smart cities bring technology, economy, mobility, environment, people, and government together.[iii] This technology includes apps for real time data, such as leaf collection or free public Wi-Fi. The concept of smart cities encompasses the use of technologies in cities to increase connectivity in various sectors.

Cities have been eager to implement new technologies due to the benefits of efficiently connecting different city sectors,[iv] reducing environmental footprints,[v] improving public transportation,[vi] and increasing economic development,[vii] digital equity,[viii] and more. However, there are also concerns related to smart cities. Some significant issues are surveillance,[ix] security,[x] data bias,[xi] and the digital divide impacting smart city residents.[xii] Cities also have difficulty creating and connecting infrastructures, consistently updating new technologies, and collaborating with the private sector.[xiii]^{, [xiv]}

The Town of Chapel Hill is also envisioning itself as a smart town, and has embedded parts of the smart cities initiatives into projects such as the technology solution business plan and the West Rosemary Street Development.[xv] The Town has also participated in AT&T’s Spotlight City project to develop a smart cities framework, and encouraged North Carolina Science Festival participants to use the iNaturalist app to identify plants and animals in Pritchard Park and share knowledge on insects in Chapel Hill. Additionally, Chapel Hill uses sensors to offer real-time, mobile-friendly data on adverse weather activity, leaf collection, and street maintenance. The Town continues to further smart city initiatives by providing internet access for residents and businesses, adding electric vehicle charging stations, implementing parking deck sensors, increasing cyber asset security, and more.

Chapel Hill’s Mobile-Friendly Street Maintenance

As cities and towns become “smart,” resident participation is vital in order for any plans to incorporate their concerns and ensure an equitable approach. Several cities are committed to developing smart city plans with equity goals, such as Portland’s Smart City PDX.[xvi] As the future of Chapel Hill moves towards a smart city model, it will be necessary to start talking about digital equity in order for Chapel Hill to become the next smart equitable town.

If you would like to know more about smart cities and Chapel Hill’s smart cities initiatives, or want to offer input, please visit Smart Town.

[i] Cecco, Leyland. 2020. “Google Affiliate Sidewalk Labs Abruptly Abandons Toronto Smart City Project.” The Guardian. Technology.

[ii] Planetizen Courses. 2020. What Is a Smart City?

[iii] Ahvenniemi, Hannele, Aapo Huovila, Isabel Pinto-Seppä, and Miimu Airaksinen. 2017. “What Are the Differences between Sustainable and Smart Cities?” Cities 60 (February): 234–45.

[iv] Remes, Homi Kharas and Jaana. 2018. “Can Smart Cities Be Equitable?” Brookings.

[v] Johnson, Katie. 2018. “Environmental Benefits of Smart City Solutions – Foresight.”

[vi] “Secure, Sustainable Smart Cities and the IoT.” 2020. Thales Group.

[vii] “Can Smart City Technology Supercharge Economic Development in Urban Areas?” 2018. IntechnologySmartCities.

[viii] Horrigan, John B. 2019. “Smart Cities and Digital Equity.” National Digital Inclusion Alliance.

[ix] Zoonen, Liesbet van. 2016. “Privacy Concerns in Smart Cities.” Government Information Quarterly, Open and Smart Governments: Strategies, Tools, and Experiences, 33 (3): 472–80.

[x] Elmaghraby, Adel S., and Michael M. Losavio. 2014. “Cyber Security Challenges in Smart Cities: Safety, Security and Privacy.” Journal of Advanced Research, Cyber Security, 5 (4): 491–97.

[xi] Hao, Karen. 2019. “A US Government Study Confirms Most Face Recognition Systems Are Racist.” MIT Technology Review, December 20, 2019.

[xii] Shenglin, Ben, Felice Simonelli, Zhang Ruidong, Romain Bosc, and Li Wenwei. 2017. “Digital Infrastructure: Overcoming the Digital Divide in Emerging Economies.” G20 Insights.

