Читать книгу The Outdoor Citizen - John Judge - Страница 10

Just as I’ve proposed the term “Outdoor Citizen,” I’d also like to pitch “Outdoor City” for your consideration. For me, an Outdoor City is a city rich with thriving green spaces easily accessible by all residents. It is forward thinking, with passionate Outdoor Citizen leaders championing the natural world in both the private and public sectors. It uses ever-increasing amounts of sustainable materials and practices, including a circular economy. It embraces technology to protect its natural assets, as well as local agriculture and environmentally friendly infrastructure and transportation, and it is abundant with outdoor recreation opportunities.

In 1933, the great French-Swiss architect Le Corbusier defined the keys to urban planning in his La Charte d’Athènes Paris (Charter of Athens). He wrote that “the four keys to urban planning are the four functions of the city: dwelling, work, recreation (use of leisure time), [and] transportation.”1 In today’s world, there is a fifth key: sustainability; it threads through each function and is a critical component of successful urban planning. A city’s sustainability refers to its ability to provide a high quality of life for its residents without causing environmental harm that will negatively affect the planet and the quality of life of future generations. A report from the World Commission on Environment and Economic Development, which has since become the Brundtland Commission, defines sustainable development by stating that it “seeks to meet the needs and aspirations of the present without compromising the ability to meet those of the future.”2

Creating a sustainable city requires that residents actively advocate for green spaces, outdoor recreation, and eco-friendly infrastructure, materials, and practices, and that city planners, architects, engineers, real estate developers, investors, and public officials prioritize nature and outdoors spaces. All too often, today’s developers focus on maximizing indoor space and overlook how residents would benefit from outdoor space. In an Outdoor City, outdoor-focused strategies, plans, and programming would be core elements of urban planning, not afterthoughts, and proposed construction projects would need to receive an outdoor-centric sign-off from an authority to confirm that outdoor spaces were integrated into building plans and that the proposed infrastructure wouldn’t endanger existing outdoor spaces, before they would be allowed to go forward.

City Upgrades

When I was the chief development officer for the city of Springfield, Massachusetts, a position I held from 2009 to 2011, I worked closely with city residents who knew the unique needs of their communities. We discussed ways to improve their neighborhoods—everything from adding green spaces to altering street layouts, fixing sidewalks to fostering economic development through urban renewal projects. We figured out how to best implement improvements, and I was able to help make those projects a reality by getting support from state government, and bringing together a team of designers, contractors, urban planners, and investors. The residents took an active role in improving their communities, and the collaboration was key to our success.

In my position as chief development officer, I had the privilege of working with Massachusetts State officials and the state’s commercial development entity, MassDevelopment, on an initiative called Gateway Cities. The program was designed to fund revitalization projects in cities that were struggling to find their economic footing. Most Gateway Cities were old mill and factory cities, legacy cities whose mills and factories had long since closed, and Springfield was one of them. During the American Revolution, the city was home to the Springfield Armory, which developed the first American musket and manufactured the Springfield rifles used during the Civil War. Later, it was home to the first assembly-line manufacturing, the mass production of vulcanized rubber, and key developments in the automobile industry, such as the United States’ first gasoline-powered car. But by the second half of the twentieth century, many of its manufacturing businesses had closed or moved elsewhere, and Springfield was in a state of decline.

With the support of the Gateway Cities program, we were able to renovate Springfield’s old federal building downtown, clean up a brownfield site (a formerly developed piece of land that had become vacant and possibly contaminated), and provide incentives for Springfield businesses to expand and others to relocate to Springfield. The city was one of fourteen Gateway Cities that existed during my time in office, and the program proved so successful that today there are twenty-six Gateway Cities in Massachusetts. The rejuvenation of Springfield and other Gateway Cities shows how city upgrades can be well implemented and how when community leaders and residents collaborate, they can positively transform even the most struggling cities.

Years before I worked with the city of Springfield, my friend Laurie Zapalac told me about legacy cities. Laurie has years of experience studying cities from an architectural and historic lens, and today has a PhD in Urban Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We would take walks along green spaces, like Boston’s Charles River Esplanade, and she would explain to me how a city’s past can be preserved even while it upgrades and moves into a more prosperous and healthy future. Laurie spoke about US legacy cities as well as the historic cities of Europe, and her enthusiasm and faith in the promise of cities always shined through. Today she specializes in urban regeneration and helping communities thrive, and I recently asked her about best practices for this. I thought her response would be tied to technology as a way to modernize, but instead she said that cities do best when they embrace the natural world in ways that help them move forward. Laurie said, “Now, more than ever, we’re seeing that nature is the first and best teacher.” She said cities’ investments in the natural world have rippling benefits; for example, an investment in the restoration of shellfish populations can improve water quality, grow food, and promote economic development; an investment in parks can offer participatory and immersive experiences in the natural world and promote multigenerational interactions.

Laurie says the best practices often emphasize multipronged approaches, and that it’s necessary to consider them while keeping in mind “how people and their environment evolve over time.” This reflects the importance she puts on sustainability—how to meet today’s needs while keeping those of future generations in mind—and on how our cities and communities can approach planning and economic development with an eye toward a new model of sustainable engagement marked by enriching experiences, progress tracking, and personal accountability.

Green Hubs

In 1634, America’s first city park, the Boston Common, was created. Today, the Boston Common (known locally as “the Common”) is enjoyed by millions of people each year. At each end is a subway stop to bring people from around the city to the Common and surrounding neighborhoods. Walking paths crisscross the fifty acres and connect pedestrians to concert venues, baseball diamonds, tennis courts, playgrounds, and a wading pond or ice-skating rink (depending on the season). I like to imagine that the natural parts of the Common haven’t changed much from when my grandparents enjoyed it in the 1920s, strolling through it or sitting on a bench under one of its trees to eat their lunch. I’m grateful to have enjoyed these experiences too, and I hope the park is maintained for future generations to do the same.

Many cities have a major park or outdoor space, like the Common in Boston, Millennium Park in Chicago, Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, and Central Park in New York, as their centerpiece. These public outdoor spaces are green hubs, centers of outdoor activity, and new life can be infused into legacy cities if they build or rejuvenate their own. City parks improve the lives of local residents, and draw new residents and tourists alike. When investments are made around well-designed green spaces, people flock to them for outdoor recreation, learning and engagement programs, fresh air, bird-watching, community gatherings, and more. These spaces improve human wellness and quality of life.

Parks also improve cities through the tremendous environmental benefits they offer. They buoy cities’ ecosystems by absorbing groundwater runoff and sequestering carbon dioxide, foster resiliency as the first defense against sea level rise and extreme weather, and lower the urban heat island effect—the increased warming of cities as a result of human activity, especially during hot days.

Embedding Sustainability through a Circular Economy

In Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, William McDonough and Michael Braungart lay out the pillars of sustainable design as material health, material reutilization, renewable energy, water stewardship, and social fairness.3 Core to sustainable design is that materials meet contemporary needs but can also be reused or repurposed to avoid waste. The authors write, “In a cradle-to-cradle conception, it may have many uses, and many users, over time and space.”4

The ability for materials to be reused and repurposed is a defining part of a circular economy, which uses resources for as long as possible (in contrast to a linear economy, which produces, uses, and disposes of resources more readily) and is embraced by sustainable cities. In a circular economy, a product has reached the end of its lifecycle only when it’s neither reusable on its own nor able to be incorporated into another product and repurposed. At this time, it is disassembled and breaks down through natural biodegradation or is returned to the Earth as a healthy supplement for nature. On a large scale, adopting a circular economy and a circular way of thinking can take a liability and turn it into a social good; for example, repurposing contaminated industrial land (like the brownfield site in Springfield), or reimagining abandoned manufacturing buildings and developing them so they benefit cities.

A circular economy requires civic and consumer demand, and a pervasive adoption by manufacturers who make a commitment to iterative improvements and the sharing of best practices. To install a circular economy, public officials and policy makers must set regulatory approaches to resource use, require that materials meet sustainability standards, and offer an industrialized rewards system to foster best practices in manufacturing. Consumers must demand and purchase sustainable products. Manufacturers, incentivized and ideally required to design products to be durable, reusable, environmentally friendly, and able to be repurposed, are the builders of the circular economy.

To effect deep impact across the board, behaviors need to change so that a circular economy is the norm. Rather than continually depleting our resources, a circular economy moves us closer to being a net positive contributor to nature’s health.

