Redefining the City - Week 2 Entry 1

After the talk given by Steven and Nilmini this week. I was intrigued by their views on sustainability. They spoke about redefining the city into a circular economy rather than a linear one, and developing a holistic society rather than silos. What particularly intrigued me is their idea that sustainability is no longer enough, it is time we pushed to regeneration. However, to achieve such a result the shift in society and politics to name a few, would be enormous. I am interested in exploring the possibilities of retaining the ideals and redefining the city within existing cities.

Looking at Cape Town's epidemic of water shortage, they've been handling it extraordinarily well. Each person is allocated to 25 litres of water a day compared to the average of 295 litres of water a Sydney resident uses. Cape Town has handled the drought extraordinarily and it comes to question if this is possible with other cities and resources.

Steven mentioned in his lecture that government control is hopefully not needed. However, in my opinion, for cities to retain its dynamics, and have an easier transition, government policies would be a good starting point. This can also be considered rehabilitation rather than restriction, which I will explain further. There are two main points that has to be taken into consideration, the management of resources, and importation.

Water restrictions in Cape Town has given a base precedence that prove policy changes can help to reduce usage. This restriction can be done with other resources such as electricity as well. It is important to also tailor each restriction to the specific needs of different regions. For example, winter and colder regions could have higher limitations for electricity and lower limitations for water, whereas summer and warmer regions could have the opposite. This restriction would be hard for people to work around initially, but would be a much smaller change as compared to redesigning cities. Earlier I stated that this policy change could be considered rehabilitation rather than restriction. This meant that as time progressed, limitations could be raised gradually, specifically when the city has used a significantly less amount of resources allocated over time, or noticeable change in the environment can be noticed quantitatively. Ideally, to a point where energy conservation has been etched into the back of everyone's mind, where the limitations could be removed entirely.

The next point of importation requires assistance from the government as well. Cities such as Sydney has kept its agriculture isolated from the heart, this means higher carbon emissions from importation. This carbon emission could be significantly reduced with urban agriculture. Developing a farm within an urban context would keep the city self-sustaining, allowing it to feed its own people from within. Where range of food sources may be reduced, it can be slightly compensated with trading with our immediate neighbours, similar to the idea put forth by Steven and Nilmini.

Though these changes will not come without obstacles, it seems to me a less radical change compared to Steven and Nilmini's ideas. Policy changes doesn't have to be made when resources are nearly depleted, but can be slowly implemented and introduced into our lives over time. For which sacrifices have to be made from our lavish lifestyles in order to regenerate our planet.