Author: erik

Green Urban Development: learning from inspiring examples of implementation

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How do we promote climate neutral urban development?

The world must drastically reduce its CO2 emissions by 2050 to avert the worst impacts of climate change. Globally, we are seeing an influx into cities over the past 30 years and, cities are one of the main spaces where CO2 emissions are directly caused. Emissions in urban areas stem from construction projects, traffic flows, increasing energy consumption from a growing population, production of waste and other factors. “However, the urban space is also the solution space for the climate change,” said one of the participants in the working groups on Green Urban Development. This sentiment was also reflected in a study conducted by the German Advisory Council on Global Change, among other studies carried out globally.

Urban solutions include, for example, the use of new mobility formats such as traffic-calmed urban spaces, roll-out of innovative of e-mobility and bike lane solutions, the reduction of pollution from resource intensive economic sectors, more sustainable building and renovation practices based on circularity, development of urban spaces to promote local economic cycles and community activities and, decentralized energy supply and waste concepts.

Aim of the working groups on Green Urban Development

The COVID-19 program “Green Urban Development” was implemented in cooperation with the consulting company Mesopartner and the Wuppertal Institute. The program included three working groups, each with 3 to 4 cities and their representatives, mostly partners from local city governments or local research institutions. The objective was to promote the implementation of concrete projects that promote climate neutral city efforts

The three working groups had the following focus areas:

  • Working Group 1: Mobility solutions in cities
  • Working group 2: The transformation of urban spaces and reuse of “urban space” through new community formats and mobility solutions
  • Working Group 3: A mixed group linking urban energy, mobility and spatial approaches

From the formation of the working groups, it became clear that solution approaches often overlap or, that different solutions can approaches create synergies. This also enabled an exchange of experiences between the working groups. The participating cities in the program were Bhuj/Ahmedabad, Belo Horizonte, Kochi, Lalitpur, Dortmund, Buenos Aires, Quito, Montevideo, Hamburg, Kigali, Kisumu and Bremen.

First, second and third process steps: From ideas to concrete project proposals

In a first step, project ideas were developed in the respective working group:

  • Creation of a bicycle traffic concept using the example of the bicycle paths in Lalitpur
  • Creation of a child-friendly environmental zone in the neighborhood and the design of speed-reduced recreation areas
  • Greening of roofs to create a sustainable and green urban environment and combining it with renewable energy solutions and urban gardening activities
  • Municipal bio-waste management at the neighborhood level in collaboration with local citizens
  • Promotion of traffic-calming zones in Kigali
  • Increasing green, retention and infiltration areas in cities.
  • Application of sensor technologies to analyze neighborhoods and places with high Co2 emissions.
  • Planning pop-up bike lanes and building safe bike lanes.
  • Last-mile connectivity solutions and electro-based logistics solutions in the center of cities.

In bilateral meetings the topics of interest were explored, and the cities exchange on their experiences.

In a second step of the project, larger network meetings were organized in each working group. Here, the cities in the respective working group exchanged their experiences and presented inspiring implementation approaches. A variety of solution approaches and experience reports were exchanged here, including the creation of a pollution mapping and the e-mobility concept of Kigali, first last mile connectivity approaches in Buenos Aires, the development of the e-mobility hub in Quito, pop-up lanes in Berlin, environmental zones and bike lanes approaches in Belo Horizonte, the development of first bike lanes and app sharing concepts in Lalitpur, etc.

Based on this concrete exchange across the working groups, further bilateral experience exchange meetings were initiated to further develop initial ideas of prototypes. The prototypes included:

  • Delivery/unloading areas and electronic transport via hubs in the old city of Buenos Aires
  • Child-friendly and traffic-calming spaces in Bhuj
  • Scaling up bicycle infrastructure projects and app-sharing solutions in Lalitpur.

Based on these prototypes, concrete project proposals were developed with the objective to start fund raising for the implementation of the initiatives. In the Urban Space working group, Bhuj will implement the project “Safe access to schools for children through child-friendly and traffic-calmed zones.” The mobility-urban space-energy working group developed a project for Belo Horizonte, the establishment of an urban ecology laboratory. The exchanges in the Mobility Working Group eventually led to the project “Applied Technology for Loading and Unloading Public Zones in Buenos Aires”.

Implementation of Green City Pioneer of Change Events

In addition to the internal network exchange in the working groups, other stakeholders from cities around the world were involved in the reflection process for new climate-neutral city solutions. For this purpose, two large “Green City Pioneer of Change” workshops were organized, where in each of them more than 50 international participants were presented. The events had the objective to share good practices as well as to reflect jointly on key success factors and challenges. 

