Cities may be key to saving environment

By 2006, Worldwatch estimates that half the world will live in urban areas.

June 28, 1999
Web posted at: 2:17 p.m. EDT (1817 GMT)

Focusing on cities might be the answer to saving the global environment, according to a report from the Worldwatch Institute. Covering just 2 percent of the Earth's surface, cities account for roughly 78 percent of the carbon emissions from human activities, 76 percent of industrial wood use and 60 percent of the water tapped for use by people, said an analysis of the global environmental impact of cities by Worldwatch author Molly O'Meara.

In her study, "Reinventing Cities for People and the Planet," O'Meara shows that changes in six areas — water, waste, food, energy, transportation, and land use — are needed to make cities and the vast areas they affect better for both people and the planet.

The rapid expansion of cities in the 20th century has magnified the environmental impact of cities. In 1900, only 160 million people, one tenth of the world's population, were urbanites. By 2006, Worldwatch estimates that half the world (3.2 billion people) will live in urban areas — representing a 20-fold increase in numbers.

Today, at least 600 million city dwellers in the developing world do not have adequate shelter and 1.1 billion choke on unhealthy air. Polluted air in 36 Indian cities killed some 52,000 people in 1995, a 28 percent increase from the early 1990s. China reported at least 3 million deaths from toxic urban air from 1994 through 1996.

"These figures suggest that the struggle to achieve an environmentally sustainable economy will be won or lost in the world's urban areas," said O'Meara. "Urban systems are undermining the planet's health and failing to provide decent living conditions for millions of people."

O'Meara points out that London requires roughly 58 times its land area to supply its residents with food and timber. Meeting the needs of everyone in the world in the same way that the needs of Londoners are met would require at least three more Earths.

Due perhaps to our current inability to mass-produce the globe, O'Meara offers several other ideas in her report. One of the guiding principles will be to reform urban systems so that they mimic the metabolism of nature. "Rather than devouring water, food, energy, and processed goods, and then belching out the remains as pollutants, the city could align its consumption with realistic needs, produce more of its own food and energy, and put much more of its waste to use," said O'Meara. She cites the following examples.

• Curitiba, Brazil has coordinated transportation and land use to support efficient public buses. Although the city has one car for every three people, two thirds of all trips in the city are made by bus. Curitiba also has devised a unique way to promote sanitation while boosting nutrition. Since 1991, the city has taken the money it would otherwise pay waste collectors to fetch garbage from slums, and has spent it on food from local farms. For every bag of waste brought to a waste collection site, a low-income family gets a bag of locally grown vegetables and fruits.

• Copenhagen, Denmark has taken a lead in turning waste into resource. "Gray water" from kitchens and compost from household waste nourish food-producing gardens, while hot water left over from power generation heats nearly 70 percent of the city's buildings. Also a leader in low-energy transport, Copenhagen maintains a fleet of bikes for public use that is financed through advertising on the wheel surfaces and bicycle frames.

• Chattanooga, Tennessee, a leader in recycling and electric buses, has transformed itself from the most polluted city in the United States to one of the most livable in less than three decades. A proposed zero-waste park, which would include factories, retail stores, and residences, would expand the city's metamorphosis. Underground tunnels would link some 30 buildings, 10 of which exist already, to share heating, cooling, wastes, and industrial water supplies.

Take Boston, Massachusetts for example. Through a conservation strategy that has included higher prices, authorities in Boston have reduced total water demand by 24 percent since 1987. Today, the city has the water it needs for a third to half the cost of diverting two large rivers.

O'Meara says financial levers can also tame automobile traffic, which kills some 885,000 people each year. For more than 20 years, downtown-bound drivers in Singapore have paid a fee that rises during rush hour; since 1998, the fee has been automatically deducted from an electronic card. And in the United States, government policies are just beginning to target parking subsidies, worth $31.5 billion a year.

New information technologies also hold promise for political change. Geographic information systems can be used to create maps that highlight urban problems. In Maryland, a recent study used such a system to produce a video that showed Baltimore and Washington merging into one massive agglomeration. Maryland's governor credited the video with helping him win legislative approval for his anti-sprawl initiatives.

The misdirection of money is not the only obstacle in the way of building better cities. "The people and businesses committed to current wasteful patterns of development constitute a potent political constituency," says O'Meara. "With better information, citizens can form a counterweight to powerful interest groups."

Contact, Molly O'Meara, (202) 452-1992, ext. 548 or momeara@worldwatch.org

Copyright 1999, Environmental News Network, All Rights Reserved

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.