The analysis of the result of our past poll on “Environmental Conditions & Sustainability” is finished. We ask our readers, which factors define environmental conditions and sustainability for them the most.  Now we would like to present the summarized results to you:

 

When it comes to the question what is most important about the City of The Future in terms of environmental issues, the most important factor is “Energy efficiency and production”. On position number two we find “Green space” followed by “Green construction and buildings” in third position. “Waste management / recycling” was ranked on four. The following factors were ranked in the order: “Green public transportation”, “Energy conservation systems” and “Xeriscaping”.

You find a detailed analysis of the results including an interpretation Dossier No. 3 in the sidebar.

While doing some research for our different factors in the current poll on “Economic Environment”, we found an interesting study on tourism. “City Tourism & Culture: The European Experience” is a report commissioned jointly by the World Tourism Organization (WTO) and European Travel Commission (ETC) and provides insights into the expansion of European cities as cultural tourism destinations.

The study provides a conceptual framework for the analysis of city tourism with a cultural motivation and aims to contribute to the marketing and product development of city tourism by throwing more light on the evolution of cultural tourism in Europe from ‘traditional’ to ‘innovative’. Based on the concepts of ’heritage’, ‘cultural’ and ‘creative’ cities, the study clusters destinations according to their predominant cultural product, and analyses the recent performance and positioning of each cluster - as well as their opportunities for future growth.

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To go along with our current poll on “Economic Environment” we want to focus on one factor: geographic advantages. What are geographic advantages and disadvantaged? How can and in what way do cities benefit from geographic advantages? We found answers to these questions in a study by Kathy Benson which deals with the development of cities and the geographic factors that influence them.

The development of cities throughout the world is influenced by geographic features. Each feature offers advantages and disadvantages to the settlement of large groups of people. Most cities are located where there are more geographic advantages than disadvantages. The boundary between two different features, for example where mountains meet the flat lands or where land meets the sea, may offer the advantages of both features. These locations offer opportunities for people to develop trade and industry.
Although there are other geographic features, some of the most important features that influence the growth of cities are the following:

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Our world is rapidly ageing. According to the United Nations, when the percentage of population of people over 65 years old is more than seven percent, such a society will be called "ageing society”. Therefore, as the number of the elderly people increase, the demand for medical care and welfare services will increase, and it will be necessary to provide those services properly.

In our fast ageing world, older people are increasingly playing a crucial role - by volunteering work, transmitting experience and knowledge, helping their families with caring responsibilities or in paid work. These contributions can only be ensured if older persons enjoy good health and if societies address their needs.

But how can cities of tomorrow handle the challenges of an ageing society?

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As we have learned when we were focussing on mega-cities, by 2050, an estimated two-thirds of the world’s population will live in urban areas, imposing even more pressure on the space infrastructure and resources of cities, leading to social disintegration and horrific urban poverty. To grow enough food to feed the people, if traditional farming practices continue as they are practiced today, an estimated 109 hectares of new land (this about 20% more land than is represented by the country of Brazil) will be needed. Today, almost all of the fertile ground all over the world is in use. New solutions have to be developed to avoid an impending disaster.

A potential solution to approach the problem is skyfarming. Skyfarming or vertical farming is a conceptual form of agriculture done in urban high-rises. In these high-rises (also called "farmscrapers") food such as fruit, vegetables, fish, and livestock can be raised by using greenhouse growing methods and recycled resources year-round, allowing cities of the future to become self-sufficient.

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City of Frankfurt and Eurohypo AG announce pupil competition "PerfectFrankfurt2020" on PerfectCity.

How will people live, work and spend their leisure time in Frankfurt by 2020? What will Frankfurt’s urban face look like? Will Frankfurt remain a tolerant and cosmopolitan city? Answers to these and many other future questions still need to be found, so that the Main metropolis remains a modern, liveable city within the next twenty till thirty years.

To contribute to this discussion, the German city Frankfurt/Main and Eurohypo AG have created a pupil competition called “PerfectFrankfurt 2020” on PerfectCity. This competition challenges young people to generate ideas for the city of tomorrow. Pupils in the fifth grade and up, from any school in Frankfurt can take part individually, in a group or as an entire class. Frankfurt mayor Petra Roth says “Within our competition it is not urban planners, architects or politicians that are in demand, but young people. They have a lot of imagination, creativity and are not afraid to take risks to find solutions." Bernd Knobloch, CEO of Eurohypo, regards Frankfurt as an ideal environment for the competition: "Frankfurt is an international, cosmopolitan and innovative city - that is exactly the right place to create new ideas."

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Regarding our PerfectCity Charter we have just started a new poll. This time we want to know what is most important about the economic environment in the City of The Future. To get a little deeper into that issue we want to focus on an interesting index, the so called economic environment index.

The Atlas of Canada site, a website where you can discover Canada through national maps and facts, has a wide range of different maps. There you can find map which displays the quality of life through an economic environment index in Canada.

This map shows the quality of the economic environment: the environment in which people engage in, and benefit from, economic activity that includes aspects of paid employment and household finances. The indicators of the economic environment measure the ability of households to access goods and services important to quality of life. To asses the quality of the economic environment seven indicators are used (you can find some of them as factors to vote for in our poll) regarding household finances and employment/paid work. These indicators are:

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Today it is hard to sell huge real estate property without a certificate of an advantageous environmental audit and energy balance. The German Government has agreed to hard commitments to reduce environmentally unfriendly greenhouse gases and yet further plans of the European Union. Thus, the value of conventional buildings is affected, because they are still ahead of traffic when it comes to pollution.

To discuss this issue representatives of different departments (political, economical and scientific) met in a think tank called ENRESO 2020 initiated by RWE Energy AG, a subsidiary of German electric power and natural gas public utility company RWE AG. The meeting was held in Frankfurt. The acronym ENRESO stands for Energy Real Estate Economy Society. For the first time there was a presentation of criteria for an environmental certification which has to meet international standards.

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We found out that one of our blogroll partner A Vision of Europe has a new interesting campaign: The European prize 2008 for the best urban neighborhood in Europe. This prize is launched in occasion of the 25th anniversary of the European Prize for the Reconstruction of the City, the Philippe Rotthier Foundation for the Architecture in Bruxelles, together with A Vision of Europe and CivicArch Lab at the University of Ferrara.

The European Prize promotes the characters of excellence in the designing and building of new urban neighborhoods and aims at enhancing the European genius of building the fundamental matrix of the traditional city: the mixed-use urban neighborhood. It also aims at encouraging the creation of new mixed-use urban neighborhoods conceived and designed according to the principles of Sustainable Development and the EU Green Paper for the Urban Environment.

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