Detailed information

A variety of input speeches, video presentations, presentations, workshop results and good practices can be found on the Connective Cities website from various documented events:

Connective Cities Lab- Expert Input
with Climate City Expert Prof. Oliver Lah (Wuppertal Institut), 11. November 2021: https://community.connective-cities.net/en/node/968

Participation of the three working groups in Design Thinking Workshops (15-17.11 2021):

https://community.connective-cities.net/en/node/959

https://community.connective-cities.net/en/node/960

https://community.connective-cities.net/en/node/961

Working group meeting with exchange of good practices in the working group „Mobility“

https://community.connective-cities.net/en/node/1102

Working group meeting with exchange of good practices in the working group Urban Space, Mobility, Energy (03.12.21)

https://community.connective-cities.net/en/node/1095

First large Green City Pioneers of Change Event (19.01.2022)

https://community.connective-cities.net/en/node/1111

Second Green City Pioneers of Change Event (25.02.22)

https://community.connective-cities.net/en/node/1130

Improving irrigation, compost management and environmental education

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Following the Connective Cities Dialogue Event on Urban Gardening, co-organised and co-hosted with the City of Berlin in April 2021, Connective Cities supported the districts of Pankow and KaTembe in organising a virtual project workshop. The workshop took place on 29 November 2021 with representatives from the Pankow district in Berlin and the KaTembe district in Maputo as well as other municipal experts. The exchange built on a partnership between the cities of Berlin and Maputo and allowed participants to present local challenges and experiences, share strategies for urban agriculture and jointly identify solutions.

Located in the direct catchment area of the Mozambican capital Maputo, the district of KaTembe has considerable economic potential, but also faces steady population growth. In order to improve the local quality of life, KaTembe envisages promoting urban agriculture, which is ideally suited due to the climatic and topographical conditions. However, this project poses several challenges for the district administration. These include the development of strategies that ensure optimal use of agricultural land and efficient irrigation of the fields. Furthermore, there is a need for innovative methods of composting as well as increased use of improved seeds and reduction of pesticides in the fields. In addition, local smallholder farmers need to gain better access to markets to improve the economic viability of their farms. Finally, the district administration sees enormous potential in promoting local livestock, fish and crab farming to meet the growing food needs of the KaTembe population.

The 15-Minute City: A Feminist Utopia?

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To realize the positive intersection of feminism and the 15-minute city, concrete and inclusive land-use and mobility policies are necessary.

In many cases, a lack of clear social policies and guardrails to ensure the accessibility and maintenance of social and rental housing, allow for meaningful mixed-use zoning, and provision of well-integrated and diverse transportation networks, such investments have often resulted in gentrification, often pushing out those who would benefit most from a walkable, cyclable community. This is particularly true for women living alone, single mothers, and those from marginalized communities. Therefore, in order for there to be a positive intersection between feminism and the 15-minute city concept, a truly inclusive and equitable approach, coupled with concrete policies, needs to be adopted.

Municipal and citizen engagement for the SDGs

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What is the best way to bring the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) closer to the population as a real-life necessity and to integrate them into people’s everyday lives? The Colombian city of Manizales faced this question and found its way through a Connective Cities learning process – with the help of many suggestions from the international community of practice. The results included an SDG Week in Manizales in mid-2021 and the preparation of a report on the local implementation of the SDGs. Other cities like Bonn also benefited from the exchange.

Voices from Connective Cities – Hebron municipality

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Representatives of the Hebron Municipality talk about how they have benefited from the exchange with other experts at the events and workshops organised by Connective Cities. They were able to take away many ideas for their own projects in the field of gender-responsive digitalisation of administrative processes and in the field of energy efficiency and improve their implementation.

Watch video at YouTube:

https://youtu.be/viyh1acwVJs

Seeds for the Future

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To address environmental challenges related to the loss of native species as well as the increasing CO2 emissions due to urbanisation, Karak municipality in Jordan constructed a nursery that aims at growing trees from native species. Besides demonstrating environmental protection and the transition into renewable energy sources, the project will have an economic impact resulting from the savings in the municipal budget as well as job creation for the local community.

Scaling up cycling infrastructure in Lindau, Germany

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As cycling is becoming increasingly popular for leisure and as an alternative to using the car, municipalities have to adapt their cycling infrastructure. However, they should not forget to involve their citizens in the planning process.

The Development of Covid-19 recovery solutions at municipal level in the area of digitalisation and crisis management in the Southeast European region (SEE)

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This report summarizes the activities developed under the project “The Development of COVID-19 Recovery Solutions at Municipal Level in the Areas of Digitalization and Crisis Management.” The project covered Southeast Europe and was conducted from September 2021 until December 2021.

The Report describes in detail the capacity-building processes conducted to support municipal resilience within the working groups of digitalization and crisis management over the course of several months, while also highlighting good practices that were identified and small urban initiatives that were developed together during the collaboration with urban practitioners from across the SEE region.

Additionally, the report covers processes and steps undertaken to support the expansion of the Connective Cities Network through encouraging more active and practical involvement of its current and new members.

For presentations and explanatory videos please refer also to

Development of Covid-19 recovery solutions at municipal level in the area of digitalisation 

Development of Covid-19 recovery solutions at municipal level in the areas of Crisis Management

Vaccination and communication strategies in Bogotá

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As part of the Connective Cities Covid-19 Series 2021, a virtual event took place in March on the topic Covid-19 – the local implementation of vaccination and related communication strategies in municipalities . During this event, the city of Bogotá, together with other participants, exchanged within a working group their experiences on how to improve the city´s communication strategy with the population to ensure that misinformation, fears and doubts do not affect the uptake of vaccines offered by the government..