What is sustainability?
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines sustainability as the notion to “create and maintain the conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony to support present and future generations” (US EPA, “Learn About Sustainability.”). It is important that we consciously consider the harmony between man and nature, and find ways to live cohesively both now and in the future. Our resources are finite, and we must find ways to smartly use them in order to not compromise future generations.
Working Towards Urban Sustainability
Cities are highly developed and densely populated, which means that the most severe consequences of our actions can be observed here. It is in cities where we see the most concentrated amounts of the byproducts of our lifestyle, whether it be pollution, waste, or lack of biodiversity. The uniqueness of cities from this perspective makes them some of the best places to study sustainability. The high levels of pollution and waste, for example, provide great motivation to try new practices or instill new initiatives to see what works best at minimizing our effect on the environment. If we can find ways to cut emissions in our most high-traffic areas, what does that say about the strides we could make in the rest of our country? Cities offer us a way to try out new things and innovate in concentrated yet high-impact areas. In looking for ways to ensure our current lives and the lives of those to come, our cities have the ability to provide us with new ways to work with the flaws we create as a whole.
Concrete jungles may not be the most obvious place to start with when working in the sustainability field or the environment in general, but maybe they should be. After all, around half of the world’s population lives in cities, and by 2050 it is expected that this proportion will grow to two-thirds (“Sustainable Development Solutions Network | Why the World Needs an Urban Sustainable Development Goal,” n.d.). When developed correctly, cities can be more sustainable than rural areas. Having to travel less distance to work or have an apartment rather than an entire house, for example, can add up to have less of a negative impact on the environment. Living in more dense centers can offer both convenience and a less wasteful lifestyle from many respects. While there is much to improve about our cities to maximize the satisfaction of man and nature, cities show potential for being the gateway to a more sustainable future.
Urban Sustainability in the U.S.
The aim of this project is to shed light on the environmental facet of urban sustainability in American cities. It is no secret that the U.S. tends to fall behind when it comes to sustainability, let alone urban sustainability. Despite being one of the wealthiest countries in the world, the U.S. “is falling behind other countries on a range of indicators relating to quality-of-life, economic opportunity, and environmental management. Nowhere is this problem more apparent than in American cities, which are home to 62.7 percent of the domestic population” (“Sustainable Development Solutions Network | Achieving a Sustainable Urban America.”). It is time we take a closer look at our cities to see what we can improve upon. If we can identify our greatest urban environmental challenges, then we can more easily start to understand what solutions might work best at solving our problems. By looking across our cities, we can come to understand how to be more sustainable going forward, and can more effectively create the cities of tomorrow.
Sustainable Development Solutions Network | Achieving a Sustainable Urban America: SDSN’s first U.S. Cities SDG Index. (n.d.). Retrieved June 14, 2019, from http://unsdsn.org/resources/publications/us-cities-sdg-index/
Sustainable Development Solutions Network | Why the World Needs an Urban Sustainable Development Goal. (n.d.). Retrieved June 14, 2019, from http://unsdsn.org/resources/publications/why-the-world-needs-an-urban-sustainable-development-goal/
US EPA, O. (2014, November 5). Learn About Sustainability [Overviews and Factsheets]. Retrieved June 14, 2019, from US EPA website: https://www.epa.gov/sustainability/learn-about-sustainability