Page 101 - IJES Special Issues for AIEC2016

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Advocacy for the Compact, Mixed-Use and Walkable City:
Designing Smart and Climate Resilient Places

Steffen Lehmann*

The University of Portsmouth, Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries,
Portsmouth PO1 2UP, United Kingdom

International Journal of Abstract. Urban areas currently account for 60 to 80 per cent of global energy
Environment and consumption, 75 per cent of carbon emissions and more than 75 per cent of the
Sustainability [IJES] world's natural resources. A conference on the appropriate transformation of
ISSN 1927-9566 urban systems is therefore important and timely, as it is essential to deal with
Vol. 5 No. 2, pp. 1-11 the future increase in urban populations, current overconsumption and cities’
(2016) growing footprints despite finite resources and limited availability of land.
Therefore, it’s timely to highlight the need for taking steps to address
greenhouse gas emission reductions and the global nature of the challenge.
While the knowledge of good urban design allowed us for centuries to design
cities that functioned well and had beautiful proportions, now an entirely new
set of questions about optimal city form and urban management have emerged
that have not previously been asked.

In this keynote address, firstly I will outline the qualities of authentic urban
places and offer a definition of ‘Smart City’; and then I will argue that urban
design still warrants a very high priority of good public space for face-to-face
encounters as it sets the framework for success of any future urban
development at an early stage and remains central to any successful low carbon
outcomes. In all this, urban form, public space, density and the integration of
low-carbon technologies all have a strong interrelationship.

Keywords. Low-carbon city; climate resilience; over-consumption; authentic
public space; urban density; new urbanisation models; smart city

*Correspondence:
Steffen.Lehmann@port.ac.uk

Introduction: Transforming Cities cities will need to be designed, retrofitted and
managed to decarbonize their energy supply
‘What is the City but the People?’ and minimize emissions and waste in all forms,
encourage urban biodiversity, and allow eco-
William Shakespeare systems to flourish and provide inhabitants
with the basic elements of wellbeing in a
Many times, cities have been called the resource- and energy-efficient manner. So it
powerhouses of our economy, and they can be comes as no surprise that the World Business
generators of wealth, innovation and social Council for Sustainable Development notes that
inclusion; they provide economic opportunities ‘re-envisioning the design and management of
and a good quality of life, and workers with cities, green buildings and infrastructure
specialized skills flock to cities to be near to the systems will be central to the urban evolution’
sorts of firms that hire them (New York City, (World Bank 2010; WBCSD 2010, p. 39).
San Francisco and London are good examples of
this). More people now live in cities than in Throughout history, cities have been a focus
rural areas, and urbanisation is expected to of innovation. The concept of a “Smart City”
continue, most notably in cities in the emerging promises to enhance the quality, perfor-
and developing world (led by booming mance and interactivity of our urban
economies in China, India, the Middle East,
South America and Africa). To manage this
process of transformation and urban growth,