Spotlight: Palo Alto

Any mayor, city manager, or Outdoor Citizen could take a stroll through Palo Alto, California, and recognize the quality of this California gem. Palo Alto sits an hour’s drive south of San Francisco, and it shines from many vantage points—its proximity to Silicon Valley, its sunny and temperate weather, its wealth of arts and cultural attractions, its robust retail stores, its high-quality parks and outdoor infrastructure, and what bubbles from its renowned Stanford University. One of the city’s most ambitious recent efforts was the creation of its Parks, Trails, Natural Open Space and Recreation Master Plan. The 187-page plan was adopted in 2017 and is intended to serve the city for a twenty-year period.5 The process to develop the plan consisted of three phases:

Phase I: Community Engagement, Specific Site Analysis, and Program Analysis. This phase included development of a comprehensive inventory and analysis of all Palo Alto parks, trails, developed natural open space areas (picnic areas, parking lots), and recreational facilities and programs; analysis of current and forecasted demographic and recreation trends; and analysis of community recreation needs. It also included identification of community and stakeholder needs, interests, and preferences for system enhancements using a proactive community engagement process with a broad range of activities.

Phase II: Developing and Prioritizing Project and Program Opportunities. During this phase, Palo Alto developed goals, policies, and programs; identified capital projects, needed renovations, and other improvements; and prioritized actions into short, medium, and long-term implementation timelines using what was learned in Phase I The Palo Alto community provided feedback on priorities and programs through several activities.

Phase III: Master Plan Drafting, Review, and Adoption. In Phase III, the Parks and Recreation Commission (PRC), City Council, and Palo Alto community reviewed and refined the draft Master Plan, and Council adopted it. Community engagement opportunities were infused throughout the planning process. Engagement methods included a wide variety of tools and activities, offered within a range of formats, time frames, and levels of interaction, to engage with Palo Alto’s diverse community members in ways that were comfortable and convenient for them.6

Palo Alto and its outdoor-focused master plan should be an example to all cities looking to enhance their outdoor strategies; every city is unique, but the steps in the plan are universally doable. The first step is to understand what natural assets a city already has—for Palo Alto, this included thirty-two parks and four open space preserves covering approximately 4,165 acres of land—and to understand the outdoor needs of the community through both demographic data and community engagement. The second step is to decide what projects to pursue and set short, medium, and long-term goals. The third is to bring together community and public officials to finalize the plan.

Palo Alto’s method of community engagement included a project webpage, regular online and print communication and updates, face-to-face surveys at popular locations and community events, interactive workshops, online surveys, and more. The mayor and the city’s Community Services and Public Works Departments genuinely valued and pursued an understanding of what residents wanted. The plan also used extensive mapping to show areas where residents lacked access to parks and natural spaces within a quarter-mile of their homes, existing and planned bikeways and pedestrian routes that could be leveraged to improve park and recreation access, and more.

Spotlight: Will Rogers

I first met Will Rogers, the president emeritus of the Trust for Public Land (TPL), four years ago at a San Francisco Parks Alliance meeting. The San Francisco Parks Alliance champions and cares for parks and public spaces through support from community groups, local businesses, and city governments. Will was at the meeting as an advocate for what the Parks Alliance stands for; its values overlap those of the TPL, which creates parks, protects natural land—particularly in cities—and connects people with the outdoors. Will understands that conservation organizations can accomplish much more when they work together, and his team values kindness and collaboration. They have a core belief in the urgency of our collective conservation work and the importance of supporting one another. I liked him right away.

Will has big ideas and a guiding vision, and he’s incredibly effective. He’s approachable and accessible, and he connects people to the “why” of their work; its value, not just the steps necessary to get a project done. Under Will’s leadership, the Trust for Public Land developed its ParksScore index. The ParksScore index is “the most comprehensive evaluation of park access and quality in the 100 largest U.S. cities”7 and a tool for city leaders and their Outdoor Citizens to see where their city falls in comparison to others. Will told me that he believes city leaders are starting to see the awe-inspiring value of green spaces, from how they attract prospective residents to how they bring businesses looking to relocate. In Will’s words, “Cities are now thinking parks give them a competitive advantage and see the multiple benefits that parks provide—including addressing public health and climate change. From day one, we thought the connection with nature was vital and that people needed to be part of the solution or they would be part of the problem.”8

In 2017, TPL launched a “ten-minute walk” campaign aimed at making sure green spaces are within a ten-minute walk of all city dwellers in the United States. According to Will, “One hundred million people living in communities of need don’t have access to parks and green spaces. If we don’t get it right in cities, we are in big trouble.” Will told me that TPL hoped to get twenty-five mayors around the country to sign up for the ten-minute walk commitment, but ended up getting 140 mayors on board, greatly exceeding his team’s expectations. He thinks the program gets mayors’ competitive juices flowing.

Will also gave me case examples of cities embracing Outdoor City practices. He told me about how Los Angeles, California, made a “Green Bond Pledge” in 2018. The pledge is a declared commitment to building sustainable infrastructure, and a long-term investment in it. This type of investment is typically financed by bonds, and scrutinized by investors who check the projects’ sustainability and that they are adaptive and resilient to climate change. He also cheered on Chattanooga, Tennessee, which has reinvented itself through outdoor recreation and trails, and Houston, Texas, where, he says, 40 percent of residents are within a ten-minute walk of parks and the city aims to increase this to 70 percent by 2050. To reach this ambitious goal by 2050, Houston has adopted an innovative public-­private partnership called the Bayou Greenway Initiative, which will invest more than $220 million in the creation of a “ribbon of green:” 150 miles of continuous trails connected to three thousand acres of green spaces. It’s intended to be easily accessible to 1.5 million Houstonians.9

The green spaces created and advocated for as a result of the work of TPL and like-minded organizations add to our overall health and quality of life. It’s easy to see that the Bayou Greenway Initiative and others like it will become catalysts to get more people outdoors and to foster mobility, resiliency, and economic development.

Spotlight: Mount Auburn Cemetery

When you think of urban green spaces, parks are most likely at the forefront of your mind. But there are many kinds of urban green spaces, and cemeteries are one of the most underappreciated. Cemeteries are planned and laid out meticulously, with special attention to landscape design. They’re intended to be places of beauty and quiet reflection, but today many also host community events and programming open to the public on the land apart from the graveyard.

One of the nation’s most beautifully landscaped cemeteries is Mount Auburn Cemetery, which lies just outside of Boston. It is 170 acres, lush with a variety of plants, walking paths, fountains, and ponds, and both a National Historic Landmark and an active, contemporary cemetery. Governance of the cemetery is by an internal board of trustees and a community board, the Friends of Mount Auburn. It also has a Council of Visitors comprised of leaders in horticulture, landscape enhancement, historic preservation, and more. They work with the cemetery trustees and Friends of Mount Auburn to plan and host programs, and hold many events each month, bringing visitors for educational sessions, concerts, book club meetings, tours, and more. Bird-watchers, naturalists, and casual visitors are also regular guests. In total, Mount Auburn welcomes more than two hundred thousand people each year.10 It is always open to the public and there are no admission fees.

Mount Auburn Cemetery is an example of an institution and public space that has been holistically developed to incorporate environmentally and human-friendly infrastructure. Craig Halvorson, the landscape architect for the cemetery’s stunning Asa Gray Garden, one of the cemetery’s first open spaces to greet visitors, and for the landscaping surrounding the cemetery’s Bigelow Chapel, founded his architecture firm in 1980 and has also done extensive design work for the AMC. He told me that his goal has always been to infuse life and beauty into dense urban areas. With Mount Auburn, he wanted to create a vibrant public garden and arboretum.

Mount Auburn has balanced its larger goals with small-scale, incremental landscape improvements to enhance its natural systems. In a world where urban design can feel increasingly homogenized, Mount Auburn has developed a unique “spirit of place” while enhancing its greater urban neighborhood. Embracing the Mount Auburn model is a way for cities to increase the offering of their natural spaces, whether cemeteries or other spaces. Adding outdoor infrastructure and community programming, as has been done at Mount Auburn, makes them welcoming spaces that all residents can enjoy.