[xiii] Stone, Sydney. 2018. “Key Challenges of Smart Cities & How to Overcome Them.” Ubidots Blog.

[xiv] McKinsey. 2019. “Public-Private Partnership: Smart City.”

[xv] “Town of Chapel Hill, NC.” n.d. Town of Chapel Hill. Accessed June 15, 2021.

[xvi] City of Portland. n.d. “Guiding Principles Smart City PDX.” Smart City PDX. Accessed June 15, 2021.

Jo (Joungwon) Kwon is a Ph.D. student in the Department of City and Regional Planning. She hopes to interweave various data sets and narratives of housing and communities together with new digital technologies. With a background in Statistics and English Literature, she received her M.A. in Computational Media at Duke University. In her free time, she enjoys watching indie movies, going to live performances, and drinking good coffee.

Edited by Emma Vinella-Brusher, Managing Editor

All images courtesy of author

The Path to Equity: Do Greenways Help or Harm Low-Income Communities?

October 29, 2019 / odrozd

It’s not easy being green . . . unless you are a greenway.

In that case, you’re probably a hot ticket for municipalities, especially those in North Carolina. As part of the East Coast Greenway, 372 miles of trails wind across the state.

Proposed route, only 30% complete, by the East Coast Greenway Alliance.

Get Going NC, a blog created by Cary-based author Joe Miller in cooperation with the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation, compiled a list of trails in 2011. Many have been added since then, including in smaller cities such as Albemarle and Havelock.

Extensive greenways can also be found closer to home, logging 17.6 miles of trail in Chapel Hill, over 30 miles inDurham, 80 miles in Cary, and 100 miles in Raleigh.

Defining Greenways

Although many people associate greenways with undeveloped space, this misconception is easily debunked by Bolin Creek Trail. Brandon Tubby, UNC varsity distance runner and Angles contributor, describes the cement as “quite hostile” and “disappointing.”

In fact, greenways can be man-made or natural, urban or rural, paved or unpaved. The Town of Chapel Hill Greenways Master Plan (2013) interprets “greenways” as:

Networks of natural spaces which provide corridors connecting areas such as neighborhoods, parks, and schools. These passageways typically include trails for pedestrians and non-motorized vehicles.

While there is no technical definition for a greenway, the term connotates “the trails and connectivity that people always wanted,” said Dr. Danielle Spurlock, assistant professor in the Department of City & Regional Planning.¹

The actual number and length of greenways in North Carolina varies depending on whom you ask.

“There is the flipside that it’s also used as a marketing feature, and it is a metric that easier to measure than other types of investment,” Dr. Spurlock said.

The impact of greenways in the Triangle. Prepared by Alta Planning + Design.

Other potential benefits of greenways include transportation access, disaster mitigation, community cohesion, and aesthetic and moral value.

Greenway success, however, is typically measured in economic returns. The merits of measuring the success of greenways through property values warrants continued exploration. Do past projects illustrate the importance of considering equity to ensure sustainable, long-term development?

The Atlanta BeltLine

Equitable development is just about being sure to be inclusive of diverse groups throughout the planning process, and afterwards ensuring that you have some concrete plans that are able to be implemented. A lot of times, planners just use fancy buzzwords saying they’re going to be doing all this great stuff, and then there’s no follow-through. – Ansley K. Jones²

Ansley K. Jones, an Atlanta native, critiqued the Atlanta BeltLine’s lack of affordable housing for her UNC Master’s Project. She responded to the Master’s thesis that started it all: Ryan Gravel’s 1999 plan for the Atlanta BeltLine.

In his thesis, Gravel proposed converting 22 miles of railroads into multifunctional trails. He submitted this idea to the city in 2001, and the project broke ground in 2006. It has been called “the most comprehensive revitalization effort ever undertaken in the City of Atlanta . . . connecting 45 neighborhoods.”

Trail network proposed in the Atlanta BeltLine 2030 Strategic Implementation Plan.

