Urban Policy

Urban policy

In the past decade, many people dealing with environmental degradation, climate change and food security have often come together under one banner of sustainability. The notion states that technological substitutions, social change and the appropriate mix of incentives can finally attain a lasting equilibrium in the planet. The world has apparently become increasingly out of balance and there are pressures on the sustainability regime from within. A growing number of social innovators, scientists, corporations and governments have seen the emergence of a new dialogue emerging on a new idea of resilience; the subject involves assisting vulnerable people as organizations thrive amid unforeseeable disruptions. As sustainability objective strives to look for ways to bring the world to balance, resilience aims at come up with ways of managing the imbalanced world.

In most cases, though resilience, as well as sustainability form the two main elements in urban planning, they are used interchangeably, which brings tension among each other. A resilient mechanism fights back challenges unharmed while a big portion of building resilience comprise of creating methods of failing safely like a combination of combined sewer outflows. On the other hand, sustainability means efficiency, as designers try to strike a balance amid human needs, as well as environmental effects. Some of the evident ways to be more resilient do not include sustainability. The situation means a transformation from sustainability all the way to resilience and leaves most old-school environmentalists together with social activists uneasy; this discourages adaptation, which is a taboo among many people. If people do not adapt to undesired change, the reasoning disappears as pole continue being irresponsible by losing moral authority to discourage them to change.

The contemporary types associated with the development of urban areas like 'the walled communities' result to alienation, which is brought by fragmentation of the city into remote enclaves. The situation is both similar in Curitiba and Portland as the effects of urban metropolitan and regional scale in terms of exclusive subdivisions. The type of development does not indicate a return of the conservative community, which is understood as mainly bounded by the physical propinquity in case of Curitiba.

Portland planning process is based on a growth management objective that has integrated an increasing stress on social reforms. Conversely, the planning process of Curitiba is founded on pro growth agenda that has slowly moved towards a growth organization typology. In both Portland and Curitiba, city officials, as well as planners face a rising necessity in order to make a nuanced and thoughtful consideration of all the social spatial effects of the architectural types. Portland has to make progress in accepting the usage of high densities, in case the city plans to accommodate the anticipated growth in a way that will be considered least destructive to preservation. Curitiba city needs to reconsider the acceptance of high building residential as part of its growth axes, but from a different angle that seems antagonistic.

Located in Abu Dhabi, Masdar city, which is near a desert, has been under construction from the year 2007. Masdar City has often been termed, as the first completed sustainable community in the world with combined renewable sources of energy coupled with competent resource usage. The city model has a traditional Arabic design with spectacular and architectural elements. The architectural features

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