A New Free Internet Course Offered on edX by UBC
Architects, urban planners, real-estate developers, landscape architects, and anyone else who is interested in the future of cities – especially students in all these disciplines – should check out this free, open course, taught by Larry Beasley, the former planning director of Vancouver, who is the Distinguished Professor of Practice at the University of British Columbia, and Jonathan Barnett, a noted authority on urban design from the University of Pennsylvania.
Using real examples from around the world, Beasley and Barnett show how integrating planning, urban design and the conservation of natural systems can produce a sustainable built and natural environment, implemented through normal business practices and the kinds of capital programs and regulations already in use in most communities.
The first session of the course will start April 4. Here is a link to the full course description and enrolment.
‘Ecodesign for Cities and Suburbs’ by Beasley and Barnett is an excellent book chock-a-block with detailed written explanations and examples from all over the world, including many from Vancouver. It is kind of a blueprint.
My only quibble is Beasley’s idea that there will always be cars (true) and that our responses to deal with them while creating more sustainable cities in the face of climate change and the depletion of cheap energy should be to tweak but not amend outright the role of private transport. I believe that may not be enough to achieve adequate results and could leave society short-changed when expensive energy descends along with more severe weather events moving forward to mid-century.
I also believe that the hard science will not jibe with mere tweaks to the near absolute presence of auto infrastructure and dependence on petroleum in our cities as the rate of emissions speeds up and we surpass the 450 ppm of atmospheric CO2 that so many climate scientists say is a serious tipping point toward the released of methane in the frozen North, which is one of the most extremely serious tipping points. We are currently at about 403 ppm, and have only a decade or so before the discussion will then change to whether we should move to the wholesale reconfiguration of society to adapt, or continue to shaft future generations for our own lifestyle maintenance and self-fulfilment.
Beasley should also consider his own carbon footprint when flying (at one kg CO2 every 20 km) all over the world to give lectures and to consult. As should we all.