However flashy the project seemed, the BeltLine promised 5,600 units of affordable housing by 2030, but almost immediately began to fall behind on achieving this goal. BeltLine Inc. neglected to earmark 15 percent of public funds and by 2016 had raised only enough to fund fewer than 785 affordable housing units.

Both Gravel and board member Nathaniel Smith resigned from the Atlanta BeltLine Partnership in 2016, and Paul Morris resigned as CEO of BeltLine Inc. in 2017. Gravel becomes an easy target to blame–with his “equity” rhetoric, early acknowledgement of gentrification, and modern loft in the BeltLine-gentrified Inman Park neighborhood–but blaming him misses the point.

The BeltLine’s tax increment financing (known as a Tax Allocation Fund in Georgia) prioritized profits over people, as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution with Georgia News Lab broke in 2017. While both Jones and the Journal-Constitution acknowledged factors outside of BeltLine Inc.’s control, such as the Recession and legal challenges, the partnership still neglected “millions of dollars of potential funds.” The Tax Allocation Fund relied on bonds from Tax Allocation Districts’ property taxes, “but because city statute stated that ‘bond proceeds,’ not tax dollars, would go to affordable housing, BeltLine Inc. was free to spend the TAD windfall elsewhere.” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution also reported that BeltLine Inc. failed to invest in land trust homes and temporarily catered to luxury housing by withdrawing from Invest Atlanta’s tax incentive program.

The fallout was bad for affordable housing but good for public awareness about the complexities of development along the BeltLine. “It’s really made Atlanta step up. They’ve had to become a lot more transparent about what’s going on,” Jones said.

Indeed, there is a renewed commitment to affordability along the BeltLine, but its reporting structure of units built inside (1,640) and outside (1,032) TAD boundaries echoes earlier controversies regarding inflating the numbers of affordable housing units.

Durham and Community Engagement

“Housing and Equity” from the Durham Belt Line Trail Master Plan

The Durham Belt Line is a 1.7 mile rail-to-trail project intended to connect to the East Coast Greenway (Durham Belt Line Trail Master Plan). Displacement concerns similar to those seen in Atlanta prompted Nathaniel Smith, the former board member of Atlanta BeltLine and founder of the Partnership for Southern Equity in Atlanta, to speak to the Durham community in August 2018.

While Durham crafted an Equitable Engagement Plan, it lacks a meaningful enforcement mechanism. According to Dr. Spurlock, who is also affiliated with the grassroots organization Communities in Partnership, the plan was pushed through prior to substantial community engagement.

This pattern parallels the unrolling of the Atlanta BeltLine.

“There were so many articles and all this anecdotal evidence that people in Atlanta were mad that the city wasn’t following through on their goals. So, public engagement really could have helped that,” Jones said.

She described some of Atlanta’s recent engagement measures. Public meetings in the BeltLine’s subareas have shown mixed success, but homeownership empowerment workshops have been more successful. These sessions educate citizens about how to access tools such as homestead exemptions, grants to rehabilitate homes, and down payment assistance for first-time home-buyers.

Jones hopes it is not too late for the engagement in Atlanta to have an effect. While Durham’s Direct Engagement period is over, the city still has the opportunity to foster meaningful community input before final design and permitting of the project.

Special thanks to Dr. Danielle Spurlock, UNC Department of City & Regional Planning; Ansley K. Jones, Georgia Environmental Finance Authority and UNC Department of City & Regional Planning, 2018; and Brandon Tubby, UNC Public Policy and Communications, 2020.

Additional resources:

American Trails – List of trail organizations in North Carolina.
City on the Verge by Mark Pendergrast – Book recommended by Ansley Jones on the history of Atlanta and the BeltLine.
Durham Belt Line for Everybody – Project by community groups advocating for equity in the Durham Belt Line process.

[1] Spurlock, Danielle. Interview by Rachael Wolff. October 22, 2019.

