What is "Compact city"?
Do you know word "Compact city"?
This is an idea that starts effectively using the central area of Tokyo (waiting inside) without expanding without order the urban area, and making the entire city compact.
Recently, the region where the overexploitation of disorder is done has increased around the suburban area.
The housing lot making moth-eaten extends, and development from which the convenience of the formation of the street and the connection of the road is not so considered is not a little (This is said, "Sprawl") in no plastic operation land.
Moreover, life becomes inconvenient when the commercial establishment to suburbs and the branch shop and the maintenance such as communal facilities and the hospitals come one after another, and there is no car for commodious premises, and the number also of cases where the foot becomes it according to becoming distant, so-called the shutter, due to the shortage of congestion and the parking lot etc. with a narrow road has increased in a shopping street from of old.
The following problems have come to light like this by make to suburbs advancing.
???Inconvenient society that becomes hollow for "Transportation disadvantaged people" such as senior citizens to whom transportation was limited downtown, and depended on car in excess
???Cityscape of disorder by suburban development and anxiety to nature and environmental problems
???Increase of investment in public works and running costs such as road and upper and lower water service by development that is not bounds
In the idea of these problems, the conception "Compact city" arose.
The achievement of a compact city produces the environment of which the living space is the range where it can move by on foot and bicycle with the control of making to suburbs and the sprawl of the city, and keeping the scale of the urbanization small.
For instance, the office comes to be able to be able to ease the congestion of commuting that depends especially become near (employment living adjacent), and walks by people who do not use the private car of the senior citizen etc. easily and to use the shopping street and a public public interest facilities with the dwelling.
Moreover, it leads to effective use of land in waiting that has been left without being used, and it leads to the maintenance of the green space and the farmland in suburbs by controlling the overexploitation if the city becomes compact. In addition, the economic exchange activity becomes active by concentrating various functions on the central portion of the city, and the activation of the downtown can be expected.
It will be able to be said that the aspect of this "Compact city" becomes very important when the less children and aging society will be received in the future.
A Small Green Step
Email To A Friend
Please fill in the following information and we'll email this link.
Yes, we can just give $20 billion to a car company or $80 billion to an insurance company that will be partly paid out in bonuses. Or we can direct some of that money to sectors where we can create—in the short term—hundreds of thousands if not millions of new jobs.
There are enormous long-term benefits too. It doesn't take much intelligence to realize that if you have a massive program of investing in energy efficiency in buildings you also reduce the energy consumption of an economy and its dependence on outside energy supplies.
What are the potential barriers to a global deal?
The old economy is trying its hardest to slow down that momentum. Even the CEO of the most polluting company today would not question climate change as a phenomenon. But this debate—can we afford this, can we manage this?—does not help. It is creating uncertainty and reluctance from political leaders. They have to face elections, they have to justify their actions in terms of jobs and economic growth.
This is the debate of our time. Who has the better recipe for ensuring long-term economic growth and jobs? Is it the major players who dominate the economic paradigm of today and yesterday or is it the emerging economy we see happening everywhere now?
Most major economies have now introduced stimulus packages. Do you think any of them are green enough?
Quite clearly in the White House we have a fundamental shift in policy. It is a major step in the right direction. In China you have $80 billion to $140 billion of the stimulus package directed towards a broader agenda of a green new deal. Korea has allocated 3 percent of its GDP towards a green new deal in its country. It is probably leading that effort right now.
I'm afraid some of the European stimulus packages are still relatively vague on the criteria that would create a green new deal dimension. Leadership now cannot be in rhetorical terms. We are down to the wire.
Some of your critics argue that UNEP is little more than a talking shop. What difference do you think it has actually made?
UNEP brings science to decisionmaking. Twenty-five years ago, with the World Meteorological Organization, we established the IPCC [the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change], the authority which has now given us the reference point for responding to climate change. At the time some people laughed at the idea. Today it has the Nobel Peace Prize. We also established the U.N. framework convention on climate change which has become the platform for bringing 190 plus nations together to act collectively on climate change.
UNEP has faced some criticism in Kenya because many of your staff drive around Nairobi in gas-guzzling 4x4s. Do you really practice what you preach?
Personally I think Kenyans are far more worried about how relevant UNEP can be to some of its national development challenges. I think the worry of what cars our staff members drive is more the preoccupation of those who have time to sit by the roadside and count them, to be frank. The road system here is terrible. Accidents are frequent. The fact that our staff don't buy Mini Coopers I can to some extent understand.
Discuss