The Emergence and Spread of Ecourban Neighbourhoods around the World

Abstract

Abstract:In modern times, efforts to construct sustainable alternative neighbourhood scale developments date to isolated voluntary initiatives in 1970s Europe and the United States. Since about 2006, they have increased rapidly in popularity. They now go by many names: ecodistricts, écoquartiers, eco-cities, zero/low-carbon/carbon-positive cities, ecopolises, ecobarrios, One Planet Communities, and solar cities. They have become frames-sometimes the dominant frame-used to orient the construction of new pieces of a city in a growing number of countries. Despite numerous standardization efforts, the field of ecourban neighbourhood planning and practice lacks a consistent cross-cultural understanding of what constitutes meaningful ecourbanism in specific economic, political, ecological, social, and design-based terms. Ecourban neighbourhood projects also respond to strictly local challenges and opportunities and express themselves in fragmented ways in different contexts. This article presents an original typology of ecourbanism as the integration of seven extreme type principles. We developed this typology through an abductive approach, or the back and forth testing of observed practices with arguments advanced in theories of sustainable development, planning and urban studies. While ecourban neighbourhood developments by definition express integrative goals, this typology permits assessment of the extent to which outcomes are being achieved in terms of each specific principle. We define and present a limiting case for each of these extreme type principles. Rather than attempting to render different standards equivalent across national contexts, this typology-based approach to understand the outcomes of ecourban neighbourhood developments promises a means to OPEN ACCESS Sustainability 2015, 7 11419 facilitate orienting these developments toward higher levels of integration within a common set of principled boundaries, as they are developed around the world.

An Optimization Model Fitting the Neighborhood Sustainability Assessment Tools

“…The use of these widespread forms of certification produces considerable advantages in terms of publicity and marketing for developers and local decision makers and this should create some concerns [16,58]. In this respect the authors agree with Boyle and Elgert [10,46], who claim that the…”

“…The aspects that contribute to making a more livable urban system also include the ecological and environmental infrastructural endowments, assessed here through the single parameter (58) related to the presence of green areas. This parameter refers to the greenery not just as equipment, but as a network system able to bring benefits of microclimatic regulation and environmental comfort, taking into account the "new" role that scholars and institutions attribute to the greenery to face the challenges of resilience and adaptation to climate changes [51][52][53].…”

“…The use of these widespread forms of certification produces considerable advantages in terms of publicity and marketing for developers and local decision makers and this should create some concerns [16,58]. In this respect the authors agree with Boyle and Elgert [10,46], who claim that the objective of declaring sustainability to be a hypothesis of urban transformation in such a way as to meet the favor of the stakeholders and the local community-thus facilitating its realization-entails the risk of making sustainability become just a brand to be shared or a "label" to grab, underestimating the multiple and essential efficiency, saving, greening and conservation requirements that this concept implies [59,60].…”

L’élaboration des choix énergétiques dans les projets urbains, entre apprentissages et négociations. L’exemple des prescriptions immobilières à Bordeaux Saint-Jean Belcier

“…Pour prendre un exemple, étudier précisément la façon dont les prescriptions immobilières sont construites dans les opérations d'aménagement pourrait permettre de montrer comment s'articulent des dynamiques telles que la financiarisation (Halbert et Attuyer, 2016) et la néolibéralisation (Pinson et Morel Journel, 2016b) de la production urbaine, la circulation des « bonnes pratiques » et des modèles d'aménagement (Devisme et al, 2007;Carriou et Ratouis, 2014;Holden et al, 2015), ou encore l'évolution des savoirs et des métiers de l'urbanisme (Matthey et Fleury, 2016).…”

Co-producing neighbourhood resilience

“…Absent from this discourse are the identification of the different stakeholders involved in the process, the critical influence of market forces, the failure in achieving social equity, and the building of diverse and inclusive communities active in resilient transformations (Holden, Li, & Molina, 2015). Focusing on the co-production approach will bring new perspectives on these issues.…”