Save the City
Urban transformation
Copenhagen has been nominated by UNESCO-UIA as the 2nd World Capital of Architecture, following Rio de Janeiro’s inaugural hold of the title. An opportunity for Copenhagen, and an occasion to reflect on the role our city plays in the polycrisis we are facing.
Over the past 20-30 years Copenhagen has innovated on creating a unique and livable city. From high quality public spaces, harbor baths and large scale investments on public infrastructure like metro systems and bike culture. But with the new title comes the responsibility of thinking further than that.
Cities have become beastly producers of CO2 in all sectors, ranging from lifestyle in general to transportation and a construction industry that In itself stands for 40% of global Co2. Over the past decade, we have experienced endless events and crisis across the planet, and to paraphrase the singer Prince, have to some extent continued to “party like it was 1999”. At some point, the song faded out, we stopped singing and dreaming of the future, but started fearing it instead. The city is at the center of this dilemma, posing several challenges about how we should live and consume resources in the future. Our human production now equals the natural biomass of the planet, and our build environment claims the vast majority of it. So what are our desires for the future? How do we want to live together within our already claimed urban areas? How to make room for bikes and cars in our urban space, while planning for high density and more urban nature? Our desires shape our dreams and, ultimately, our common future. And if our future is destined to be urban, we need to understand how urbanity can sustain a healthy and livable planet for all of us.
15.000 years of urban evolution
Urbanism is an old phenomenon and we have learnt a lot since we started living in urban environments. According to archeologist Brenna Hasset, the author of ‘Built on bones’, urbanism is about 15.000 years old. She has studied skeletons all over the world to examine our urban evolution. How we went from hunter gatherers to urban dwellers. How we lived and died in urban settlements all over the world, learning about health and the evolution of cities. How we came to live longer through the innovation of social infrastructure among other things. It is a story of civilization becoming smarter, with urbanism developing our modern society and economy. In many ways it is what allowed us to become wealthy and efficient, but it also brought about a culture of consumption with unlimited extraction of resources and CO2 production. Existential conflicts that we now have to solve, the sooner the better. Urbanism today has become more of a dilemma than the solution we talked about just 10-20 years ago.
Urbanism is strong, but greedy
Urbanism is a strong economic engine. A growing machine that creates new jobs, homes and lifestyles. It allows us to meet and work closer together, innovating for a better future. But it also demands endless infrastructure, both over and underground. Not just infrastructure for mobility, but also technical infrastructure for energy supplies, waste and water. According to studies by the German Environment Agency, we use almost as many resources under ground as we do over ground when we build new urban areas. (read Simon Sjökvist research on ‘The resource city’). Not to mention our habit of moving around tons and tons of earth for new building plots, roads and urban districts, in a mole like culture. Earth that we use to claim new land in the sea. Partly to protect ourselves from the rising sea levels we ourselves triggered, but more so for building new urban landscapes that kick start even more processes of climate disturbance.
Depending on how you define urban and rural areas, the UN and the European Commission state that between 55-85% of the global population currently lives in urban areas, and this number will only but increase. The land used for these urban areas accounts for only 2% of the Earth’s surface, but if we add the impact of infrastructure, cutting territories and landscapes, needed to facilitate our transportation habits, and the land needed to feed us creating deforestation and biodiversity loss. The natural landscapes left is starting to diminish.
We are continuously claiming land, often because the speed of urban growth exceeds the slow pace of urban transformation and densification. This triggers urban expansions in unfortunate ways, claiming virgin land and sea and thus damaging the earth’s conditions, sea beds and biodiversity. Thousands of new cities are being planned all over the world. Megaprojects often claimed necessary to build a more sustainable future, but in reality conceived as higly speculative urbanism bringing enormous economic gains for landowners, while demanding vast resources and environmental costs. Question this trend! Is it really necessary and in demand? Is it situated and planned in the right place, and is it in any way capable of contributing to a sustainable future? The basic framework of building new cities is to seal more land, build more infrastructure and use enormous resources, all of which contributes to a massive carbon footprint.
Urban transformation is key
If we could take better care of the existing city, nurturing it as we would ourselves, we could start solving the things that need to be solved instead of building new problems. It’s time to move into a new direction for society. It’s time to rethink urbanism and focus on re-using urban land, transforming industrial areas, densifying the suburban, renovating and saving what we have already built. Improve the existing city, and it can be the framework for society’s sustainable renaissance.
Throughout modernity we have built more new cities than ever before, but today many of them stand as neglected neighborhoods that never turned out to be what they promised. There is enormous social, economic and sustainable potential in these areas, ready to be improved, normalized and integrated into our urban networks. Ready to become high quality places for people to settle. It’s time to solve the ongoing housing crisis and stigmatized livability term found between the urban and suburban. In the Finger city of larger Copenhagen, a number of places such as Høje Taastrup C, Brøndby Strand and Vridsløse Lille are already being re-developed, densified and transformed into modern communities, with more examples and potentials on the map. But unfortunately, there are also many new urban expansions popping up on the map. None mentioned, none forgotten!
Brown fields are another topic that fortunately has been present in many projects for many years already, because of their often central location with extremely high property values. There are numerous places to visit and be inspired by in Copenhagen, like Carlsberg, Grønttorvet, The Railway district and Nordhavn. Inner harbor areas all over the world have also been subject to urban transformation for many years due to their precious location and proximity to recreational values, blue landscapes with endless space and horizon. The North harbor in Copenhagen, owned and transformed by City and Port in Copenhagen, planned by Cobe, Sleth and Polyform, is an example of high ambitions and investments on futuren oriented solutions. Worth a visit during Copenhagen World Capital of Architecture.
Explore the limits of our urban economy and culture
‘How will we live together’, the thematic of the architectural biennale in Venice 2021, posed many relevant questions about our current post-pandemic society. Claiming that, ‘we need a new spatial contract, in the context of widening political divides and growing economic inequalities’.
Humans are vain and so is our urban culture. We fame livability and celebrate ranks on indexations of urban quality, with our politicians at the forefront. It’s branding and wealth, but it’s also enhancing inequality. It’s the high quality unaffordable inner city versus the suburban and often neglected outer city. What if we could expand the livability concept to a more inclusive one? Taking into account the quality and spatiality of the green space often found in the outskirts of the city. We need our inner city communities to connect with the suburban. Culturally as well as functionally. We can work, live and connect from anywhere, we can distribute qualities and places for us to meet and dwell.
Our cities are full of economic borders limiting inclusivity. All municipalities work on attracting the ‘right’ citizens. Decisions are rarely taken to improve the big picture of society but rather to define one’s own economic interests. This phenomenon is filled with dilemmas that work against a more holistic sustainable agenda. Could we break down these economic siloes and integrate across communities? Many mono functional neighborhoods crave to be densified, diversified, and connected. They should be favored over building new ones in virgin land or virgin sea.
Scale our solutions right
Urbanism is a mechanism of scales that depend on one another. Sustainable urbanism is where these scales are brought together in the right way, where large scale connectivity and economy work across urban cultures. Strengthen the big picture, and connect the other end of the scale. Places where people meet, talk, reflect and reach an understanding, or agree to disagree.
The Fingerplan of Copenhagen is a good example of large-scale planning, where all the opportunities to build a sustainable urbanism are available. Plenty of neighborhoods to be densified for Copenhagen to continue its growth within the fingers. Numerous meeting places to be interconnected through a high-quality network of transportation. Multiple green wedges to improve biodiversity and connect landscapes for trees, plants, animals and people to thrive and breath in. Invest in connecting the scales, stop the urban expansions. Save our city and save our urban culture, so FingerCity won’t turn into FrankenCity!