Sustainable cities: the future or a naive dream?

Sustainability is always going to win in the long run, because anything that isn't sustainable will inevitably cease to exist after some time.

The image posted by OP looks like a Bygdøy to me. In a summer, on the best day. Oslo city doesn't look like that, and it never did.

I live in a pretty "sustainable" big city, and it simply costs a lot as there is no such thing as a free lunch. Its prosperity relies heavily on cheap labor, which is disgusting if you think about it.

Sounds like a distant dream. It's definitely not gonna be happening in the near future. So many barriers to overcome. What about the infrastructural challenges? Also, is it economically feasible? Plus, there's no way there's not gonna be political problems. And population growth and urbanisation in general ain't gonna allow it to happen anytime soon...

It's a long term goal kind of thing.

@ DesuMaiden: Cities existed before the Industrial revolution, so it is not impossible for them to exist outside of modern technologies. If the location is favourable i.e. a human settlement is close to a river and sea plus has a lot of fertile land or other valuable resource then that area will be a good candidate to becoming a city.

As for the modern incarnation of a sustainable “green city”; at least the one most commonly depicted one that idea is a myth. I would like to know how sustainable all this smart technology/big data really is. All these high-tech solutions involve energy intensive production which is powered by fossil fuels. Moreover, the mining operations to procure the rare metals and other valuable materials is immense. Again, this mining is an energy intensive process that involves a lot of heavy machinery which is powered by fossil fuels. Here I am only looking at the production side of things. But if you consider running costs such as the electric consumption of big data/AI those things are immense and is the dirty secret of big tech. They want you to know about AI technology and its advantages but they don't talk about its massive (and growing) carbon footprint.

In short, before you consider something sustainable you need to think how the raw materials are obtained, shipped, produced/transformed into the final goods. Also, if the scale of production is large then the probability of it being energy intensive is greater.

Beyond that you need to also consider the operating costs on an energetic/resource level. As a general rule, as the level of complexity in an item increases the energetic costs to maintain it also increase on a per kg basis. These types of things are governed by the law of thermodynamics so we can't bypass them.

Best mitigating action is to reduce and reuse items but reducing consumption is not conductive to modern capitalist economies. This action I suggested would amount to a planned recession. Who is going to champion that cause?

@LoveYourSmile thank you for the correction. I have never been to Oslo but well, if it has about 72% of green space and it is amongst the greenest cities in Europe according to polls, I guess they are hiding all that somewhere. not doubting your comment. I think the city looks gorgeous in the pics but I have never been, so I really do wonder why they get so much praise?

sources:


but I absolutely agree with you and I think it is one of the reasons why people are so skeptical. it seems like this dream of sustainability is unavailable for the middle and working class citizens. which makes me question the term of "sustainability"

Well, simply put, that would be great. But we have to sustain more than intelligently designed cities and living spaces. We have to sustain the teeming masses that already exist in crowded metropolises.

So the solution isn't always going to be a technological advancement. A lot of it is still people learning to live with one another and cooperate.

@xMizu_
I think the environment contributes to how people socialize and interact though.

@effy_
I don't really know how they make these ratings, I checked your links and I see there cities that I would never call "sustainable" from my personal experience (say, Paris or Barcelona), and I don't see my personal #1 sustainable city of the world in that list.

And no, I'm not skeptical about sustainability as I see it in action every day here - it works and it's equally available for everyone. But it requires a lot of investment and highly relies on location, climate, local taxation and cheap labor to for the maintenance.

It's possible to do, but realistically you could never expand the city without outside resources and so a "sustainable city" is pretty doomed to failure. It's pretty much why the whole arcology trend never really took off (expandability)

I am not gonna lie, my research is pretty amateurish, quick and easy but I suppose (my wild guess) they just count the carbon footprint? (so for Paris, those would be: usage of solar panels, more bikes / less cars, renovating homes so they need to be less heated and helping people with financing those changes etc.



but sustainable cities are already in existence. one of them being Oslo, Vienna, Helsinki, Bern etc. I know that it sounds like a proper utopia but there is a way and some people see it.

