City-Level Decoupling-Full Report

6.3 New urban developments as 'integrated eco- urbanism' Most of these models aim at integrated responses to infrastructure that cut across multiple infrastructure networks – energy, food, water, waste and so on – and that are rebundled together at particular scales in the design of new buildings, neighbourhoods, towns, blocks and cities. They usually focus on new developments, either entirely new Greenfield developments such as an eco-city or eco-town, or new stand-alone developments that are located adjacent to or within existing cities such as an eco-house or eco-neighbourhood. The approach is much more concerned with integration at the scale of the development than with the wider transformation of the existing city or its existing infrastructure networks. These responses have at their core the vision that they can transcend conventional responses to climate or resource constraint because they build ecological security by internally producing their own food, energy and other critical resources, reusing wastes as resources and reducing reliance on external infrastructures. The case studies draw upon the most 'exemplary' illustrations of this new style of urbanism that are claimed by their developers to offer new and replicable models of development. Assessing a range of case studies enables the identification of some common objectives that underpin these initiatives: first, to reduce carbon emissions from new development projects to meet national targets or establish new more ambitious standards; second, to secure energy, water and food resources, and to manage waste flows within the boundaries of a new development; third, to provide a test-bed for the development of new technologies and solutions that can be viewed as exemplary and or replicated in other contexts; and finally, to address a set of wider social issues associated with employment, social justice and quality of life which vary across different urban contexts. 6.3.1. Objectives and visions

These general objectives manifest themselves in particular ways in relation to different initiatives. In responding to these objectives across a range of case studies, responses are aiming to solve multiple problems. These include addressing housing shortages and doing so in ways that integrate buildings with strict energy standards, green spaces, dense urban design, public transport and schools as in Vauban, Germany and Treasure Island, USA. Yet often underpinning these developments is a vision of integrated eco-urbanism as developing, commercialising and implementing technologies to address climate change as in Masdar, Abu Dhabi and, conceptually, Songdo, Republic of Korea. In this sense the relationship between economic development and ecological change is critical to the problems being addressed. This can include government-led attempts to address a housing shortage - as in Vauban - or as a response to market demand for enclaves of high quality ecologically-conscious housing as observed in the 'Towards Zero Carbon Development' initiative in Bangalore, India. Thus different initiatives may have goals as different as addressing a housing shortage or creating exclusive housing. The objectives of integrated eco-urbanism initiatives are often explicit in their visions of new buildings, parkland and green spaces, waterways, transport links and systems and retail development. The claim is that such initiatives can meet a collection of ambitious targets. This is the case in Songdo, Republic of Korea, where 40% of the city is planned as parkland and waterways, with shops, green spaces and access to transport no more than a 12.5 minute walk away for anybody, and that it will be significantly less resource intensive than cities of a similar size. Standards and targets are set in relation to buildings and the flows of energy and water resources. The solutions developed in some cities (such as Masdar, Vauban and Songdo) are sometimes represented as experimental test-beds for new technologies or new life-style solutions that can be replicated elsewhere.

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