International Best Practices 

Introduction

Section F presents best practices required to create an urban form that mitigates climate change, increases resilience to climate change, and furthermore, lays the built-environment and economic foundation (urban metabolism) for urban sustainability success. In summary, it addresses the urban form needed for the future and now. In particular, this section addresses the following objectives.

This section focuses on public and green spaces, yet, these best practices are part of the larger set of best practices that create the regenerative built environment discussed fully in Part 2 entitled, “Planning the Regenerative City for Climate and Sustainability Success.”  That section shows how current green planning and design best practices, taken together, are a first step towards creating a regenerative built environment, which in turn is a fundamental component of urban sustainability and the corresponding sustainability economy. It also argues that those best practices are often value-engineered out of project implementation because of their full economic value as part of the urban sustainability economy. Thus, society is underutilizing them in its sustainability planning and making much less progress than would otherwise be the case. 

In addition, that section shows how even if all existing green planning and design best practices were used ubiquitously, they would not close the gap to climate and sustainability success. More action is needed, and innovation, in planning and design and other areas of municipal management to close the gap to climate and sustainability success. 

In particular, success requires that our approach to sustainability planning shifts from attempting to plan and design sustainable parts (cars, buildings, etc.) to planning and designing sustainability as a system, that is, regenerative systems sustainability. This shift in approach is fundamentally accomplished by planning, designing, and innovating towards the regenerative systems sustainability performance imperatives. See Figure 1 in the Appendix for a summary, and Part 2, on planning the regenerative city for details. 

A wide-ranging set of best practices on the planning and design of public and green spaces have arisen over the past thirty-plus years. They are innovative urban planning, design, and architectural responses to the interrelated twin challenges of accelerating climate change and unsustainability. Some practices arose as nature-based solutions (NbS) focused on urban infrastructure (wastewater, stormwater, water management and treatment, even roads). Others arose in green architecture, green urban planning, and green urban design applied mostly to new development (buildings, sites, master plans, functional plans such as for infrastructure, parks, and recreation), with some applications to renovating the existing built environment and to community economic planning and development. Over the past fifteen years, the new practice of biophilic urban planning and design has extended these applications, adding not only nature to the city but doing so in ways that increase the human connection to and appreciation of nature, which is essential for individual and community health. Other practices have arisen from ecosystem or regenerative approaches to agriculture (agroecology), to industrial design (biomimicry, cradle-to-cradle, upscaling), and to the economy (ecosystem services, natural capital, and natural capitalism). These efforts and the current state of practice form the foundation for understanding need, possibility, current options, and needed innovation.


Best Practices

In addition to the following summary of best practices, Table 1 in the Appendix lists common best practice techniques by scale that further illuminates current best practices and options for Ukrainian recovery planning. 


Best Practices for Reversing and Avoiding the Creation of Urban Heat Islands

Given expected urban heating from climate change through 2099 and given increasingly hostile environmental conditions, collect existing conditions data and predict future conditions on which to formulate a strategy in the context of changing new nature to reduce urban-area heating as much as possible, and to build new buildings and retrofit old buildings so they are capable of maintaining comfortable internal temperatures. Current best practices would include the following: increase the tree canopy as much as possible, particularly over streets and including on green roofs; use reflective white roof coverings for all other roofs; and use passive house construction combined with HVAC effective under extreme heat conditions.  


Best Practices for Creating Multi-Functional Public Green Spaces

Conduct a multi-dimensional assessment of all the values that a city’s public green spaces could produce, including passive and active recreation, local nature and biodiversity protection and enhancement, and stormwater retention and groundwater recharge. Model current and expected environmental conditions through 2099. Formulate a strategy for maximizing the value of the city’s public green spaces in the context of changing new nature based on the multiple uses it has and the values it could produce.


Best Practices for Protecting, Restoring, and Enhancing Local Biodiversity and Areas with Special Ecological or Heritage Value

Identify the city’s remnant areas of its larger ecosystem. Model current and expected environmental conditions through 2099, and interpret how that larger ecosystem would evolve in response (note, this will be a more or less precise exercise depending on information available and technical skills, but either a detailed or general formulation will be better than none at all). Formulate a strategy for protecting the existing remnant areas, restoring them, and enhancing them by expanding them into their past area when possible, creating effective connections to other areas, and adding nature and nature processes (such as pollinator corridors) to the built environment that mimics, extends, and even recreates some nature system functionality based on the model of new nature that is expected for the area. Develop a nature-in-built-environment policy plan, zoning ordinance, and guidelines to maximize nature in the built environment for its health and community benefits and for its enhancement of local nature. In addition, for habitat or species of special ecological or heritage value, pass protective local regulations. Also, fully assess and exploit connecting the city’s nature to that of the larger surrounding region and using development mitigation banking (or otherwise, nature “taxes” on consumption, production, development, and others) to contribute to reversing the past damage to local and regional natural areas, including through adding local nature to the built environment.


Best Practices for  Collaboration—Traditional and New

Intrinsic to planning success – and one cornerstone of urban and regional planning practice -- is stakeholder engagement and collaboration. This includes traditionally, orchestrating contributions of private sector and civil society organizations, particularly for implementation and funding. A less appreciated extension of the concept is integration across four key sectors, community, government, academia, and business.   A further extension of the concept is a new mode of governance based on the four-sector collaboration forged as a systems sustainability champion that is committed to and empowered to lead stakeholders through the innovation and implementation required for full regenerative, systems, sustainability success (SF Planning, 2018).