Affordable Housing

Nowhere is the disparity and inequity of access to green space more evident than in urban housing. Compact cities need safer and more affordable housing units close to city centers, so that their residents have easy access not only to the quality-of-life amenities that enrich urban life, but also to parks offering opportunities for time outside the home and outdoor recreation. Affordable housing also needs to be attractive so residents can connect with their homes and commit to their upkeep.

Habitat for Humanity is a nonprofit that works admirably to build affordable housing for low-income families. When I started working for Habitat for Humanity in 1997, folks in the neighborhoods I volunteered in were tired of the unattractive two- and three-­family homes that Habitat had been building. The volunteer-driven organization had done its best to secure experienced contractors, plumbers, and electricians, but the team was waning—working with the poor design of these buildings was uninspiring and draining. At the dedication of two new Habitat homes on Quincy Street in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood, Charlotte Golar Richie, then a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, pulled me aside. She said that while the families getting the homes were poor and in desperate need of housing, they deserved better. She said the bar on design needed to be raised, and she was right. There was a host of things Habitat needed to do to make their homes more attractive, and they could make them more environmentally friendly in the process.

When the late Pat Cook took on the role of Habitat’s construction manager, he made huge improvements in the design of the homes and also embraced sustainable resources. Pat was a proud member of Boston’s Dorchester community, and his method of embracing a circular economy and incorporating sustainable elements into home construction was cutting edge. Under Pat’s leadership, we created communities of well-designed, attractive, and eco-friendly homes. Habitat’s Boston branch became one of the first urban Habitat affiliates to incorporate recycled fiberboard for siding; high quality, “R-value,” insulation; passive heating window designs and window orientation; seasonal and drought-resistant planting; lower waste manufacturing through modular and panelized wall units; and high-efficiency water heaters. The new homes were more affordable for families to heat and operate, and we made sure that families knew how to do basic home maintenance and manage a maintenance and repair budget.

In the world of affordable housing, we often talk in terms of what is essential, what is desirable, and what is realistic. High-quality, environmentally friendly home design can meet all these criteria. But there are other valuable things that will improve the lives of the residents of affordable housing and can be done affordably. At the top of this list, and much too often overlooked, is making sure the homes are built in areas where critical amenities—transportation stations, schools, food stores, libraries, and health clinics—are easily accessible, and green spaces are in close proximity.

From courtyards and vegetable gardens to walking and cycling paths, easily accessible outdoor community spaces can go a long way toward helping people with physical limitations and people who need more space for being active. Local outdoor community spaces should be the norm, even for people living in affordable housing. They not only offer healthy sunshine, fresh air, and exercise, but also give people easy access to places outside their homes where they can be away from toxic people or activities that might otherwise be unavoidable.

There’s no doubt that many cities need to reinvent themselves, and that cities with high-quality affordable housing will be better positioned, with a more ecologically and economically sustainable structure in place, to do so—but we need to convince city officials and developers that this is the case. To receive funding, a positive expected return on investment will need to be shown. City officials need to be assured that high-quality affordable housing can be built with eco-friendly construction practices, which will include the use of sustainably harvested materials and energy-efficient utilities; generate a limited amount of waste; lower heating and water usage expenses; support a healthier indoor environment (particularly important for children’s development); and have less carbon emissions than low-quality affordable housing. They also need to be convinced that an investment will lead to stronger long-term resale values.

For developers, building high-quality affordable housing only makes financial sense if there is an immediate return on investment. This starts by increasing the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC)—the federal subsidiary that finances affordable housing, and is what has propelled many affordable housing developments around the United States. The problem with the LIHTC is that its tax credit is too low to allow developers to create high-quality affordable housing and still make a profit. Even if the architectural and design costs of affordable housing are less than those of traditional housing, the core costs are the same: builders pour foundations, frame homes, wire electricity, and lay pipes for heating, bathrooms, and kitchens the same way. Those costs cannot be avoided.

Unless there is private financing or the developer gets the land for free (donated by the municipality, underwritten by a foundation, or otherwise financed), building affordable housing is bad business. The market doesn’t justify building in low-income neighborhoods. But we can’t leave things as they are. Beyond the environmental impact of low-quality materials, low-quality housing developments pose threats to human health and the human condition. According to an article in the US National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine, “Poor housing conditions are associated with a wide range of health conditions, including respiratory infections, asthma, lead poisoning, injuries, and mental health [problems].”11 And they have a clear impact on the human condition. Tenement-style housing developments are packed with folks who haven’t been able to escape the yoke of poverty, and this is often passed from generation to generation.12 Residents need to be safe and have the sense of self-worth that living in decent housing conditions can bring. The next generation of housing needs to incorporate green spaces to help lift the spirits and transform the futures of residents. This will help break the cycle of poverty and offer tremendous benefits to human health and the economy.

Mobility Infrastructure

A chief goal of sustainable urban development is the strategic design and redesign of mobility infrastructure. Fixing existing infrastructure is multilayered. The twentieth-century trend toward motorization had profound positive implications on the development of cities; but for all the good that has come from Eisenhower-era interstate highways, they’ve also had negative consequences, such as surrounding cities in a way that cuts off access to waterfronts, parks, and natural spaces. State and county transportation authorities, major transportation companies, and city leaders should work together to reopen access to these areas and restore them using next-generation ecological design and modern engineering.

An Outdoor City’s design pays careful attention to its mobility plan. It maintains roads and highways and offers benefits to ride sharers who help decrease the number of vehicles on the road. It also encourages public transportation and other modes of transit that are more environmentally friendly than private cars. In an Outdoor City, there are transit centers that are municipal hubs, offering transportation to schools, stores, medical facilities, places of worship, office buildings, walking routes, and parks. These are essentially regional urban ecosystems, and can even house retail spaces and restaurants. A well-designed municipal hub grows a region’s economy, improves the quality of life of its residents, makes it more visitor friendly, and significantly lowers the city’s carbon footprint.

An example of a forward-thinking approach to municipal hubs is being used in the planning of one in and around Copenhagen, Denmark. The ten municipalities there are working with the Danish design firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) on a project called LOOP City, which would create a light rail system that extends around the entirety of Greater Copenhagen. The LOOP City light rail would have twenty-eight stops and provide the transportation infrastructure necessary for land outside the city to be more accessible and urbanization to be able to expand. BIG estimates that LOOP City will make enough land accessible that housing for 325,000 people and 280,000 workspaces can be built.13 According to BIG, “The infrastructure could become the base for a new sustainable ring of development around Copenhagen, and an artery of true urbanity pumping life into the heart of the suburbs.”14 They hope to have the light rail operational by 2024, and expect it to support the sustainable growth of the region for the next fifty years.

LOOP City is also planned to be cutting-edge in its green practices. In an article in eVolo magazine, Dennis Lynch wrote:

Perhaps more important to the overall growth of one of the world’s greenest cities is the opportunity the LOOP City concept provides for the implementation and integration of sustainable technologies that until now have not been employed on such a massive scale or in such close concert with one another. BIG incorporates into the LOOP City technologies from pneumatic waste collection pipe systems to integrated bike infrastructure to promote health and sustainability.15

In moving into a future of better transportation infrastructure, it’s also important to make sure the infrastructure can withstand extreme weather. With ever-increasing environmental threats, transportation infrastructure must be able to withstand all forms of potential natural disasters, and should offer spaces for people to be protected from the elements if need be. Alex Karner, an assistant professor in the School of City and Regional Planning at Georgia Tech, told me, “Creating refuges for commuters, such as heated bus shelters or cooling stations, will be crucial, as will shelters in areas with more spread-out populations.”

The Human-Powered Mobility Network

A human-powered mobility network refers to the infrastructure that supports human-powered transportation—activities such as walking, running, cycling, and skating. In an Outdoor City, a human-powered mobility network offers walking, running, and skating paths, bike lanes, and other locations for human-powered mobility.

A well-constructed human-powered mobility network is safe, well lit (ideally through solar power), and capable of withstanding extreme weather. In an Outdoor City, it is an attractive option to replace other modes of day-to-day transportation. People might choose to walk or bike to a destination to get sunshine and exercise, or because traditional transit is shut down, malfunctioning, or experiencing delays. They also might use it for first- and last-mile connections, so they don’t have to switch to another form of transportation. To encourage this, entrances to walking paths and bike lanes need to be near transit hubs, easily and safely accessible.

