Abstract
Steffen Lehmann’s The Principles of Green Urbanism: Transforming the City for Sustainability is an ambitious attempt to sketch out a sustainable vision for the growth and regeneration of cities suffering from a postindustrial condition. Worldwide, postindustrial cities are characterized by economic disinvestment, an abundance of dilapidated buildings, high unemployment rates, a declining industrial base, a lack of a robust long-term master plan, and fast-growing suburbs attracting people and resources from the city. Through this book, the author sets forth to illustrate potential strategies that urban designers, academics, and students in environmental design can use to turn these structural weaknesses into opportunities, and to help former industrial centers that face a future characterized by an increasing automobile dependence, rising energy prices, and the effects of climate change on land uses.
In the author’s view, the renaissance of postindustrial cities is contingent upon the development of a new integrated vision for their urban core, which should include green technologies, recycling, waste management, mixed-use development, higher residential densities, efficient public transportation, and an overall improvement in urban livability. Only a new vision will give these declining urban centers a competitive edge against suburbs, and contribute to attract new residents, new life, and positive energy back to their core (Lehmann, p. 15). The author’s vision, as it is illustrated in Chapter 2 (“The Principles of Green Urbanism”), is based on an integrated framework encompassing fifteen core principles and strategies: (1) climate and context; (2) renewable energy for zero CO2 emissions; (3) zero-waste city; (4) water; (5) landscapes, gardens, and urban biodiversity; (6) sustainable transport and good public space—compact and poly-centric cities; (7) local and sustainable materials with less embodied energy; (8) density and retrofitting of existing districts; (9) green buildings and districts, using passive design principles; (10) livability, healthy communities and mixed-use programs; (11) local food and short supply chains; (12) cultural heritages, identity and sense of place; (13) urban governance, leadership, and best practice; (14) education, research, and knowledge; (15) strategies for cities in developing countries.
In Chapter 1, the book opens with the discussion of theories relevant to sustainable development, from Ebenezer Howard’s garden city to Patrick Geddes’ regionalism, and from Le Corbusier’s ville radieuse to Richard Register’s eco-city. Despite their relevance to the current discussion on sustainability and their breadth, these theoretical references ultimately amount to a heterogeneous pot pourri, rather than a truly integrated gestalt—a whole that is more than the sum of its parts. Lehmann’s vision is neither new nor particularly groundbreaking, as he clearly recognizes later in the book, when he writes: “much green urbanism is common sense urbanism” (p. 230). The book’s emphasis on technological innovation and green architecture is also in line with the “technical utopianism” (p. 67) that has historically pervaded the field of architecture, which Lehmann himself considers one of the flaws that have historically characterized the work of architectural professionals with regard to sustainability. The author’s lengthy discussion on building materials, including a very specific call for the use of timber-framed construction does little to change that.
A fundamental flaw in this book is the absence of a clear and unique stand on social sustainability. Throughout the book, references to important dimensions of sustainability such as identity, environmental justice, stewardship, bottom–up processes, and expert versus local knowledge are limited and tangential. Instead, the author reveals a clear bias in favor of energy efficiency and green building materials over social and cultural sustainability concerns. Lehmann’s definition of social engagement clearly illustrates the limited breadth of his thinking with regard to sustainability: “In the future, our expertise will need to be about combining low carbon design solutions with material and energy efficient technological systems and social innovations. This will facilitate more sustainable communities” (p. 720). If, as Lehman himself states, “the future of our societies is not just merely a technical matter of finding more eco-friendly energy solutions, but a question of holistic social sustainability and healthy communities” (p. 218), then a book like this one, which intends to develop a comprehensive, green urbanism vision, should give adequate space to topics like participatory design and ecological democracy, which are recognized by many in the environmental design fields as fundamental principles in the evolution toward more sustainable communities (Hester, 2006).
The most unique aspect of this book is the case study selection of Newcastle, Australia, to illustrate challenges and opportunities rustbelt cities are facing as they begin to envision a more sustainable future, well illustrated in Chapter 3 (“The Case Studies—Putting It All Together”). The focus on a relatively unknown city offers those in the design fields a different perspective than the traditional emphasis on urban design meccas like Portland, New York, or Vancouver. The selection of a medium-sized, economically depressed postindustrial city in the southern hemisphere represents a “critical” and “least-likely” case study (Flyvbjerg, 2001, p. 78) of sustainable urban development and constitutes the most relevant and innovative aspects of this book. Looking at sustainability not from the viewpoint of successful metropolitan areas but from the less privileged standpoint of a city at the margins of the global debate on sustainable development can certainly offer a more pragmatic and out-of-the-box view of what sustainable development might entail.
The wealth of information presented in this book is one of its virtues and a shortcoming at the same time. The abundance of illustrations and diagrams in support of the author’s theoretical claims lack a logical structure, making this book a hard reference to navigate. The reader must sail through a tortuous sea of two forewords, a preface, a prologue, an introduction, and a photo essay before reaching the heart of the book, constituted of Chapter 1 (“Turning Constraints into Opportunities”); Chapter 2 (“The Principles of Green Urbanism”); Chapter 3, devoted to Case Studies; and Chapter 4 (“Looking Ahead to a Low-Carbon Future”), which completes the author’s argument. Snapshots of sustainable development strategies are introduced throughout the book, yet—and the author clearly admits to this flaw—the discussion fails to reach the depth and rigor required of any academic research endeavor. Scholarly references, personal opinions, diagrams, illustrations, and students’ explorations of four typological landscape types within the context of Newcastle (the City Campus, the Port City, the Green Corridor, and the Taree waterfront) are presented in a piecemeal and counterintuitive manner—a more useful structure may have been one dealing with scales, rather than landscape types—that forces the reader to continuously switch gears and lose track of the arguments laid out within each subsection. Finally, the author’s reliance on students’ work to illustrate how the principles may be translated into practice seems to contradict his call for a transdisciplinary approach to the issue of urban regeneration. After venturing through the 900 pages that make up this book, one is left with more questions than answers. First and foremost, one must wonder: can the complex and interrelated issues faced by postindustrial cities find true and reasonable resolution within the limited temporal and pedagogical framework of a design studio?
In conclusion, The Principles of Green Urbanism leaves the reader intellectually overwhelmed, visually inebriated, and a bit disoriented. Most of all, after venturing through the 900-plus pages of this book, the reader is unable to clearly assess the uniqueness of Lehmann’s contribution to the sustainable development debate, which seems more like a repackaging of old ideas—such as Richard Register’s 1971 eco-city model—than an innovative set of strategies. Despite some of the flaws described earlier, the book may serve as a useful resource for educators, practitioners, and students in the urban design and architecture fields looking for unconventional precedents and conceptual inspiration in their efforts to design the next sustainable city.