Urban Sustainable Ecosystem, Paradigm or paradox? The Necessity of Revision in the City and Environment Relations

Document Type : Review

Author

Associate Professor in Environmental Design Engineering Department, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

The double role of the cities in creating environmental tensions and their potentials in shifting toward sustainable development makes them supersensitive and considerable centers where numerous challenges are faced. For instance, the citizens and city managers and the planners are all concerned about the environmental challenges. The rapid growth of the urban communities and the uncontrolled urban settlements is obtained through destruction and devastation of natural potentials and the nature of the context. The natural land and water habitats, biodiversity, vegetation and animals are strongly endangered and at the risk of distinction. A wise confrontation to this challenge requires an accurate and systematic perception of the concept and the function of the environment as a predefined productive natural system and of the city as an environmental related and a manmade consumer system. Therefore it is essential to perceive and understand the profound relations of the built phenomenon (city) and natural context (environment) in order to resolve the problems of the environment and city and also synthesize and optimize the multiple human and natural systems and processes. In this case the citizens and theorists look for sustainable solutions that will provide sustainable development with environmental quality increase and an improvement in performances of municipal entities simultaneously, while this case will be fulfilled by applying the holistic approach and benefiting from the use of scientific and technical expertise and managerial and engineering experience in resolving the sustainability and planning problems successfully. The development system and the physical – spatial development of the city should be adapted to the environmental capacities as a context and a natural infrastructure and it must take place in the framework of sustainable urban development as well. The natural environment as a natural infrastructure of the city - compared to built and manmade infrastructures – requires a holistic approach in planning and conversation. The following elements are the providing sources of the city that require planning, design and implementation to provide the city ecosystem and the environment benefits simultaneously within the sustainable urban development framework.

References

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