The Transitional City in research - How will we reduce our climate footprint in urban environments?

Research seminar at the Institute for Housing and Urban Research, Trädgårdsgatan 18, Uppsala, Tuesday 29 November 2016, 13.15-17.30

Abstracts

Regenerative systems landscape analysis and design in sustainable urban development and planning

Daniel Bergquist, Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

This paper reflects on some recent and ongoing applications of system science in landscape architecture, sustainable urban development and planning. Preliminary results and lessons learnt in a research and collaboration project in Sweden are discussed, where systems ecologists, landscape architects, urban planners and practitioners co-develop an emergy based planning tool to assess, visualize and communicate dependencies of urban districts on systems at larger scales of society and environment. In this project, findings from an emergy evaluation of an urban district in Uppsala, Sweden are used to develop mutual understandings of biophysical implications as well as influencing institutional factors; i.e. opportunities, constraints, motives and actions, which together shape the planning process and are ultimately translated into practical solutions in the built environment.

Climate Transition in Cities with WeakSocio-Urban Institutions and Low Urban Planning. Reflecting about the Proper Scale for Interventions

Fernando Campos Medina, Nucleusfor Social Sciences and Humanities; Dr. Francisca Fonseca, Department of Sociology; Dr. Mireya Palavecino, Department of Psychology, University of La Frontera

This presentation proposes a way to introduce the challenges of urban resilience in cities with weak socio-territorial institutions and a low level of urban planning. The presentation sustain that a socio-ecological urbanism requires, in a first place, to understand which is the socio-geographical scale of the problems confronted.

The Chilean plan for adaptation to climate change in its urban dimension does not consider the particularities of the middle size cities with high social vulnerability and rapid population growth (as is the cases of Temuco where University La Frontera is located). Thus, hiding the impact of climate change on aggravating air pollution, reducing water for human consumption and food production, and worsening the quality of neighbourhood life.

Our argument is twofold: i) The particularities and challenges of climate change for middle size cities can not be disconnected from an even as well as integrative urban planning; ii) local communities are ripe to implement innovative governance measures but socio-urban problems are deployed in geographies that exceed the local or neighbourhood level.

Observing the scale in which different public policies are implemented we advance in a reflection about the real scale of socio-urban problems in Chilena cities, and we discuss how this knowledge may be useful to reduce the climate footprint and improve thequality of life.

Energy efficiency, sustainability and historic buildings – work achieved and challenges to face

Petra Eriksson, Department of Conservation / Institution of Art History, Uppsala University

Historic buildings and their significance, preservation, management etc has been one of the focus areas in the field of conservation since conservation was established as an academic discipline in the 1970’s. Historic buildings are part of our common cultural heritage and as such represents, in a European context, one fourth of the total building stock. In relation to this, 40% of the total energy consumption in Europe is related to buildings. The use of energy in buildings and elsewhere need to be decreased in order to reach the overarching climate goals and in this context we cannot exclude historic buildings but we need to find way to balance the energy goals with preservations goals. In order to do so the Swedish energy agency launched a research programme in 2006, SparaochBevara. The programme has been running since then, first with a focus on listed monumental buildings, a focus that today has shifted towards groups of buildings, historic districts and building stocks. The coordination of the research is placed at the conservation department (the art history institution) at Uppsala University Campus Gotland. The presentation will focus on some aspects of energy efficiency in historic building such changeability in relation to cultural significance and values of built heritage, methods to balance different interests in decision making and renovation processes and how to lift the problem from a building by building situation to a strategical policy level.