[2] Jones, Ansley K. Interview by Rachael Wolff. October 23, 2019.

Featured Image: Before and after along the Atlanta BeltLine corridor. Photo credit: Adaptation Clearinghouse, a project of the Georgetown Climate Center.

RACHAEL WOLFF | Online Content Contributor

Rachael Wolff is a first-year master’s candidate in the Department of City and Regional Planning. She is interested in learning how flood risk shapes land use, property values, and behavior. Prior to UNC, Rachael worked at a federal agency in Washington, D.C., where she also earned her bachelor’s degree at American University. Rachael enjoys climbing with friends, eating new food, and when possible, taking naps.

Building with Big Cats in Mind

November 13, 2018 / odrozd

Most of us like animals. Maybe not spiders or rats (those poor guys get a bad rap), but adorable bobcats or soaring eagles? Something in these creatures captivates us in an often-unconscious way. This intrigue comes from our biophilia, or ‘love of life,’ which refers to the innate tendency of humans to be drawn to other life forms. Not only do we feel an affinity toward other species, but because we evolved in tandem with nature, we need them for our physical and mental well-being. In fact, studies show that greenspace can improve mental health, particularly through stress reduction, stimulating physical activity and facilitating social cohesion.¹

Despite its positive effects, we rarely plan nature into our urban lives. In fact, as human societies build and develop, we seem to plan other creatures out, sometimes pushing them to the very edge of extinction. During a recent stint on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, I witnessed how human land consumption suffocates Sumatran tigers. Plantations producing palm oil, which is used in everything from shampoo to ice cream, have exploded across the island. This burning of tiger habitat, along with unorganized expansion of human populations and poaching of wild animals, has left us with less than 400 Sumatran tigers total. As top predators, these tigers uphold delicate ecosystems that provide people with many life necessities. Plus, as my friend from West Sumatra explained, tigers represent an important grandmother-like figure for certain Sumatran cultures. Losing Sumatran tigers is not just bad for tigers; it is bad for people, too.

Land devastation in Sumatra. Photo Credit: Lucrecia Aguilar.

We see the negative impacts of pushing predators out of our lives in the United States as well. Pumas (also known as mountain lions or cougars) used to roam across the Eastern US, happily munching on deer and maintaining balanced ecosystems. However, as we developed most of the land in this half of the country, pumas were forced to retreat to a few strongholds in the west. Naturally, deer populations went berserk with their newfound independence and started breeding like rabbits. This imbalance not only created hordes of angry gardeners, but the increase in deer numbers also costs human lives. The heartbreaking damages caused by deer-vehicle collisions now make deer the most dangerous large mammal in North America. If we brought pumas back, they could eat enough of these ungulates to prevent about 155 human deaths and $2.13 billion in costs every 30 years.²

Singapore’s Supertrees. Photo Credit: Lucrecia Aguilar.

We can change how we develop to integrate nature. In fact, as we face a rapidly changing climate and the Earth’s sixth mass extinction event, we will have to. Examples of biophilic development and planning already exist. In Singapore, steel Supertrees create vertical gardens covered by over 162,900 plants and include canopies filled with environmentally sustainable functions (such as solar cells).³ Spotted hyenas and people coexist in the Ethiopian city of Harar, where hyenas actually help keep the city clean by eating meat waste. The Living Building Challenge, a sustainability certification program and design framework for our built environment, urges planners to create places that imitate nature’s clean and beautiful functioning. It even includes a biophilic environment imperative to “nurture the innate human/nature connection.”⁴

As we continue to build our cities and develop our societies, let us remember to plan for the well-being of humans and all other beings. We often think there exists some hard line between humanity and nature, and that each must fit into its own box for sophistication’s sake. But humans are animals; we are part of nature. Let us make it our duty to plan healthy and functional living spaces for all living things . It is not just the logical thing to do; it is the moral thing to do.

