Liveable Cities

 
By Tjasa Oresnik

My friends and I have been, over the years, involved in many projects focusing on sustainability, protection of the environment, water and carbon footprint, preservation of forests, recycling. We still are a part of some of those projects, and we enjoy learning, collaborating, and participating. We also wanted to create a project of our own - a community project - where literally anyone can join and be a part of it, without (many) rules.

Just before this year's summer break at the University, we got together with Nektarina Non Profit's team, and they invited us to join their project idea Liveable Cities, and me and my friends were thrilled with the idea 

Liveable Cities is a 12 month volunteer project sharing (at least) 365 blog posts from people all over the world, giving us their vision of a (more) liveable city. The project's objective is to explore, research and share practices, ideas and developments in the urban areas across the world, focusing on sustainability, quality of life, climate change mitigation and adaptation, water and air quality, pollution, waste management, low carbon transport, recycling, energy efficiency, renewable energies, co-operatives, environment and green areas, ecosystems and biodiversity.

"Great. But what does it actually mean.", I can hear you ask. We actually want to give a platform for anyone and everyone to express their thoughts, visions, concerns, ideas, projects and practices about how they see the city of the future - a sustainable, environmentally conscious city. What we want to create is a platform for a dialogue, a place for people to engage into a conversation, a forum, if you will, enabling everyone to express themselves in any format, really - writing, photography, video, design, multimedia, art. We would like you - all of you - to join us and help us create a set of ideas, stories and images for a better, healthier and more sustainable quality of life in our urban habitats.

Send us your thoughts, ideas, blogs, photographs, anything and everything regarding urban habitats, green city life, urban sustainability or any related topic, really (or just subscribe to our fab weekly newsletter!).

Our email is liveable.cities@nektarinanonprofit.com

Let's create better, more liveable cities together! :)




Photo credits Nektarina Non Profit / Taken at Lugano, Switzerland

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Cities and Climate Change / World Habitat Day

Compiled by Sandra Antonovic

World Habitat Day is observed on October 3rd each year, and this year's global observence will be held in Mexico under the theme "Cities and Climate Change".


The theme of "Cities and Climate Change" was chosen because climate change if fast becoming the preeminent development challenge of the 21st century. Indeed, no one today can really foresee the predicament in which a town or a city will find itself in 10, 20 or 30 years time.
In this new urban era with most of humanity now living in towns and cities, we must bear in mind that the greatest impacts of disasters resulting from climate change begin and end in cities. Cities too have a great influence on climate change.

In tackling urban poverty and climate change we need to understand that the fastest way to mitigate against climate change disaster is to reduce urban poverty and save as much energy as we can.

According to the UN-HABITAT's 2011 Global Report on Human Settlements greenhouse gas emissions spewed out by cities account for up to 70% of the world's pollution - much of it coming from our fossil fuel consumption for electricity, transport, energy use in commercial and residential buildings, industrial production and waste.

(abridged from UN-HABITAT's World Habitat's Day booklet)

This seems like a perfect opportunity to remind ourselves on the notes we took at Goethe Institut's Forum For Creative Minds we attended in March this year (forum was themed 'Cities and Climate Change'):

 

"We are smart, but we have to be smarter. This year's World's Habitat Day is also an occasion to highlight five strategic steps that can be taken:

1/ improve the quality of life  - especially for the estimated 1 billion people living in slums and other sub-standard housing around the world. Improved access to safe and healthy shelter, secure tenure, basic services and social amenities such as health and education are essential to a better life for every individual.

 2/ invest in human capital - this is a condition for socio-economic development and a more equitable distribution of the urban advantage. This will also enable cities and regions to implement policies more effectively and to ensure that they are properly adjusted to local needs.

3/ foster sustained economic opportunities - cities can stimulate sustained economic growth for the poor through labour - intensive projects. These include primarily public works and the construction industry. Cities in the developing world are starting to provide social security to give better access to economic opportunities for those traditionally excluded.

4/ enhance political inclusion -  today, more and more municipal and national authorities share the same basic philosophy: bringing government within the reach of ordinary people through enhanced mutual engagement. This means engaging people and their neighbourhoods in dialogue and participation in decision making as a fundamental aspect of local democracy.


5/ promote cultural inclusion - culture has historically been left out of the conventional international development agenda. More and more local development policies take into the account the cultural dimensions of urban life, such as social capital, tradition, symbols, a sense of belonging and pride of place. This helps integrate ethnic minorities, preserve regional values, safeguard linguistic and religious diversity, resolve conflicts and protect the heritage."

Inga Bjork-Klevby
Deputy Executive Director
UN-HABITAT

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