A human-powered mobility network supports exercise and recreation, and has multiple environmental benefits. The most obvious one is that human-powered transportation (walking, cycling, skating, skateboarding, riding a scooter, etc.) avoids the pollutants cars release. According to an article in Sciencing:

Car pollutants cause immediate and long-term effects on the environment. Car exhausts emit a wide range of gases and solid matter, causing global warming, acid rain, and harming the environment and human health. Engine noise and fuel spills also cause pollution. Cars, trucks and other forms of transportation are the single largest contributor to air pollution in the United States.16

In an article for World Watch magazine, Gary Gardner wrote about the CO₂ savings that can come from cycling instead of driving, writing: “A bicycle commuter who rides four miles to work, five days a week, avoids 2,000 miles of driving and (in the United States) about 2,000 pounds of CO₂ emissions, each year. This amounts to nearly a 5-percent reduction in the average American’s carbon footprint.”17

An estimated 80 to 90 percent of a car’s environmental impact results from its fuel consumption and emissions, which cause pollution and the greenhouse gases that are a leading cause of global warming.18 There are also less-talked-about environmental impacts from automobile manufacturing and disposal. According to a National Geographic article:

Automotive production leaves a giant footprint because materials like steel, rubber, glass, plastics, paints, and many more must be created before a new ride is ready to roll. Similarly, the end of a car’s life doesn’t mark the end of its environmental impact. Plastics, toxic battery acids, and other products may stay in the environment.19

Most human-powered mobility networks are limited only by small budgets or immutable transit policymakers who refuse to adequately support them. To reduce uncertainty in planning and funding, municipalities should require that any new real estate development or urban infrastructure project include funding to connect it with a human-powered mobility network.

Cities also need to guarantee that pedestrians, cyclists, and riders of “little vehicles”—skateboards, skates, scooters, hoverboards, and other forms that the future may bring—are kept safe while on the move. All too often, transportation lanes that should be differentiated overlap. Walkers and riders compete with cars, trucks, and buses for a slice of the road, and compete with one another—attempting to share a designated narrow and unforgiving space. In the United States in 2017, there were nearly six thousand pedestrians and 783 cyclists killed in crashes with motor vehicles.20 This marked a 31 percent increase since 2008. Safe, comprehensive strategies should be requirements of today’s cities, and are critical components of human-powered mobility networks.

Improvements for Pedestrians

Simple modifications, such as adding or improving crosswalks and sidewalks, can make cities more pedestrian friendly, but cities can also benefit from innovation. Vancouver, Canada, for example, is becoming one of the world’s most pedestrian-friendly cities. One of the steps it’s made toward this goal was its installation of two hundred detailed maps around the city. The maps provide direction and note the location of attractions, drinking fountains, and public bathrooms. Vancouver’s work to become more pedestrian-friendly will likely lower the number of cars on its roads, and thus the city’s carbon footprint. It has a stated mission to become the world’s greenest city by 2020.21

In the United States, an example of pedestrian-friendly innovation is New York City’s High Line. The High Line opened in 2009 and expanded in increments through 2018. Today it’s a 1.45-mile (twenty-two-block) elevated walking path made from an abandoned railway. It is exclusively for pedestrians, with bicycles, skateboards, skates, and scooters prohibited,22 and runs above street level along the west side of Manhattan. In 2015, the last year with publicly available data, 7.6 million people walked the High Line. More than 2.3 million of them were residents of New York City.23

The High Line has proven so popular that other cities have made plans to build similar infrastructure. In 2016, Friends of the High Line, the nonprofit that founded, funds, and maintains the High Line, launched the High Line Network to support and advise similar park projects in other cities. There are currently nineteen projects in the network, including Philadelphia’s Rail Park and Washington, DC’s 11th Street Bridge. Another city with an innovative pedestrian-­only stretch is Melbourne, Australia. Melbourne’s 2.5-mile-long Tan Track loops around its Royal Botanical Gardens, and provides easy pedestrian access to shops and restaurants located within Melbourne’s central business district. Like the High Line, it is for pedestrians only and enjoyed by locals and tourists alike.

All cities should have their own pedestrian-only walkways, and there is room for great creativity here—whether selecting an unusual place for a walkway, such as an abandoned railway, which Chicago and Atlanta also did, or using new and developing technology to make something futuristic. In Amsterdam, the technology start-up MX3D used robots and 3-D printing to build the structure of a steel pedestrian bridge, which is set to cross one of Amsterdam’s oldest canals. The company’s description of the project states:

MX3D equips industrial multi-axis robots with 3D tools and develops the software to control them. This allows us to 3D print strong, complex and gracious structures out of sustainable material—from large bridges to small parts.24

As 3-D printing evolves, it can be used to create more pedestrian-­friendly infrastructure from sustainable, repurposed materials. Outdoor Cities keep modern technology in mind, constantly considering how it can protect the environment and further people’s connection with the outdoors.

Improvements for Cyclists

Cycling is an excellent form of exercise, can be instrumental in pollution reduction, and is increasingly popular. From 2014 to 2017, the number of cyclists in the United States increased from forty-three million to forty-seven million, and from 2014 to 2018, the number of bike-sharing programs nearly doubled.25 The increase in the number of cyclists can be attributed to the rise in bike-share programs, which allow riders to commute by bike without having to own their own, and offer designated bike parking spaces.

The “bike-share boom”26 has been an international phenomenon. The first version of it was in Amsterdam in 1965, but was ultimately shut down after bikes were stolen and damaged. Thirty years later, in 1995, Copenhagen created a bike-share program, though it had the same problems. A year later, a system was invented at Portsmouth University in the United Kingdom to address the problem. Portsmouth’s system makes users swipe individualized magnetic stripe cards that allow the bikes to be tracked and their users to be known. In 1998, Rennes, France, became the first city with a citywide bike-share program. Shortly after, there was one in Lyon, France, and then they began to boom in big cities: Paris; Barcelona, Spain; Washington, DC; Montreal, Canada; Hangzhou, China; Mexico City, Mexico; Melbourne and Brisbane, Australia; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and elsewhere.

As of May 2018, more than sixteen hundred bike-share programs are in operation worldwide, providing eighteen million bicycles for public use.27 In the United States, there are more than one hundred bike-share programs. A report from the National Association of City Transportation Officials states that there were thirty-five million bike-share trips in 2017, a 25 percent increase from the previous year.28 Many cyclists now rely on these platforms to get around.

Some cities have met the needs of cyclists better than others. Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and Portland, Oregon, are considered some of the most bike-friendly cities in the world, meaning that biking is encouraged and city infrastructure was designed with cyclists’ safety in mind.29 In the United States, the League of American Bicyclists’ “Bike Friendly Communities” ratings gave high marks to Portland, Boulder (Colorado), Davis (California), Seattle, San Francisco, and Chicago.30

Chicago Transportation Commissioner Gabe Klein told me that Chicago has 248 miles of bike lanes. This encompasses protected lanes, buffered bike lanes, and marked share lanes, and Chicago hopes to raise this to 645 miles by 2020.31 Gabe said that the 2020 vision came about thanks to a partnership between Chicago’s Department of Transportation and citizen activists. In his words, “Chicago is a city of neighborhoods, and the people who know each neighborhood best are those that bike, walk, and drive them on a daily basis.” Gabe said that the city of Chicago envisions a network of bike lanes and bike trails that will boost the quality of life of its citizens, and that the plan is based on three guiding strategies:

1 Provide a bicycle accommodation, a pick-up/drop-off rack, within a half-mile of every Chicago resident.

2 Provide a greater number of bikeways near residential areas.

3 Increase the amount of bicycling infrastructure where ridership is high, and establish infrastructure where ridership is lower, but has the potential to grow.

How cities care for bike-share programs can extend to other sharing programs we have today or those that are yet to be developed. The first scooter-sharing program launched in San Francisco in 2012, and today they can be found throughout the US. The world’s largest ones are in Berlin, Germany, Madrid, and Paris. A report from the National Association of City Transportation Officials noted that riders took 38.5 million trips on shared electric scooters in 2018, eclipsing the 36.5 million trips on shared, docked bicycles (three million trips were on dockless bicycles).32 Scooter-sharing programs are dockless and allow users to pick up and drop off a scooter at any safe place on a public street within the city’s service area. Like bikes, scooters release far fewer carbon emissions than automobiles.33 It’s unclear what ride-share programs will exist in the future, but we need to guarantee they’ll be safe and environmentally friendly.