About the Author: Lucrecia Kaye Aguilar is a wildlife conservationist studying big cats and human-wildlife coexistence. Passionate about wildlife since childhood, Lucrecia completed her Bachelor of Science in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at Rice University before receiving the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to explore big cat conservation around the world. She works to help prevent the extinction of big cat species and the detrimental effects of wildlife declines on people. Currently, Lucrecia is with cheetahs, leopards, and lions in southern Africa. You can find here on Instagram, Twitter, and on her blog.

Featured Image: A male lion with his cubs in Botswana. Photo Credit: Lucrecia Aguilar.

1. Vries, S. D., Dillen, S. M., Groenewegen, P. P., & Spreeuwenberg, P. (2013). Streetscape greenery and health: Stress, social cohesion and physical activity as mediators. Social Science & Medicine, 94, 26-33. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.06.030

2. Gilbert, S. L., Sivy, K. J., Pozzanghera, C. B., Dubour, A., Overduijn, K., Smith, M. M., . . . Prugh, L. R. (2016). Socioeconomic Benefits of Large Carnivore Recolonization Through Reduced Wildlife-Vehicle Collisions. Conservation Letters, 10(4), 431-439. doi:10.1111/conl.12280

3. Supertree Grove: Facts & figures. (n.d.). Retrieved November 13, 2018, from http://www.gardensbythebay.com.sg/en/attractions/supertree-grove/facts-and-figures.html

4. Health & Happiness Petal Intent: Living Building Challenge. (2018, April 20). Retrieved November 13, 2018, from https://living-future.org/lbc/health-happiness-petal/

A utopian, sustainable N.C. city

October 26, 2018 / odrozd

Columbia, North Carolina: A Sustainable Example

In April 2018, Viktor Agabekov wrote a fictional, first-person account of life in a utopian, sustainable North Carolina city of the future. Read his story below.

As dawn rolls through the transparent solar panel of my bedroom window, I start another day in the historic downtown of Columbia, North Carolina. Once a tiny settlement with less than 900 people, the city is now a national leader in adapting to sea level rise. Situated near the mouth of the Scuppernong River in northeastern North Carolina, Columbia first experienced irregular flooding in the late 2010’s, and city leaders boldly decided to reshape the image of the town to ensure it would have a future.

It is now 2040, the city has swelled past 4,000 residents, and the policies adopted in the past 20 years make it sustainable to live and thrive in the city. In addition to environmentally-minded designs, the city has shaped development to capture the benefit of social capital as part of its mission.

I work as an environmental consultant for the town, and start each day with a 5-minute commute to the city center by bicycle. The design of the town follows the “garden city” layout proposed by Ebenezer Howard in the late 19th century, as the town has capitalized on the nearby abundance of green space surrounding it (figure 5). The total size of the city is just over 25 square miles, with most of the area being dedicated to green space. Several “spokes” of transit that include three-lane roads and separated bike paths stretch to compact residential neighborhoods, such as the one I live in.

I leave my tiny home in the morning without having to lock my door, as the Internet of Things lets me do that remotely from my phone as I’m on the way to work. The roads and bike paths are elevated over the saltwater wetlands below, and are made of permeable material to limit flooding when heavy storms saturate the area.

As I ride up to my company building, I lock my bike in an elevated bike rack and head up the stairs to my office space. It’s not a long walk, however, as the city has a height limit of 4 stories for buildings by the waterfront as to preserve the profile of the riverfront. My office building has passive lighting and large windows, which offset its electricity use even on hot summer days by letting the sun do the electricity generation and lighting work.

The building facades of downtown Columbia are mandated to appear similar to historic buildings previously constructed, to keep up the historic charm of the city. My building, along with all others in the downtown area, also has a green roof to reduce the heat absorbed in the hot summer months planted with crop plants that can be harvested by workers for food. The roof captures rainwater in a cistern, which is then used for secondary non-potable purposes including flushing and irrigation.

