Urban sustainability can be divided by its ecological, social and cultural dimensions. Ecological sustainability covers almost all the aspects of urban planning; for example traffic, construction and waste management. Keeping in mind that roughly one fifth of all the green
house emissions produced in Europe comes from transport – and 80% of that from
car traffic – the cars form a major problem to big cities. Besides they
pollute, they are also noisy and they take a lot of valuable urban space.
So
how is it in your city: does the public transportation work and more
importantly; how to make it work? Are
there enough tram lines and bicycle routes and is the city centre easily
reachable by railways? Can people actually live there without owning a car? Are there any green zones or parks?
Linking the transport into construction and living, you can ask whether the new buildings are built near the public transport routes and how compact is the city construction in general. What about the energy efficiency of the buildings? How energy efficient are the new houses
and how the energy efficiency of the old ones can be improved? In Finland, living and construction forms approximately one third of all the green house emissions, so the importance of energy efficiency cannot be underestimated.
The city should enable and encourage sustainable living, but that's not enough; grass root level is also important. The city might deal well with its garbage, but the citizens should also be engaged to recycle their waste.
Social and
cultural sustainability
Often ecological sustainability is highlighted above the other dimensions of sustainability. However, social and cultural issues interlinks closely with it. Socially and
culturally sustainable development guarantees that prerequisites of welfare remain from one generation to
another. Questions such as accessibility, immigration, equality, social cohesion
and public services are in the core of both social and cultural sustainability.
Are the citizens treated equally? Are the trams and shops accessible with the
wheelchair and can a blind person find the way through the city? How
socially segmented are the neighborhoods; do the better-off-children go only to
their own schools? And where are the asylum centers built?
Increasing
immigration creates
similar challenges to all metropolitans. It's not just about the problems of city planning and ghettos, but also about the cultural athmosphere, integration and language learning. What are the best
ways to get people integrate and interact with each other? How to prevent
conflicts and racist attitudes? In
general: are all the citizens taken well care off by the city and the other citizens?
Urban sustain
Often ecological sustainability is highlighted above the other dimensions of sustainability. However, social and cultural issues interlinks closely with it. Socially and
culturally sustainable development guarantees that prerequisites of welfare remain