Changing Parking Spaces into Green Spaces

If a human-powered mobility network leads to fewer cars being purchased, there won’t be a need for as many parking spaces as we currently have and the associated cost of their development and upkeep. The land used for parking spaces could instead be used for urban green spaces.

Most of the world’s established cities have been designed to support the flow of automobile traffic, and parking spaces take up massive amounts of land.34 There has never been a study comprehensively evaluating parking in America (and exposing shortages and surpluses); however, a May 2018 “Special Report” from the Research Institute for Housing America confirmed a thesis that Donald Shoup proposed in his book Parking and the City: that far too much space and far too many resources are devoted to parking spaces in American cities.35 36

The study looked at five American cities as case examples: New York City, Philadelphia, Seattle, Des Moines (Iowa), and Jackson (Wyoming). The number of parking spaces in each city was, respectively: 1.85 million, 2.2 million, 1.6 million, 1.6 million, and 100,119. The average number of parking spaces per household was .06 for New York City, 3.7 for Philadelphia, 5.2 for Seattle, 19.4 for Des Moines, and 27 for Jackson. The study also showed the financial cost of the upkeep of these spaces, measured as the cost of replacements, and the average cost per household, given the population size of each city: $20.1 billion in New York City ($6,750 per household), $17.5 billion in Philadelphia ($29,974 per household), $35.8 billion in Seattle ($117,677 per household), $6.4 billion in Des Moines ($77,165 per household), and $711 million in Jackson ($192,138 per household).37

With high-quality human-powered mobility networks, people could increasingly forgo using automobiles. Work to reduce the number of automobiles on the road is currently being led by cities through benefits given to ride-sharers, such as designated High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) highway lanes (also known as carpool lanes), which may allow faster commutes; ride-hailing taxes, which increase the cost of Ubers and Lyfts in high-congestion areas, and thus may cause more people to instead use human-powered transportation or public transportation; and “pay to drive” taxes, another form of taxes imposed on driving in high-congestion areas. In April 2019, New York City became the first American city to implement a “pay to drive” tax. It targets drivers entering Manhattan and driving into its busiest neighborhoods, with the goal of encouraging more people to use public transportation or carpool.

The number of cars purchased may also be reduced through the automated cars of the future. In Robot, Take the Wheel, author Jason Torchinsky theorizes that we are on a path toward a future filled with automated cars. Torchinsky believes that this could be a future of more car shares and fewer individual car owners, and cars that “drive themselves” around all day instead of sitting in parking spaces.38

As we reduce the number of cars on the road, we need to repurpose the land devoted to parking spaces. It can be used for housing and retail, but Outdoor Cities will prioritize turning parking spaces into green spaces—replacing cars and concrete with parks and trees that absorb pollutants and odors, provide oxygen, clear air through carbon absorption, boost resiliency in the face of extreme weather, control greenhouse gases to combat climate change, and cool city streets.39 It’s a healthier future for our bodies and our planet.

Greenbelts

Wrapping around the Greater Boston area between interstate highways Route 495 and Route 95/128 is the Bay Circuit Trail (BCT), a 230-mile trail that passes through fifty-seven communities. The trail mostly winds through wooded areas, but it also cuts through parks, conservation land, and other green spaces. For the nearly four million people who live in the Boston metropolitan area, it offers a close-to-home path to walk, hike, cycle, or horseback ride. The communities along the way comprise all economic classes. Connected by the trail are some of Greater Boston’s most affluent communities and some of its struggling ones.

Conceived of in 1929, the BCT was the brainchild of Benton MacKaye, a forester, planner, and conservationist who, earlier that same decade, conceived of the Appalachian Trail, which was the AMC’s biggest urban trail effort. MacKaye envisioned a ring of greenery, an “outer emerald necklace,” circling the densely populated Boston area.40 The Great Depression and residential and commercial developments delayed the realization of much of MacKaye’s original vision, but interest in the project was renewed in the 1980s. In 1990, the Bay Circuit Alliance (BCA) formed and it saw the BCT through to completion.

Alan French was chair of the BCA through 2016. A former selectman and sporting goods store owner in Andover, Massachusetts, Alan made it his mission to see that MacKaye’s vision was carried out. MacKaye saw the potential the greenbelt held to draw urbanites to the outdoors and serve as a catalyst for economic development, and Alan carried these goals with him as he traveled to the fifty-seven BCT communities along the greenbelt and sold them all on the idea of building it. In November 2016, with great respect and appreciation for Alan’s work, the Appalachian Mountain Club took over the leadership of the BCA. Today the AMC leads dozens of groups on trails through the BCT and works daily to move closer to MacKaye’s ideal. The AMC has also raised more than two million dollars to fund trail work, policy efforts, land acquisition, and trail signage. The funds come from local supporters, and we have thousands of volunteers. The BCT is better utilized than we could have imagined, and we’re proud of the work.

Across the Atlantic, Sheffield, England, was one of the first cities to begin planning a greenbelt, which it did 1938, and the UK continues to value them today. The UK’s national Green Belt policy set out in its Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government’s 2012 National Planning Policy Framework describes the intention of creating greenbelts. It reads:

The government attaches great importance to Green Belts. The fundamental aim of Green Belt policy is to prevent urban sprawl by keeping land permanently open; the essential characteristics of Green Belts are their openness and their permanence.41

The policy identifies five purposes for greenbelts:

1 to check the unrestricted sprawl of large built-up areas;

2 to prevent neighboring towns from merging into one another;

3 to assist in safeguarding the countryside from encroachment;

4 to preserve the setting and special character of historic towns; and

5 to assist in urban regeneration, by encouraging the recycling of derelict and other urban land.42

According to the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), the fourteen greenbelts England has today “cover more than 6,000 square miles (15,500 square kilometres) of land, around . . . [its] largest, most historic towns and cities.” England’s greenbelts showcase the country’s work to combat unbridled sprawl while underpinning the sustainable vision of a compact city.43 They have permanent protection, but still face constant threats from developers emboldened by the introduction of a new National Planning Policy Framework in 2012 that allows local municipalities to redesignate greenbelt land and remove conservation restrictions.44 A 2018 report from the CPRE states that nearly 12,000 acres of greenbelt have been lost—“the equivalent of around 5,000 football pitches”—since 2012.45

Other greenbelts around the world include the thriving and beautiful Congo Nile Trail in Rwanda, Milford Track in New Zealand, and the Île-de-France greenbelt just outside Paris. Where greenbelts have been developed, they’ve flourished and proven sustainable catalysts for communities to spend more time outdoors.

It’s not necessary to be a Benton MacKaye or an Alan French to bring a greenbelt to one’s community. Outdoor Citizens should speak with their local municipality leaders, conservation nonprofits, urban agriculture groups, potential funders, and others, and begin sketching what the greenbelt could look like. A grassroots effort and substantial interaction with local leaders are the keys to success.

Staffing an Outdoor City

We need to rise to face significant and shifting needs. The outdoors requires champions to carry the flag of stewardship and innovation and pursue a bold outdoor-centric agenda. But while there should be a movement of Outdoor Citizenship, there also needs to be a representative at the municipal level who can liaise with city officials to set an outdoor strategy and initiatives, and help secure funding. The person would be appointed the city’s Outdoor Officer (or OO)—a role I’ve long thought needs to exist.

In my opinion, a city needs an OO just as much as it needs a director of public works or director of economic development. It is insufficient to simply have Departments of Parks and Recreation or Departments of Natural Resources. There needs to be a specific position that oversees a city’s broad outdoor strategy. Municipalities need on-the-ground leaders who intimately know the communities they serve. The role is tantamount to the prioritization of a city’s long-term outdoor strategy, and the OO would champion and spearhead outdoor-centric initiatives. An Outdoor City’s success can be contingent on having the right OO.

My time in government gave me perspective on how some people survive in government roles for decades, despite stressful red tape and bureaucracy. What I realized is that for many longtime government employees, bureaucratic exhaustion has set in. They have endured the government’s version of whack-a-mole—offering new ideas, new approaches, and innovation only to be shot down (whacked) time and again—for so long that they have gotten used to it, and have often given up proposing new ideas. It is a culture of rejection that incites a risk aversion—something not tolerated in a high-­performing organization, but pervasive in other places, like government. The OO will need to be indefatigable and savvy enough to break through bureaucracy, no matter how insurmountable it may seem.