Water in the city literally surrounds the core of downtown every day. As sea level rise has caused the height of the Scuppernong River to increase by 2’, Columbia has adopted strict building codes that minimize losses due to seasonal flooding and constant water presence. The riverbank is lined with a living shoreline, mostly made up of oyster reefs and vegetation beds. The river water isn’t fresh, as saltwater from the ocean mixes in during tide changes. This made obtaining fresh water a priority for the city, so a single large desalination plant was built in 2030 in the northern limits of the city to solve this problem. The rising water forced the city to condemn several older structures that became total losses over time, and these structures were torn down and converted into wetland park open spaces.

Water also serves as a means of transport to Columbia, and the city has a central transit hub on the downtown waterfront that links a ferry terminal, boat marina, bicycle path, and arterial road. It’s easy to get around the downtown by walking from this transit hub, and it’s a popular public space for people to meet up at and watch boats go by. The city is small and walkable to the point where local buses aren’t required, and all buildings are made inclusive for all people through accessible ramps, doors, and elevators to upper floors.

Lunchtime calls for a trip down to the local food co-op in downtown Columbia, and I walk across the main circular plaza at the core of the city. The streets here are made of cobblestone filled with permeable gravel, which slows down drivers and adds a cozy, historic element to the atmosphere of downtown. This allows water to quickly dissipate during rain events, and helps bring the total runoff from the city center to almost zero. The food co-op has a large open lawn that is open to the public, and is a popular spot to relax and enjoy the sights of the city at. It is lined with fruit trees that are grown in large containers, as the soil across most of the city is too salty for fruit trees otherwise.

Container gardens like this also line the windows of downtown buildings, and it is town policy to allow any citizen or visitor to freely harvest these gardens as part of an equal access to fresh foods initiative. Because the city is easily walkable, there are no recognized food deserts in Columbia.

Agriculture was once the backbone of Tyrrell County, but rising sea levels and saltwater intrusion have caused it to retreat inland within North Carolina. This has caused Columbia to rely on many crops to be imported from other locales, but several salt-tolerant crops such as sugar beets and barley are still farmed beyond the green belt band of the city. Lunch also includes a refreshing non-alcoholic craft beer from a Columbia brewery, which has become a cultural staple for locals.

The fishing industry on the Scuppernong River has also surged to cultural prominence, as the farming of oysters and blue crabs have made the city internationally recognized for its seafood products. Sustainable culling and size restrictions have allowed these populations to flourish near the town, and the fishing economy has become one of the largest employers in the region.

Another industry that has become integral to the city has been research in climate adaptation for agriculture and city resiliency planning. A large research institution sits at the core of downtown Columbia, bordered by a cobblestone woonerf plaza that gives its students access to labs and high-paying research jobs. This reflects the progressive ideology of the city, as the rise from a poverty-stricken town to a global leader in climate adaptation has caught the eye of many inspired planners.

Columbia is also home to the a significant government presence, as it is the county seat of Tyrrell county and hosts a US Coast Guard search and rescue base. The presence of this large amount of industry is the source of employment for most of the town’s 4,000 residents, including me. My company helps developers set up microgrids in new communities, and works with electric utilities to allow net metering of residential surplus electricity to take place. The city offers net metering in all of the low-income housing neighborhoods it maintains, allowing residents to gain supplemental income and proving that Columbia values them and is invested in their success, a commitment to social capital.

The emergency services of the city including the fire department, police, and paramedic, are all centrally located behind the city hall at the core circular plaza of the city. This allows them to respond to all emergencies in the city’s radius from a single, central point, and thus equalizes response times to neighborhoods despite their demographics.

The energy portfolio of Columbia is entirely made of renewable sources, primarily fed from a large offshore wind farm near the Outer Banks. The rest of the city’s electric needs, including a full charging infrastructure for electric cars, are met by solar microgrids that use transparent window-panels, much like my home neighborhood.

