Building our cities green

Building a green city is a prerequisite for living in a healthy environment. Starting to think of 'green city' could lead us to overcome the prospective many challenges across the globe. But, a misconception of the greenest city is still a big problem for many, even for me when I seek for the differences between 'eco' and 'green'. Actually, by definition the meaning of these two terms is slightly different; but, in reality, there is no difference in achieving quality lives between eco-city and green city. By the concept of 'eco-ing' or 'greening' in city development, the main objective is to work for enhancing congenial environment in our daily lives. Elaborately, the green city desires to notify and inspire the planning and development of the urban areas within some special interests with government, non-government companies and common citizens. In general observation, people think that ensuring a green city means a city dominated by trees; but the process of greening is not only stimulated by enhancing forest resources, but also many other factors that act as a holistic approach to city planning and designing.

Most of our cities lack clean environment for our living; more importantly, lack of clean air and water. But, unfortunately, where are we heading for in ensuring our living standards in our cities? Since the recent years, we have achieved a status of being one of the worst cities in the world. I've been very shocked about our pessimistic thinking about something. For example, we, individually and intentionally pollute our water, air, food, land and many things; and we know doing such things are bad for our society, even we also know we are destroying myself, my family and children through our regular activities. To get rid of such activities, the most important things are our ethical values and self awareness at first.

The Green City functions require the critical green elements. Presently, about a half of the global population live in cities and based on the United Nations estimation, the city population will increase by 70% in 2047. For this reason, our present time is very crucial to understand the true value of urban green space. The Green City indicators can be created on the guidelines of the Green City philosophy applied in many countries. This is a global approach that makes green space in the regenerative ways considering the principles of Grey, Red and Blue in the master plan. It utilises evidence-based disputes to highlight the significance of green elements and places them as primary solutions and responses to several challenges of modern life - from stress, obesity or burn-out to be prepared for the climate-change impacts. It argues that the green economy is an agenda for prioritised investment in green infrastructure.

In the process of greening, it has found a number of key areas which promote quantifiable benefits. These areas seek top to bottom guidelines in order to demonstrate how each guideline strengthens the integral worthiness of the greening process. However, we can understand the considerable issues through the greening process based on the principles of grey, red and blue plans- as already mentioned before. More specifically, Grey plans are based on infrastructure projects that incorporate green at the early stages of designing new roads, transportation facilities and any other relevant projects by facilitating sufficient spaces for trees and other green system like a fountain, lake, pond, park etc. Higher planned development brings us closer to the city flavor with green transit. The road users' experiences are therefore very significant and can be accomplished to improve Grey plans.

Red plans - this type of plans will be development of new residential and commercial areas that should integrate urban forests into the city design in order to make a green building block. In the city spaces, a collection of all trees refers to an urban forest which can differ anywhere in the city. Urban forests should be counted or distributed through different types of trees, forest, park, green roofs, ecological corridor, recreational garden, front garden or plaza. For an ideal dense city, a liveable neighbourhood should contain 15-20 per cent greenery.

Blue plans - the last option of the greening process incorporates water structure development that should be designed in some technical ways, guided by an expert team of environmentalists, urban planners, engineers, landscape architects and others, if the initial team thinks to include them in the designing process.

These three plans are the guiding principles that lead the way to create a truly green city and integrate all the 10 major components of city development, such as eco building, sustainable land use, renewable energy, clean air, waste management, water management, environmental management, sanitation, green economy and green transportation.

The greening system regulates climate change impact which is a global agenda. Green building decreases temperature, increases biodiversity, retains water, decreases the energy needs in residential areas or buildings and eliminate air pollutants. A good plan is our urgent need in view of the limited budget and resources. And, in case of the present trend of the country's development, the lack of coordination in implementing different development projects and ethical violence of good governance plague our city development.

Finally, we believe green cities must have clean air and water, energy from renewable sources and a pollution-free transport system. Our authority should effectively utilise long-term solutions that are sustainable. Our decision makers should keep in mind a long-term cost-benefit analysis that all of our urban projects should essentially consider the green elements. Developing green spaces can now play a central role in policies related to the greening process.

The writer is a Researcher on Sustainability at BRAC Research and Evaluation Division. Emails: [email protected]; [email protected]