The OO will also need to have Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals (BHAGs)—a wonderful term for a strategic vision plan coined by James Collins and Jerry Porras46—and a concrete plan to achieve them. The OO’s plan should galvanize the entire machinery of government, the private and nonprofit sectors, and the broader citizenry, and the OO should work closely with a diverse team of designers, engineers, influencers, community organizers, and advocates to push his or her outdoor agenda to its full potential. The officer should also guarantee that no new construction or other change negatively affects existing green spaces or human access to them.

The OO position could be realized in several different ways. It could be incorporated into the current Parks and Recreation Department director’s role, so the director takes a broader, more dynamic role in planning the city’s outdoor strategies, or it could be a newly developed senior executive position, with the person on the mayor’s board of senior advisors. Alternatively, it could be a “budget-positive” fellow, with the person’s salary privately funded and not pulled from the city’s budget, or funded through a combination of public and private resources. But even if there’s private funding, the OO needs to be a senior advisor to the mayor, so he or she has the clout to sit with the mayor, city manager, and other city department heads and get the support necessary to implement initiatives including:

1 Creating, developing, and protecting green spaces.

2 Guaranteeing green spaces are within walking distance of all residents.

3 Developing outdoor programming and outdoor recreation.

4 Turning the city into a resilient and sustainable place.

5 Developing a safe human-powered mobility network.

6 Fostering Outdoor Citizenship and engagement with the natural world.

The OO’s initiatives will need to include ones that immediately benefit residents, as well as long-term sustainable action plans. A dynamic and healthier Outdoor Citizenry will be an important byproduct of the OO’s longer-term impact, as will turning the city into a full Outdoor City. The results will improve residents’ health and quality of life, and the environment will be protected. There will also be a ripple effect in things like voter participation, philanthropy, and volunteer service. As the effectiveness of the OO’s work becomes increasingly noticeable, I expect the person’s department will grow in size and other cities will appoint their own OOs.

Restoring Green Spaces

We should look for ways to green our cities, to make them more sustainable, and to create stronger natural ecosystems. One way to do this is by cleaning and replenishing spaces that were formerly green spaces, but today house abandoned buildings or landfills, the results of urban sprawl. Over the years, developers have cleared land of stone, soil, and trash to build warehouses, offices, and housing, moving the stone, soil, and trash to create landfills on coastlines, wetlands, forests, and marshes. Tragically, the landfills often contaminate water supplies and aquifers, and the tremendous latent power the land had for disaster reduction and recovery is depleted.

It’s time to recalibrate our development goals and restore natural areas to their full potential. Historic maps and photographs can provide a starting step, showing us what natural areas used to look like; what once existed. We should also look at neglected spaces with a fresh eye, considering which could be transitioned into green spaces. Imagine changing the spaces beneath highways and bridges or above rail yards and rail lines into lush green spaces. We could also transition highway median strips and unused roadways, and do away with disruptive and unused electricity and telecom infrastructure, including grids, poles, and wires tarnishing what could be an attractive and thriving green space. The changes would improve the aesthetics of a city and the addition of trees would clean the air.

Emergency Preparation

It’s critical that cities have plans to prepare for natural disasters, particularly as global warming causes increasingly devastating ones. The disaster response plan New York City had in place when Hurricane Sandy hit in October 2012 was critical. The storm left many residents without food, electricity, and clean water and caused billions of dollars in damage, but the devastation would have been far worse without the advance planning the plan implemented.

One example is the work done by the leaders of the city’s public transit, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). In advance of Hurricane Irene a year prior, the MTA developed a “storm prep mode,” which it used to prepare for Hurricane Sandy. The evening before Sandy hit, the MTA ordered a system-wide shutdown of the subway system, and subway trains and buses were moved to higher ground to avoid damage from floodwater. Reflecting on this later, MTA chairman Joseph Lhota said:

We sealed as much as we could, and at the same time we wanted to get the rolling stock up to higher ground in the event of a surge of water. . . . At the LIRR [the Long Island Railroad] there were all kinds of preparations. The wind was projected to be 70 miles per hour and at 70 mph those wooden crossing gates will snap. So we took them off or tied them down.47

After the storm passed, the floodwater was pumped out of the subway and all public transportations vehicles were returned to where they belonged and reconnected to their power sources. By November 3, six days after the storm, 80 percent of the subway system was operating again. Without proper planning, the storm could have been a catastrophe for the city’s public transportation, which New Yorkers rely on. As a comparison, Lhota said, “New Jersey lost a lot of locomotives because they didn’t put their rolling stock onto high ground.”48 According to a statement from the New Jersey Transit Corporation after the storm:

Hurricane Sandy caused major damage throughout the state, leaving behind long-term mechanical and operational challenges that NJ Transit is working tirelessly to overcome. This will take time, and the blow delivered by Hurricane Sandy will continue to impact customers for days to come.49

New York City’s boroughs also take disaster precautions. The city has 578 miles of coastline, which includes fourteen miles of beaches,50 and beachfront neighborhoods need to be on special alert when a hurricane is approaching. Hurricane Sandy took an especially hard hit on the northern part of the Rockaways neighborhood, located in the city’s Queens borough, so with the support of federal and local government, the coastal neighborhood planted six miles of sand dunes and built a five-and-a-half-mile boardwalk. The community is also raising money to fund an Army Corps of Engineers project that would include floodwalls, levees, jetties, dunes, and a larger sand barrier to defend against rising sea levels.51

Residents of the Rockaways are also developing new infrastructure projects to strengthen the neighborhood. The Rockaways Courthouse, for example, was built in 1932 and is a twenty-four-thousand-foot building that has been vacant for thirty years. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the New York City Economic Development Corporation selected a developer to renovate the building into a medical center. It will house doctors providing medical and outpatient surgical services in specialties including ophthalmology, urology, obstetrics, gynecology, and orthopedics. It will be open all year and will also be an active medical center helping residents in the event of another natural disaster. Representative Gregory Meeks said, “Hurricane Sandy underscored the importance of having storm-secured, flood-protected, state-of-the-art medical facilities readily accessible to Rockaway neighborhoods and communities.”52

Another good example to look to is the Netherlands, where sustainable development makes optimal use of geography and existing structures. The Netherlands has a very low elevation, with about one third of the country below sea level—the lowest point being twenty-­two feet below sea level. By necessity, the country had to develop creative solutions to avoid flooding from nearby rivers after storms; this was tantamount to its survival and prosperity. To do this, the country developed an extensive system of dikes (natural and man-made drainage ditches), sand dunes, water pumps, and floodgates.

The Netherlands’s port city of Rotterdam has implemented innovations worthy of the aspirations of the fourth industrial revolution. Its lakes, roadways, garages, and city parks can double as emergency reservoirs when seas and rivers spill over, preventing flooding that could otherwise cause human tragedy and billions of dollars in damage. New York Times writer Michael Kimmelman wrote about this in his article titled, “The Dutch Have Solutions to Rising Seas. The World is Watching”:

Lately the city, accustomed to starting over, has reinvented itself as a capital of enterprise and environmental ingenuity. It has pioneered the construction of facilities like those parking garages that become emergency reservoirs, ensuring that the city can prevent sewage overflow from storms now predicted to happen every five or 10 years. It has installed plazas with fountains, gardens and basketball courts in underserved neighborhoods that can act as retention ponds. It has reimagined its harbors and stretches of its formerly industrial waterfront as incubators for new businesses, schools, housing and parks.53

Another city working on plans to prevent destruction in the wake of natural disasters is Mexico City. Mexico City was one of the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities initiative, which opened in 2013 and helped eighty cities around the world implement “comprehensive resilience strategies . . . projects that will make cities more livable, sustainable, and resilient.54 Michael Berkowitz, the president of 100 Resilient Cities, described the mission by saying, “It is about building better infrastructure, community cohesion, and taking advantage of the natural environment.”55

