Recently I was asked a question about what is a green city? Speaking about green... Green cities...
I can assume, that those of us, who have dealt with sustainability topics and know what it is all about don’t have any concern regarding this issue. But if we ask people outside the circle of our friends, families, colleagues and those, who know and care? These are my thoughts for those, who still think that green is all about colour.
Green cities… What does it mean and what is it for? Is it only about making more parks and green roofs and planting more trees? Or is green city something more than just green colour?
From my perspective, making cities green is much more complicated process that involves various industries and that has to be implemented on different scales and levels. As a Building Technology student I have to deal with many questions on how to make our environment more sustainable and pleasant not only for nearest future, but also considering those people who are going to live after us.
Sustainable “green” cities play crucial role, if you want to achieve goal mentioned above. In the 21st century cities have direct connection to our daily life. People migrate from urban areas to rural ones and vice versa trying to find better place to live. But the fact is that cities keep growing and that means they need more resources to function. Urban island effect, air and water pollution, visual comfort, energy performance- these are only some of the problems that have to be solved today as there no time to delay them anymore. Increasing urban population not only forces us to take actions but also offers us, as the developers of the new friendly urban environment, more opportunities and possibilities.
I strongly believe that growing green city is not only about the green colour, however it is hard to imagine sustainable and pleasant for living city without any greenery introduced. And the fact that green colour represents harmless and ecological way of doing things is not a coincidence, because greenery does help to achieve some of sustainable goals. Or maybe, even the most important one-greenery does make us feel better. But still, let us think beyond this green border.
