Ecocities: Solution to All Our Problems?

Among all the global world problems today, some of the most overwhelming are global warming caused by carbon dioxide emission, wastes, and energy crisis. All were caused by human activities. Actually we can help to solve these problems, starting from our own environment: the city. In these past years, cities labeled as Ecocities are developed throughout the world, some of the famous examples are Geneva, Stockholm and Melbourne. According to Richard Register, the writer of Ecocity Berkeley: Building Cities for a Healthy Future, an Ecocity is “an entire city dedicated to minimizing the required inputs (of energy, water and food) and its waste output (of heat, air pollution as co₂, methane, and water pollution)”. Therefore the development of Ecocities is one thorough solution to overcome the environmental problems and energy crisis of today because of its infrastructure and the eco-friendly processes it uses to support itself.

In order to reduce carbon emission that causes global warming, Ecocities do not use fossil-fueled energy source. Instead they use renewable energy sources such as solar power or wind power to fulfill their energy needs. These energy sources produce energies with environmentally-friendly processes and do not produce pollutants when used, because these energies are converted directly to electricity and as we know, the usage of electricity to power devices does not pollute.

Ecocities also have infrastructures that help solving environmental problems and energy crisis. To reduce the usage of fossil-fueled energy, Ecocities have less car roads and roads are designed for bicycles and pedestrians. This road design also helps to reduce the energy crisis by allowing less car usage in the city, thus also emits less carbon dioxide. The building structures also specially designed to suit the climate of the region, they could be designed to be easily cooled (best for tropical regions, where the sun shines twelve hours per day everyday of the year), or they could be designed to conserve heat inside them (for the four seasoned regions). This reduces a lot of energy usage for heating or cooling houses. The buildings in Ecocities are also arranged in a way so they are not too dense, allowing better transportation and preventing the forming of urban heat islands, and in a way so the sub-urban areas are not too far from the center of the city which gives shorter routes for the citizens to come to their workplace.

Furthermore, Ecocities dedicated 20% of their area as green area, whether it is a park, gardens, or agricultural fields. This way Ecocities are not just reducing pollutions but also producing foods and other goods by themselves which decreases the energy needed to transport those goods if they are not self-produced.

There are still much more of the good side of Ecocities, such as their effective waste management and healthy sanitation. But the ideas mentioned in paragraphs above should have succeed in giving a picture of Ecocities and the reason we should try to develop more Ecocities in our future. Ecocities can solve a lot of today’s environmental problem just by merely existing and goodly maintained, also it can give us better environment to live in and healthier life.

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