Mexico City has more than eight million residents, making it the twenty-third-most-populated city in the world. When I visited, I was amazed by the city’s energy, beauty, culture, and abundant humanity. Its architecture is also incredible, with centuries-old stones surrounded by mortar that has been reapplied over the years. The broad, tree-lined boulevards recall European ones, and it has a rich cultural scene. But while the city has a wealth of good qualities, it also has an Achilles heel: it is highly susceptible to natural disasters. Mexico City began as the city of Tenochtitlan, an artificial island built by the Aztecs who dumped soil into the center of Lake Texcoco. After, the Spaniards built Mexico City atop the ruins of Tenochtitlan. Today, Mexico City’s location—sitting on a massive landfilled lake—makes it a prime spot for earthquakes and floods. As you walk around the city, you can see the settling that has occurred at some of the its oldest structures, including government buildings, museums, and cathedrals—testament to past earthquakes and the minimal support the soft bed of Lake Texcoco provides for the city’s buildings. According to the 100 Resilient Cities project:

Mexico City faces significant danger from natural phenomenon. Its geographical conditions make it continually susceptible to seismic hazards, and being located on land that was once a lake makes the city prone to flooding. Runoff from the nearby mountains is improperly managed, which, in addition to flooding, can lead to mudslides and diseases born from standing water.56

Arnoldo Kramer, Mexico City’s chief resilience officer, explains:

Climate change has become the biggest long-term threat to this city’s future. And that’s because it is linked to water, health, air pollution, traffic disruption from floods, housing vulnerability, to landslides—which means we can’t begin to address any of the city’s real problems without facing the climate issue.57

With the help of the 100 Resilient Cities project, Kramer and his team, and Miguel Ángel Mancera, the head of government of Mexico City at the time, developed a strategy to mitigate worst-case scenarios and build resiliency. The government launched a program named Resilient CDMX: Adaptive, Inclusive and Equitable Transformation, and Arnoldo Kramer was appointed its director of resilience. According to the 100 Resilient Cities project, the Resilience Strategy of CDMX was structured around five priorities, described as follows:

1 Regional Coordination: The plan aims to create an institutional strategy for 2030 and promote cross-cutting agenda between institutions.

2 Water Resilience: The main objective is to create a “Water Fund” for Mexico City, develop a culture of responsible consumption, and rescue aquifer zones.

3 Urban and Regional Resilience: This priority seeks to promote the recovery and development of green urban areas, build green infrastructure that can drive hydrologic restoration in iconic public spaces, and provide environmental education.

4 Comprehensive, Safe, and Sustainable Mobility: The aim is to create an integrated public transport system through increasing quality and quantity as well as promoting innovative transport models.

5 Innovation and Adaptive Capacity: The city will seek to drive innovation for integrated risk management.58

Mexico City’s initiatives were incredibly meaningful, just as the ones developed in New York and Rotterdam were, and as cities build their own plans they need to keep in mind their unique landscape, economy, building stock, transportation options, climate, and geographic size. Communities face different challenges, so there is no set formula when it comes to outdoor planning and disaster-prevention planning. But we can take lessons from cities that are already making strides toward long-term sustainability.

Tree Challenges

In the early 1970s, Dutch elm trees were dying by the thousands from Dutch elm disease, a fungus from elm bark beetles that made its way from Europe to the United States. The American elm had been one of the United States’ fastest-growing trees and was commonplace in many towns. In New England and elsewhere, canopies of elm trees blanketed some of the cities’ most beautiful streets. But the very ubiquity of the trees proved fatal. They were planted very close together, and the trees spread the fungus through their tangled underground roots. The decimation was quick and difficult to contain. The first case of Dutch elm disease reported in the United States was in 1928, and the outbreak in the 1970s and 1980s was horrific. To date, it’s estimated that the disease has killed more than forty million American elms.59

My father honored every tree as sacred. When I was a kid, an elm in our backyard contracted the disease. He sent away for a kit that promised to help, and weeks later a large cardboard box arrived in the mail. It contained what looked like a hundred tubes and other pieces to assemble a Rube Goldberg machine. We drilled holes around the circumference of the base of the trunk of the diseased tree and then inserted clear tubes into it through a pressurized pump in the root-flared system. I was tasked with pumping the fungicide serum into the tree root three times a day. I’m not sure if the tree is alive today, but it definitely lived beyond the time we moved from that home years later. The experience instilled in me an appreciation for trees and a fierce desire to protect them, like my father had.

The loss of the forty million American elms remains memorable for arborists, tree wardens, and parks supervisors who are in their late forties or older. It’s important to share this history of Dutch elm disease to show how quickly the health and survival of valuable natural assets can be endangered. Today, elms are hatching a return and making a healthy comeback in many cities. Hybrid elms, which have been crossbred to incorporate the genes of other plants, are more resistant to Dutch elm disease. But other trees are in danger, particularly urban ones.

For urban trees, challenges abound, from the encroachment of overdevelopment to the toxicity of soil to neglect and vandalism. Urban trees and other city-based species live a fraction of the lifespan of their rural counterparts. One study suggested that downtown trees have an average lifespan of seven years, compared to thirty-two for suburban; another suggested thirteen years for downtown trees, thirty-seven for residential, and 150 for rural.60

Nadine Galle and her organization, Green City Watch, work to determine forest cover and tree strength in urban areas, and she told me that they utilize geospatial data and artificial intelligence to inform their findings. Their research has shown that many urban areas have cut back on forest cover, which has led to more fragile ecosystems. A report in the journal Urban Forestry & Urban Greening confirmed the loss, showing that between 2009 and 2014, US urban tree coverage fell from 40.4 percent to 39.4 percent, an annual “urban/community tree cover loss” of 175,000 acres, or 36 million trees. This resulted in an estimated benefits loss of $96 million per year—a dollar cost translated from the capacity of trees to remove air pollution, sequester carbon, conserve energy by shading buildings, and reduce power-plant emissions.61

To counter urban tree loss, a number of cities have undertaken Million Tree Initiatives to add one million trees to their cities through planting and the giving away of free trees. In 2005, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa planted a tree his second day in office and announced a plan, Million Trees LA, to plant one million trees in Los Angeles. When he left office eight years later, more than 400,000 trees had been planted.62 Since then, City Plants has taken over the initiative. City Plants was already a partner of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which had launched a program called Trees for a Green LA in 2001, and today, in collaboration with six nonprofits and several city departments, City Plants plants and distributes twenty thousand trees each year.63 Denver, Boston, Shangai, London, Ontario, and other cities have their own initiatives. Incredibly, Ethiopia planted more than 350 million trees in a twelve-hour period in June 2019, a world record, made possible by millions of Ethiopians who took part in a challenge that was a part of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s Green Legacy Campaign.

The only city in the US to have reached its goal to plan one million trees is New York City as part of its Million Trees NYC campaign. The campaign came about when then-mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York Restoration Project (NYRP) Founder Bette Midler were viewing six hundred blossoming cherry trees along the Harlem and Hudson rivers that NYRP had planted. It’s said that “Bette turned to the Mayor and said ‘why should we stop here? We should plant one million!’”64 At the time, no other city had achieved this, but the city achieved its objective through three strategies:65 1. Giving away trees to private homeowners in areas with especially poor tree coverage, which “catalyzed the planting of 195,465 trees in residents’ front and backyards.” 2. Utilizing a mix of public and private funding. In 2007, the city committed $350 million to plant 750,000 trees. In 2008, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and David Rockefeller contributed $10 million, and other large donors, from Home Depot to TD Bank to Toyota, contributed more than $1 million. 3. Having committed leadership. Local NYC government and the NYRP, a non-governmental organization, committed to seeing the project through, and New York residents supported it. Inspired by the success of Million Trees NYC, Milan, Italy, utilizing its partnership with Michael Bloomberg’s not-for-profit consultancy Bloomberg Associates, launched a plan in June 2019 to plant three million trees by 2030.

1 “Cultural Heritage Policy Documents: Charter of Athens (1933),” The Getty Conservation Institute, https://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/research_resources/charters/charter04.html.

2 World Commission on Environment and Development, Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future, 1987, http://www.un-documents.net/our-common-future.pdf.

3 William McDonough and Michael Braun gart, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (New York: North Point Press, 2002), 139.

4 Ibid.

5 Palo Alto Parks, Trails, Natural Open Space and Recreation Master Plan Adopted September 2017, https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/64161.

6 Ibid.

7 “2019 ParkScore Rankings,” The Trust for Public Land, https://www.tpl.org/parkscore.

8 Will Rogers in email interview with author, November 17, 2017.

9 “Bayou Greenways 2020,” Houston Parks Board, https://houstonparksboard.org/­about/bayou-greenways-2020.

