to include not only the direct costs of production, but all of the associated costs. For example, the cost of a gallon of gasoline should include the health costs associated with air pollution, the societal costs associated with car crashes, the environmental costs associated the extraction processes as well as with the construction of roads, the impacts of associated storm-water runoff and so forth.


5. Focus more effort on rebuilding infrastructure within existing urban environments, rather than building new cities out of whole cloth. This takes advantage of the embodied energy, resources and knowledge represented by these historic settlements, but will also require quicker and cheaper ways of truly understanding the structure and function of our current cities, through emerging tools like laser scanning and satellite imagery.


6. Develop and mandate financing mechanisms that emphasize the full lifecycle costs of projects (perhaps over 50-75 years) and give preference to those that put less burden on our future generations, rather than simply those that have the lowest upfront cost. Morgan Stanley estimates that $41 trillion must be spent between now and 2030 in water, power, road and rail, and air/ seaports, just to serve the growing global population. Unfortunately, with the exception of China, we do not see evidence of the requisite investments being made. And, even in China, where hundreds of cities have labeled themselves “eco-cities” over the past few years, only Tianjin seems on track to meet its sustainability goals.


7. Reverse the balkanizing tendencies of both public and private bureaucracies, and promote holistic integrated community planning that looks at multiple assets at once (like transit systems and their relationship to utility grids) rather than focus on single assets like a rail line. This will


require that we overcome the ‘silo-ing’ of responsibilities and disciplines, perhaps using communications, visioning and visualization design technologies as key tools for encouraging collaboration.


8. Future-proof urban plans to increase the resilience and adaptability of a city in the face of unforeseen circumstances. Advances in conceptual urban planning design will allow urban planners to model multiple scenarios, adjusting their assumptions to assess the resilience of their current plan to changes in resource availability and demand, a changing climate, and demographic shifts.


9. Finally, we must never lose sight of the qualitative aspects of urbanism that make cities so delightful, so invigorating, and so desirable as places to live. It’s not enough that a city be energy conserving; it must also be stimulating. It’s not enough to use resources efficiently; the resulting community must be a vibrant, joyous place to live, work and play.


After thousands of years learning how to live on the Earth, humankind has determined that our future is in our cities. To ensure a long, productive and harmonious future for all people, we must learn to plan, design, develop and run our cities as effectively and efficiently as possible, while maintaining their roles as the centers of commerce and culture and learning. They should provide inspiration for the arts, be sources of opportunity for leisure-time pursuits, and offer an all- encompassing environment that elevates and refines our lives, as individuals and as a collective. The software and hardware technologies and best practices to achieve all this are at hand. Future urbanites will appreciate our responsible forward thinking and stewardship.


ENVIRONMENT INDUSTRY MAGAZINE |39|


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