ABSTRACT
Chapter 26 discusses the complexities of designing eco-cities. As stuff flows through cities – resources and products in, waste out – focus must shift from item efficiency (e.g. eco-buildings) to system efficiency. Although most cycles can largely be closed within buildings, neighbourhoods or cities, only at bio-region scale can closure be complete. But what is best dealt with incrementally by householders or developers, managerially by communities or system-wide by municipalities and governments? Eco-converting whole cities and eco-regenerating soul-destroying high-rise estates bring additional complexities. Moreover, unless cities improve inhabitants’ wellbeing, ‘performance-gaps’ will compromise ecological functioning. ‘Greening’, for instance, can achieve multiple ecological and social improvements: air quality, flood reduction, stress relief, community development and security. Such synthesis of soul-nurture and eco-improvement can transform ‘place-image’, boosting inhabitants’ self-esteem, so changing behaviour. Indeed, existing eco-towns teach that eco-design inspires, but the resulting lifestyle delivers. This makes technology’s prime role, not what it does, but how it alters consciousness.