The densification dilemma: Stress, restoration and the pursuit of urban sustainability

Terry Hartig, Professor of Environmental Psychology, Institute for Housing and Urban Research and Department of Psychology, Uppsala University

The public health and environmental impacts of sprawling development stand as compelling arguments for higher residential densities in urban areas. Other arguments in favor of compact cities include increased social vibrancy around urban centers and the ecological and economic benefits that follow from more efficient energy use. Yet, a move toward densification often conflicts with efforts to promote public health by ensuring ready access to parks, green spaces, and other seemingly natural environments. How then can societies ensure that urban residents have access to health-promoting green spaces while also pursuing the benefits of densification? In this presentation I will discuss ongoing and planned research that considers the public health values of urban nature in a time of increasing residential densities.

Konsten att organisera omställning

Makt, deltagande och representation i byggandet av en hållbar stadsdel

Nils Hertting, Department of Government, Uppsala University

I Uppsala pågår sedan en tid ett av Sveriges största stadsdelsplaneringsprojekt, Ulleråkerprojektet. Ambitionen är att stadsdelen Ulleråker ska utvecklas till en stadsdel med 7000 bostäder och ca 19000 invånare under ett decennium ungefär. Kraven på hållbara lösningar när det gäller såväl kommunikation som bostäder är högt ställda. Därtill kommer det faktum att stadsdelen byggs på Uppsalas dricksvatten täckt.

I såväl den akademiska som den politiska diskursen om hållbar stadsomvandling betonas vikten av samverkan och helhetsgrepp för att tämja den komplexitet frågorna inkluderar. Ofta uttrycks en misstro mot både den hierarkiska planeringens förmåga att på ett adekvat sätt formulera problemen, prioritera bland lösningar och genomföra insatser och mot marknadens förmåga att ta långsiktigt ansvar. Istället är det samverkan – collaborativegovernance – i olika former som ses som lösningen. Bara genom en ökad samverkan mellan alla berörda kan omställning uppnås. Alla måste med, heter det hos dem som har tilltro till denna styrningsform. Skeptikern, å andra sidan, anar i betoningen av samverkan en slags flykt och spridning av ansvar. Istället för att ta politiskt ansvar, utöva politiskt ledarskap och göra besvärliga politiska prioriteringar för att t ex styra samhällsutvecklingen mot ett radikalt minskat bilresande så talar politiker om ett delat ansvar och behovet av samverkan med intressen och aktörer långt bortom de demokratiska institutionerna.

Tanken med det projekt som skissas här är helt enkelt att följa samverkansprocesserna kring Ulleråkerprojektet i syfte att beskriva vilka intressen som kommer till tals, när och hur. Jag tänker mig en enkel fasindelning av processen där en agenda formuleras (1), resurser mobiliseras (2), projekt prioriteras (3) och konkreta projekt genomförs (4). För samtliga moment undersöks (a) vilka aktörer som är drivande, (b) vilka intressen som är representerade och (c) hur samverkansrelationerna är organiserade. Utifrån hypotesen att ju mer diffust ett intresse är, och ju längre planeringshorisonterna är, desto svårare är det att få tillstånd en effektiv representation i samverkansprocesserna, undersöks hur ambitionerna att få till stånd en klimatsmart stadsdel står sig.

‘“Green fix” as crisis management. Or, in which world is Malmö the world’s greenestcity?’

StåleHolgerson, Institute for Housing and urban Research, Uppsala University and A. Malma

As economic and ecological crises evolve in combination, some policy strategies might aim at killing the two birdswith one stone. One recent example can be found in Malmö,Sweden, where crisis management has operated, we propose, asa green fix. The district of Västrahamnen (Western Harbour) is atthe centre of the reinvention of the city: once the home of a world-leadingshipyard, it is now a no less prominent neighbourhood ofecological virtues. Through outlining the history of Malmö in generaland the Western Harbour in particular, we identify how themunicipality and local capital in concert increasingly used “green” strategies in the urban policies that started as crisis managementin the 1990s. Today Malmöis reckoned to be among the world’sgreenest cities, and we reflect on the importance of this internationalrecognition for the city. Finally, we develop a critique of thegreen fix as concealing crucial factors of scale, and hence runningthe risk of myopia.

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