Columbia city schools are also powered by microgrids, and use electric school buses to get kids to and from their schools. Renewable technologies are taught to all kids enrolled in Columbia, and are favored in city policy. In fact, the city has a ban on internal-combustion-engined vehicles, including lawn mowers and carts, as the volatile compounds created by those emissions are precautionary blocked from impacting the wetland ecosystems that surround the town.

Since most of the former agricultural lands near Columbia became unfarmable due to saltwater intrusion back in the 2020s, the city bought them at fair market value and raised funds through taxes to convert them to a green belt, reverting them back to their natural pocosin wetland biome type. These delicate ecosystems are degraded by combustion emissions, and the city has opted to justly protect them since they are an ecotourism destination, provide ecosystem services to the city, and are a cultural staple.

Wetlands have come to define Columbia: they have naturally resisted climate change and rising sea levels, are entirely unique compared to other ecosystems, and provide valuable services that other regions can benefit from. The city knows this very well, and recognizes this through an annual celebration called “Wetland Day,” which involves completely closing the downtown of the city to cars and having local artisans, scientists, and teachers show visitors the benefits that wetlands provide the town. Because the scale of the downtown area is very human-centered, visitors are fully comfortable walking around historic buildings and bringing their families as well.

The city has a comprehensive CCTV network that monitors streets, neighborhoods, and the green belt, and thus creates a network of safety that wasn’t previously seen in such a coastal community. The monitoring of wetlands specifically deters any poaching of endangered animals such as the red wolf, which has become a local symbol of pride and resilience. The conservation of a wetland buffer around the city also provides many ecosystem services for residents, ranging from cooler temperatures in the summer, to protection from flood surges and hurricane winds. This protection extends to all residents of Columbia, regardless of their demographics, and is an example of the city’s commitment to nature and valuing social capital.

My day at work wraps up as I collect the compost bins from around my office and send them down a vacuum chute into a central composting and waste management center in the north of the city. Composting, along with recycling has lowered the city’s total waste destined for landfills to just 2% of the total waste produced by residents each year. Because the city’s low-lying topography and sensitive ecosystems make landfills unfavorable, it exports this trash inland to Person County, and pays for this service through a waste disposal fee levied on citizens. This makes everyone want to generate as little landfill garbage as possible, and most neighborhoods around Columbia even hold competitions to see if anyone can lead a truly zero-waste lifestyle.

My final stop before I leave for home is a small drugstore in a mixed-use building at the edge of downtown, to pick up some protein powder. I debated seeing my friends who live above the drugstore in an apartment, but decided against it as I still have to prepare dinner and harvest vegetables from my container garden back home.

As I cycle back home on the raised wooden bike path, I remember visiting Columbia when I studied on the Outer Banks in college. The town was entirely different back then, and didn’t have a single value of sustainability at its core. The Columbia I know now is at the forefront of sustainable living and development, and to see how successful policy has been for this city is humbling; it was an effort by the residents who denounced isolationism and banded together to outlast the changing climate that threatened their very homes.

As I look over my shoulder at the bright sunset, I pull up my bike to my house and check my net electricity meter. My house generated 3-kilowatt hours of extra power, which was used by my neighborhood microgrid to light a basketball court for a kids’ scrimmage game. I tend my garden and prepare dinner, winding down after a long day of analyzing sustainable policy.

I finally wrap up my night by stargazing with my telescope through my open window, a hobby I picked up since the wetland buffer around the city limits the sprawling light pollution, right as the sun finishes setting on my sustainable city.

About the Author: Viktor Agabekov graduated UNC in 2018 with dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Economics and Environmental Studies, along with a minor in Entrepreneurship. A proud son of North Carolina, he has worked with state and local public entities along with student organizations and start-ups to find solutions to the question of what it means to be sustainable. He is now the Project Coordinator for the UNC Three Zeros Environmental Initiative. Aside from his official roles, he enjoys hiking, fresh and saltwater fishing, sustainable cooking, and organic gardening.

Featured Image Photo Credit: Viktor Agabekov.