Green and "long-term livability" that might add up to sustainability

I have just returned from the European Foundation Centre’s (EFC) annual meeting in Copenhagen. The organizing theme was “Sustainable Cities: Foundations and Our Urban Future”, which generated much welcome and critical discussion. The bulk of the meeting was not so much—perhaps counter-intuitively—on sustainability in an environmental sense, but in a social one. For example, how can foundations play a role in the support of people, communities and cities that are prosperous but also just, equitable and inclusive? These are clearly key to long- and perhaps even mid-term sustainability. For, as several people at the conference memorably said: we have to survive today… and tomorrow and next week if we hope to sustain ourselves all the way to next year, next decade, and next century. Read more.

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The Nature of Cities: What kind of cities do we want?

What is the city we want to create in the future? What is the city in which we want to live? Certainly that city is sustainable, since we want our cities to balance consumption and inputs to make a footprint that can last into the future. Certainly it is resilient, so our cities are still in existence after the next 100-year storm, now due every few years. And yet: as we build this vision we know that cities must also be livable. Indeed, we must view livability as the third indispensible—and arguably most important—leg supporting the cities of our dreams: resilient + sustainable + livable. Read more.

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