10 “Visit Mount Auburn,” Mount Auburn Cemetery, https://mountauburn.org/visit/.

11 James Krieger and Donna L. Higgins, “Housing and Health: Time Again for Public Housing,” Am J Public Health 92, no. 5 (2002): 758–768. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447157/.

12 Mary Corcoran, “Rags to Rags: Poverty and Mobility in the United States,” Annual Review of Sociology 21 (1995): 237–267.

13 Dennis Lynch, “LOOP City in Copenhagen / Bjarke Ingels Group,” eVolo, January 25, 2011, http://www.evolo.us/loop-city-in-copenhagen-bjarke -ingels-group/.

14 “Loop,” Loop City, Projects, BIG Bjarke Ingels Group, https://big.dk/#projects-loop.

15 Lynch, “Loop City in Copenhagen.”

16 Jenny Green, “Effects of Car Pollutants on the Environment,” Sciencing, updated March 13, 2018, https://sciencing.com/effects-car-pollutants-environment-23581.html.

17 Gary Gardner, “Power to the Pedals,” World Watch Magazine 23, no. 4 (July–August 2010), http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6456.

18 “The Environmental Impact of Cars, Explained,” Reference, National Geographic, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/green-guide/buying-guides/car/environmental-impact/.

19 Ibid.

20 “Safety,” Ped Bike Info, Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center, http://www.pedbikeinfo.org/factsfigures/facts_safety.cfm.

21 City of Vancouver, Greenest City: 2020 Action Plan, https://vancouver.ca/files/cov/Greenest-city-action-plan.pdf.

22 “The High Line: The High Line Basics: Know Before You Go,” NYC Parks, https://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/the-high-line/highlights/19650.

23 Adam Ganser, “Highline Magazine: B1g Data and Parks,” January 18, 2017, https://www.thehighline.org/blog/2017/01/18/high-line-magazine-b1g-daa -and-parks/.

24 “MX3D Bridge,” MX3D, https://mx3d.com/projects/bridge/.

25 Christina Gough, “Cycling – Statistics & Facts,” Statista, September 11, 2018, https://www.statista.com/topics/1686/cycling/.

26 Sarah Goodyear, “The Bike-Share Boom,” CityLab, https://www.citylab.com/city-makers-connections/bike-share/.

27 Felix Richter, “Bike-Sharing Clicks into Higher Gear,” Statista, July 3, 2018, https://www.statista.com/chart/14542/bike-sharing-programs-worldwide/.

28 “Bike Share in U. S.: 2017,” National Association of City Transportation Officials, updated April 17, 2019, https://nacto.org/bike-share-statistics-2017/.

29 “Lists: 15 of the World’s Most Bike-Friendly Cities,” Mental Floss, http://mentalfloss.com/article/76848/15-worlds-most-bike-friendly-cities.

30 League of American Bicyclists, Bicycle Friendly America: The Blueprint, 2011, https://www.bikeleague.org/sites/default/files/bfa_blueprint_0.pdf.

31 Chicago Department of Transportation, Chicago Streets for Cycling Plan 2020, 2012, https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/depts/cdot/bike/general/ChicagoStreetsforCycling2020.pdf.

32 “84 Million Trips Taken on Shared Bikes and Scooters Across the U. S. in 2018,” National Association of City Transportation Officials, April 17, 2019, https://nacto.org/2019/04/17/84-million-trips-on-shared-bikes-and-scooters/.

33 Susan Shaheen, PhD, Apaar Bansal, and Nelson Chan, “Mobility and the Sharing Economy: Industry Developments and Early Understanding of Impacts” (paper, University of California Berkeley, 2017), https://cloudfront.escholarship.org/dist/prd/content/qt96j5r729/qt96j5r729.pdf.

34 Richard Florida, “Parking Has Eaten American Cities,” CityLab, July 24, 2018, https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/07/parking-has-eaten-american -cities/565715/

35 5 Ibid.

36 Donald Shoup, Parking in the City (New York, Routledge, 2018) https://www.routledge.com/Parking-and-the-City/Shoup/p/book/9781138497122.

37 Eric Scharnhorst, Quantified Parking: Comprehensive Parking Inventories for Five U.S. Cities (Washington, D.C.: Research Institute for Housing America, May 2018).

38 Jason Torchinsky, Robot, Take the Wheel: The Road to Autonomous Cars and the Lost Art of Driving (New York: Apollo Publishers, 2019).

39 “Top 22 Benefits of Trees,” TreePeople, https://www.treepeople.org/tree-benefits.

40 Brion O’Connor, “The Bay Circuit: Boston’s Outer Emerald Necklace,” The Trustees, http://www.thetrustees.org/what-we-care-about/community/the-bay-circuit.html.

41 Ministries of Housing, Communities & Local Government, 2012 National Planning Policy Framework (March 2012), https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20180608213715/https://www.gov.uk/guidance/national-planning-policy-framework.

42 Ibid.

43 “Green Belts,” What We Do, Housing & Planning, Campaign to Protect Rural England, www.cpre.org.uk/what-we-do/housing-and-planning/green-belts.

44 “Why England’s Green Belt is Disappearing at an Alarming Rate,” The Week, August 6, 2018, https://www.theweek.co.uk/95614/why-england-s-green-belt -is-disappearing-at-alarming-rate.

45 Ibid.

46 James Collins and Jerry Porras, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies (New York: HarperCollins, 1994).

47 Vincent Barone, “MTA chairman Joe Lhota recounts managing Sandy response in 2012,” amNewYork, October 26, 2017, https://www.amny.com/transit/mta-sandy-response-lhota-1.14641557.

48 Ibid.

49 NJ Transit, https://www.njtransit.com/var/var_servlet.srv?hdnPageAction =HurricaneSandyTo.

50 Walks of New York, “NYC by the Numbers,” https://www.walksofnewyork.com/blog/nyc-by-the-numbers.

51 Luis Ferré-Sadurní, “Could the Rockaways Survive Another Sandy?” New York Times, July 13, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/13/nyregion/rockaways-beaches-hurricane-sandy.html.

52 New York City Economic Development Corporation, “Mayor Bloomberg Announces Restoration of Rockaway Courthouse, Transforming Historic Building Into a New Medical Center,” April 24, 2013, https://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/146-13/mayor-bloomberg-restoration-rockaway -courthouse-transforming-historic-building-a.

53 Michael Kimmelman, “The Dutch Have Solutions to Rising Seas. The World is Watching,” New York Times, June 15, 2017.

54 Rockefeller Foundation, “About Us,” https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/about-us/.

55 100 Resilient Cities, “An Update from 100 Resilient Cities,” https://www.100resilientcities.org/update-from-100rc/.

56 100 Resilient Cities, “Mexico City’s Resilience Challenge,” https://www.100resilientcities.org/cities/mexico-city/.

57 Michael Kimmelman, “Mexico City, Parched and Sinking, Faces a Water Crisis,” New York Times, February 17, 2017.

58 100 Resilient Cities, “The CDMX government presents the Resilience Strategy for the City,” September 6, 2016, https://100resilientcities.org/the-cdmx-government-presents-the-resilience-strategy-for-the-city/.

59 Cleora J. D’arcy, “Dutch Elm Disease,” The Plant Health Instructor, 2000, https://www.apsnet.org/edcenter/disandpath/fungalasco/pdlessons/Pages/DutchElm.aspx.

60 Lara A. Romana and Frederick N. Scatena, “Street tree survival rates: Meta-analysis of previous studies and application to a field survey in Philadelphia, PA, USA,” Urban Forestry & Urban Greening (2011), http://www.actrees.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/roman-scatena-2011-street-tree-mortality.pdf.

61 David J. Nowak and Eric J. Greenfield, “Declining urban and community tree cover in the United States,” Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 32 (May 2018), https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1618866717307094?via%3Dihub#!.

62 Times Editorial Board, “L.A.’s million trees, more or less,” Los Angeles Times, April 23, 2013, https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-xpm-2013-apr-23-la-ed-million-trees-mayor-villaraigosa-20130423-story.html.

63 City Plans, “Our Story,” https://www.cityplants.org/our-story/.

64 New York Restoration Project, “NYC just planted 1 million trees. Here’s how we did it,” https://www.nyrp.org/blog/nyc-just-planted-1-million-trees-heres -how-we-did-it.

65 Ibid.