OP is either delusional or stupid. NTHE is guranateed to happen.

There's no such a thing as a "sustainable city". At most, maybe some smaller villages manage some form of self-sufficiency, but even that is questionable when you have to get the materials for the solar panels or the wind turbines through unsustainable means. So any modern settlement already falls flat in that regard

@Noboru
Gallium nitride could replace silicon. This would potentially involve lower energy to produce. This is because very high temperatures are needed to process silicon. Though sure gallium is a limited resource in itself too but might be an improvement in some regards.
https://www1.eere.energy.gov/manufacturing/rd/pdfs/gallium_nitride_substrates_factsheet.pdf


https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/16/science/electronics-silicon-gallium.html

Plant based adhesives coming around

https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2023/a-recyclable-plant-based-material.html

Analogue computing is also coming back stronger. It can solve complex problems with low energy use
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/03/240314145325.htm

There is new tech and materials showing up all the time.

It would be still a bridge material only until something actual sustainable would be found. Wake me up when we get to harness energy without gas, coal, oil or radio activity and without any rare materials in a larger scale

@Noboru
Well I think there should be a reduction in use of computer technology for some purposes. Sometimes it just really isn't needed. Also end of mass production of planned obsolescence. If the same stuff can be passed down generation to generation then something being rare isn't inherently an issue.

There also is optical computing which also doesnt use silicon.
https://www.techradar.com/pro/a-single-optical-fiber-scientists-build-a-silicon-less-computer-that-use-light-waves-and-surpasses-existing-systems-for-classification-could-this-be-the-ultimate-ai-cpu

@traed Nothing will change as long as it's cheaper to get a completely new device than to repair things. Also remember that there are not only home devices, but also business clients. I have already swapped my work laptop twice while my private one is still in use from a much longer time. First work one only had 4GB RAM, but upgrading was not possible due to leasing contract restrictions. It failed me anyway, so I had to swap it. Though the backup devices at the time all had 4GB. I've swapped that one again some time 2 years ago because it was nearing EOL anyway and now I have to change my current laptop next year as well

That looks impressive

@Noboru
But it isnt cheaper in actuality. In the past electronics were repaired all the time sometimes by pros sometimes by people doing it themselves. I heard in the USSR many electronics came with a schematic. Im not talking about things on the consumer but the manufacturers. They design things now to be unrepairable or very difficult to repair

@traed It is when you also consider the paid time of a worker trying to figure out what's wrong and repairing things. In particular, it is cheaper because the actual work of creating the parts for an electronic device and assembling it is done in a country with far lower wages. No one really wants to waste time at work as long as you can get a cheap replacement more easily thanks to the exploitation of our global economy

But I get your sentiment and I prefer at least for home use hardware to be longer-lasting and easily maintenance-friendly. One of the reasons why I don't like switching my laptop anytime soon is that with a new model, I'll probably won't even find any with a detachable battery

@Noboru
Wages go up everywhere in time though so that wont be forever unless they rely on illegal slave labour. It doesnt really take long to find the problem and repair it if you have the right equipment and knowledge. I've done electronics before and it's not that hard to just repair a circuit. Takes a few minutes which uses less time than going to a store or buying online if parts are on hand. So it's a lost life skill currently.

There are some models of laptops able to be repaired like Framework, MNT Reform, HP EliteBook, and a lot of people use old ThinkPads. Dell also was talking about something like this they called Luna but it seems it never released. Problem is if a part isnt available, so ideal would be non proprietary parts.

@traed That depends on the person. I'm unfortunately not that skilled with my hands even when it comes to more simple soldering
It still takes time though until the wages and working conditions would have a much better standard in the poorer regions of the world
I would be rather worried of running out of the rare materials in a few decades

Yeah, I've heard good things about the old ThinkPads.
That reminds me on a story where Nintendo gifted a very old lady a brand new Gameboy they had lying somewhere because even they didn't have the spare parts any longer to repair hers