How smart growth and green infrastructure can mutually support each other — A conceptual framework for compact and green cities

Abstract

In contrast to the ongoing worldwide uncontrolled expansion of urban development resulting in sprawled cities, compact cities have been argued by planners and researchers to be the more sustainable urban form. However, in compact cities, it has been shown that a low proportion of green spaces jeopardizes the sufficient supply of urban ecosystem services. This suggests that there remains a deficiency in clear visions for operationalizing compact and green cities. To remediate this, this paper introduces a systemic conceptual framework for compact and green cities by combining the concepts of smart growth and green infrastructure. The indicator-based, smartcompact-green city framework includes two aspects: 1) smart compact cities (considering the need to limit urban sprawl through smart growth) and 2) smart green cities (reflecting the preservation and (re-)development of urban green infrastructure). The paper suggests that there is the need to balance these two aspects to develop a systemic approach towards smart-compact-green cities. A hierarchical target system grounded on four characters for smart compact and smart green cities is developed. Smart-compact-green cities can be characterized through a 1) smart environment of compact and green cities, 2) smart multifunctionality of compact and green cities (economic, social, environmental), 3) smart government for compact and green cities and 4) smart governance for compact and green cities. The characters comprise twelve factors defined by 39 indicators for smart compact cities and 44 indicators for smart green cities, respectively. The systemic framework can support researchers and practitioners to develop visions of how existing or future cities can approach smart-compact-green cities in mainstreaming the ecology of and for cities by better understanding the complexity of urban systems and providing a basis for a systematic spatial monitoring.

How Far Has China’s Urbanization Gone?

“…UN-Habitat and Pan engaged in research into harmonious cities and stated that a harmonious city should satisfy three aspects: spatial harmony, social harmony, and environmental harmony, which means a balance of appropriate economic and population growth; equality and justice in health care, education, and employment; and the reasonable consumption of natural resources during urban development [17,37]. Artmann et al conducted research into smart-compact-green cities and considered that the indicator-based smart-compact-green city framework can be characterized through smart environment, smart multi-functionality, smart government, and smart governance [20]. Gradinaru et al built a four-dimensional framework including efficient built-up development, conservation of agricultural land, landscape preservation, and human perception to assess the efficiency of the planning process and urbanization patterns [38].…”

“…It includes the economic, social, and ecological development of the city as well as the city's infrastructure and living conditions [18,19,[28][29][30][34][35][36][37]; (II) The urbanization quality emphasizes the sustainability of urban development. It not only pays attention to the current conditions of cities, but also introduces the concepts of "green," "ecological," and "harmonious," emphasizing the economic, social, and environmental sustainability in the process of urbanization [17][18][19][20]29,30,[35][36][37]; (III) The urbanization quality stresses the efficiency of urbanization. Especially from the perspective of planning, scholars are very concerned about whether the urban expansion is under control and whether the urban construction meets the expectations of planning [20,38].…”

Cooling Effects and Regulating Ecosystem Services Provided by Urban Trees—Novel Analysis Approaches Using Urban Tree Cadastre Data

“…These threats to societies are interconnected, as the heat island effect is becoming stronger as more people live in urban areas. Increasing energy consumption, soil sealing and the high competition for space between green and grey infrastructure in densifying urban areas may lead locally to a lack of urban greening [5] and the loss of biodiversity. Climate change will potentially lead to a decline of quality of life in cities.…”

Inovação Em Serviços Para Mobilidade Ativa E Promoção Da Qualidade Ambiental

“…Inovação é comumente ligada a questões urbanas por meio de 'cidades inteligentes', definidas com base em tecnologias de comunicação para transformar e melhorar a disponibilidade e qualidade de infraestrutura e serviços públicos, reduzindo a lacuna entre governo e cidadãos (e-democracia, governo eletrônico / governo digital, padrões de organização, aprendizagem, gestão de infraestruturas para todos os atores, tendo como pano de fundo o desenvolvimento sustentável). A definição de cidades inteligentes é ampla e descreve várias perspectivas (ambientais, sociais e econômicas) (AHVENNIEMI et al, 2017;LI et al, 2019;NAKAMURA, 2019), a fim de melhorar a qualidade de vida dos cidadãos (ARTMANN et al, 2019), gerando impactos não restritos às metas de sustentabilidade ambiental, mas também ao bemestar dos cidadãos, estando ligada à mobilidade urbana sustentável e à promoção da mobilidade ativa.…”