Green Urban Infrastructures for the
Twenty First Century:
What Prospects for a Just Transition?
Mark Swilling
Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Development
Centre for Complex Systems in Transition
Stellenbosch University
21 June 2015
8th International Forum for Urbanism
Songdo, South Korea
Pop: 3.9bn /
56% urban
Pop: 423m / 52% urban
First urbanisation wave in
global North
1750
Pop: 15m / 10% urban
1850
1950
Second urbanisation
wave in global
South – assumes
high fertility rates
Pop: 309m /
18% urban
1950
2010
2030
9 billion
7 billion
urban pop
more than
doubles in 4
decades
6.5 billion
4 billion
3 billion
3 billion
1.5 billion
1 billion
2010
2050
World
Population
2010
2050
Urban
Population
2010
2050
Informal Urban
Population
2010
2050
Middle Class
Source: UN-Habitat, Goldmann Sachs
jj
- 52% of the urban fabric expected
to exist by 2050 must still be
constructed – India, China and
Nigeria account for 37% of this
additional growth
Source: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division: World Urbanization Prospects, the 2009 Revision. New York, 2010
Total rural and urban population (millions) for
Africa, 1950-2050
1265
Rural
Urban
257m in
slums (62%)
858
414
87
33
197
282
1950
1970
632
2011
World Urbanization Prospects: The 2011 Revision. New York: United Nations
854
927
2035
2050
but to build cities we need
massive quantities of
resources
Where will the
resourcs come
from?
Energy 2
Materials 2
2011-2013
Phase II: resource
requirements of
urbanisation to 2050
Urban metabolism
‘Sum of technical and socioeconomic processes that
occurs in cities, resulting in resource consumption, growth,
production of energy and elimination of waste’
(Kennedy 2007)
Water
Air pollutants
Building
Services
CO2
Electricity
Consumption
Recreation
Heat
Food
Transportation
Manufacturing
Export
goods
In situ energy
Goods
Infrastructure
Industrial
waste
Materials
Waste
water
(Fernandez 2015)
Urban metabolism
OE
SM
IE
OW
Iw
PM
IM
QW
SW
PB
OM
IB
Urban systems boundary broadly showing inflows (I),
outflows (O), internal flows (Q), storage (S) and production
(P) of biomass (B), minerals (M), water (W), and energy (E).
ww
(World
Bank
2012)
Booz Allen Hamilton
•
•
•
•
•
$41 trillion – energy, water, transport
Water = $22.6 trillion
Energy = $9 trillion
Road and rail = $7.8
Air/sea ports = $1.6
What kind of urban infrastructure? What technologies?
Who sets the criteria?
“...cities that ignore environmental impact will themselves
face another collapse of infrastructure 30 or 40 years
from now ...” Booz Allen Hamilton,
Strategy and Business, 2007
Lagos BRT
Medellin – cable car system
Seoul before …
Seoul after highway removed…
Sweden - biogas
India - biogas
New York’s new biogas digesters
SMART city agenda
• IBM
• CISCO
“Several decades from now cities will
have countless autonomous, intelligently
functioning IT systems that will have
• SIEMENS
perfect knowledge of users’ habits and
energy consumption, and provide
• ALSTROM
optimum service. The goal of such a city
is to optimally regulate and control
• VEOLIA
resources by means of autonomous IT
systems.” - Siemens
• PHILLIPS
…..made possible by post-2007
consolidation of the IT sector
Car-to-go scheme….book
online, select a car on the
street, access via card, tracked
via GPS
SMART City agenda…
seizing control of urban infrastructures is now a
competitive strategy that entails replacing the
(democratic) governance of urban space with new modes of
(semi-)privatized‘algorhythmic governance’
But on its own cannot succeed: key requirement is policy
certainty around long-term goals; shift in power from
finance capital (short-termism/capital gains/paper economy)
to
productive capital (long-termism/dividends/real economy)
grassroots movements – Water Justice movement (Latin America),
Shack/Slum Dwellers Internationa (SDI)
Kibera, Nairobi
Training of the Barefoot Solar Engineers
Also: upgradable to cater for
DC appliances: fridge, DVD,
TV, radio, stand-alone SHW
geyser with pump
Treasure Island, Masdar,
Dongtan, Auroville, Gaviotas,
BedZED, UK eco-towns, ecoblocks in China, global ecocities movement, eco-islands,
eco-industrial developments,
eco-villages, green ‘burbs’
Low/post carbon
cities, peak oil
cities, solar cities,
liveable cities,
‘TOP’ cities,
Clinton C40 league,
ICLEI, transition
towns, progressive
city coalitions
hydrogen,
biofuels, DHC,
greywater/
recycled water
systems, new solar
PV infrastructure,
SHW
Food, energy &
flood security;
desalinised water;
Curitiba BRT;
Orangi Pilot Project;
modern rickshaw
technologies
Key role of intermediaries
• new capacities outside existing city governance &
infrastructure management systems – stable &
trusted
• facilitating dialogue & coalitions re competing
visions & interests – not just ‘inside’ cities, but
also the ‘outside’ actors whose decisions affect
cities
• facilitates learning, engagement (elite/ popular),
niche-innovations & dissemination
• take many forms – networks are the key
Reinventing ourselves
• seeing cities as a reflection of ourselves
• what we desire has been defined by
modernisation
• but what we desire now contradicts what
science says is possible
• can we reinvent desire?
• can we build cities that have meaning?
“To be truly radical is to make hope possible,
rather than despair convincing.”
– Raymond Williams