What Sustainable Cities May Look Like in the Future?
As the world comes to grips with many years of relying on fossil fuels and extracting natural resources on a large unsustainable scale, living sustainably has started to become more popular in everyday life. Use of local transportation or walking to help reduce our carbon emissions to live more sustainably. Purchasing locally grown foods rather than purchasing goods imported from overseas. We adjust our lives to live more sustainably but as the population continues to grow and cities continue to expand, living sustainably is the main objective. Cities will need to focus on some key areas when planning to expand or overhaul the city to cater for modern life.
Transportation
Travelling within the city or to another city will be important to ensure the functionality of every day life from going to work to shopping in grocery stores. Cities will need to be designed to be walk and bike-friendly with dedicated bike lanes and wide safe footpaths. The use of sustainable fuel sources such as electricity or biofuels for public transport such as trains and buses will help reduce carbon emissions per resident in the city. Implementing an electric charging infrastructure that uses renewable energy sources such as sunlight, wind, and water can make charging electric cars sustainable. The use of electric vehicles will greatly decrease carbon emissions.
Sustainable Energy Sources
Building a sustainable infrastructure that can meet the demands of its residents will be vital to living in a sustainable city. The major types of sources of renewable energy are:
Solar energy from the sun
Geothermal energy from the heat inside the earth
Wind energy
Biomass from plants
Hydropower from flowing water
Harnessing renewable energy sources such as the above will help deliver sustainable electricity to power the city. Cities will need to build facilities to store this renewable energy created in case a sudden surge of electricity happens.
Green Buildings
Buildings and houses will need to be built with sustainability in mind from the materials used to construct the homes to the facilities to generate electricity. Adding smart home features that can turn off or manage heating and electricity needs will ensure devices that need it are only consuming electricity. Incorporating solar panels or solar tiles will allow homes to harness the sun to generate electricity themselves. The electricity generated can be stored for use later on in the day or if too much electricity is generated and stored then they can contribute to the city grid for others to use. Green buildings are also about using the available space for green spaces to enable wildlife to flourish.
Green Spaces
Cities will need to incorporate a sufficient amount of green spaces throughout the city for wildlife to flourish as well as for the mental wellbeing of its residents. Green spaces can also be used to grow fruit and veg as well as help with pollution control.
Food Production
As the population of cities continue to grow, cities and the world will need to produce more food to feed the ever-growing population. One way to help improve food production is urban farming. Urban growing involves using available space within an urban setting and growing fruit and veg. Urban growing may involve the creation of new ecosystems via rooftop and vertical gardens and allotments. More creative ways of urban growth have started to emerge such as reusing shipping containers to grow vegetables.
Waste Management
Cities generate a lot of food and material waste, cities will need to make recycling much easier. Shopping will need to reduce the use of plastic for food items and use disposable paper bags. The future sustainable city will need to adopt an aggressive recycling and composting program to be more sustainable. Another solution is for waste that cannot be recycled using traditional methods to convert it into energy by capturing the fly ash burned at landfill sites. Going paperless will also reduce the amount of paper used and produced. By opting to view documents digital it will be quick and less wasteful than mailing or dropping papers off.
Summary
We are very much aware of the use of fossil fuels has had on climate change and how it affects the environment. As cities continue to improve and expand, city planners will need to make new areas to be more sustainable. By designing areas to cater for sustainable transport avenues such as walking and cycling or providing electric charging will help promote and encourage sustainable travel methods. Utilising renewable energy sources will help reduce carbon emissions produced by the city. The increase in the population of cities means more waste is being produced. By adopting more sustainable waste management processes, waste produced by residents can be harnessed to produce electricity or materials reused. Creating green spaces and utilising spaces will help create new urban ecosystems as well as provide opportunities for cities to grow fruit and vegetables.