Author: Alex Aylett

[How the Open Data movement can fuel the push for more sustainable cities is something that I been mulling over for years. I finally had the chance to write something on it for Sustainable Cities Canada.] Toronto is the least bikeable of Canada’s large cities, and we’ve got the numbers

[How the Open Data movement can fuel the push for more sustainable cities is something that I been mulling over for years. I finally had the chance to write something on it for Sustainable Cities Canada.]

Toronto is the least bikeable of Canada’s large cities, and we’ve got the numbers to prove it. Released earlier this month, Bikescore is an online calculator that ranks the overall bikeability of North American cities. Victoria, Vancouver, Montreal lead the pack in Canada (T.O. comes in at 7th place, well after Saskatoon, Calgary and Halifax). With eye-catching “heat maps” Bikescore also looks inside the top 10 Canadian and American cities to show where cyclists will feel most at home.

The maps themselves are excellent and well worth a browse. But beyond that, Bikescore is an example of what is happening at the overlap of urban sustainability and another force that is reshaping how we inhabit our cities: the open data movement. [keep reading @SSC or…]

Open Data Dividends
The open data movement is a push to make public the reams of government data on everything from transportation use to water infrastructure. Advocacy groups like Montreal Ouvert and datalibre.ca have sprung up across Canada and the U.S. Thanks in part to their pressure, both Federal and State / Provincial governments have embraced the movement. Cities in particular have responded to the call. In Canada alone there are close to 20 municipalities with some form of open data program. Vancouver, one of the first “open” cities, has been sharing data since 2009.

The movement claims multiple dividends, not least being increased government transparency and the democratization of access to publicly collected data (which can otherwise set you back a hefty fee). But another attraction for municipalities is the possibility of crowd-sourcing innovative applications. Bikescore, and its even more successful parent Walkscore, are perfect examples.

Crowd-Sourcing Innovation
The backbone of both services is information on urban space and transit that allows them to create detailed calculations about the livability of urban areas. To do this they combine scores based on bike infrastructure, terrain, transit access and the proximity of other amenities (parks, schools, shops etc.) . The end result is clear, insightful and directly linked to the current push to create denser, mixed-use and highly livable neighbourhoods.

Much of the underlying data may be collected by municipalities, but planning departments rarely have software engineers on staff. Making the data public can put it in the hands of people with the skills to push it to its limits. In this case a professional team that includes former Microsoft staffers working in partnership with researchers at UBC and SFU.

Cities are also using application designing contests to challenge local software developers. New York City, one of the first to try this approach, just wrapped up the third edition of their annual “Big Apps” contest. My favourite winners include a particularly elegant transit planner , and an application that helps would-be gardeners locate and negotiate access to vacant city land in their neighbourhood.

Datascape: Challenge and Opportunity
City’s are fast getting a new kind of topography, a datascape that – thanks to our mobile devices – is being layered over our existing cities and transforming the way we interact with urban spaces. The challenge of deep urban sustainability is in many cases one of unlocking innovation and making the most of available resources. I’ve long argued that that isn’t something that municipalities can do on their own. But models for truly meaningful public engagement – not just consultation – are limited. What the open data movement provides is way to change that and boost the processing power focused on the riddle of creating greener cities.

There are many open questions. Which city will be the first to have a truly multi-modal transit app, or one that helps chart tree canopy cover and reduce the urban heat island effect? Which one will be first to show residents average waste generated in their neighbourhoods, or the water and energy that is consumed there?

Finding answers will require cities to share more and better data, and developers to spot how that data can be used most effectively. Urban sustainability is a perfect challenge, and a perfect opportunity, for the open data movement. We are all waiting to see whether cities and software developers will rise to the occasion.

[Here’s the next installment in the ongoing series that I am contributing to the Sustainable Cities Canada site. It plays on some of the same issues that Afton mentioned in her earlier post.  But I wanted to push the accepted boundaries of what we discuss under the heading “urban agriculture”

[Here’s the next installment in the ongoing series that I am contributing to the Sustainable Cities Canada site. It plays on some of the same issues that Afton mentioned in her earlier post.  But I wanted to push the accepted boundaries of what we discuss under the heading “urban agriculture” and make the case that the new interest in growing food in cities can also energize broader regional food strategies.]

Growing food in cities has become sexy. Sexy to a degree that I would never have predicted even a few years ago. The internet is overrun with pictures of futuristic farmscrapers and creatives in Manhattan are growing hydroponic lettuce in their loft windows. In parts of Montreal heirloom tomatoes are as much of a status symbol as purebred pets.

But underneath this glossy skin there is a potentially profound change in how we think about cities. Largely seen as places of consumption, more and more people are beginning to open their eyes to the productive potential of urban spaces. Spurred by concerns over food security, climate change, or just plain nutritional value, urban agriculture is maturing into an established part of cities across Canada and around the world. But its true impact is still to come. Continue reading @ SSC or…

The next step is to link the energy behind the movement to a broader vision of the place of the cities (and municipal policies) in our food systems at the regional – not just the urban – scale.

Coming of Age
Urban agriculture in North America came of age over the past decade. Two big projects during those years showed that it could be more than a weekend pastime. First, working with some of the poorest neighbourhoods of Milwaukee and Chicago Growing Power – a non-profit started by ex-basketball player Will Allen – transformed vacant and industrial land into highly productive urban farms.

The farms yield thousands of kilos of fresh produce a year, and that produce is sold and distributed within the communities that help produce it. These communities had previously been “food deserts”: they had plenty of fast-food joints but suffered from a crippling lack of access to fresh fruit and vegetables. Allen (who has since been awarded a McArthur Genius Grant) saw an opportunity to use urban agriculture to create a holistic solution to linked problems of urban blight, malnutrition, and poverty.

The second big win for urban agriculture was the opening of Lufa Farms‘ first roof-top greenhouse in Montreal in 2011. The 32,000 square-foot greenhouse is the first installation of its kind in the world. Using an advanced hydroponic system Lufa is producing high yields year round, all while increasing the building’s energy efficiency. Lufa, which has partnered with an industrial developer to expand to new sites, proved that commercial scale urban farming was more than science fiction.

These two projects are inspiring signposts in a landscape that is filling with related efforts both big and small.

Beyond City Limits
But cities will never meet their food production needs within their own boundaries. If we are serious about engaging with agriculture from an urban point of view, we need to widen our gaze to the regions that surround the places most of us call home.

Preserving the agricultural land that circles many of our urban centers is a key place to start. Paving over prime farm fields is a bad idea. But balancing the pressure of growth against the need to protect farmland is no easy task. The nearly 40 year history of the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) in the Vancouver region shows that it is possible, but only when municipal and regional governments and citizens take an active role in the process.

Maintaining access to land is only one part of this larger puzzle though. Equally important is ensuring the viability of our peri-urban farms. Fruit producers in the Niagara region, for example, have been hit hard by the closure of processing and distribution plants that they relied on to get their produce to market.

More collaborative and grassroots processing and distribution models like farmer’s coops and community-supported agriculture (CSAs) are one response. In the case of CSAs they also directly link urbanites and farmers, and in some cases help ease the transition years as farms work towards certified organic status. But municipal and provincial governments also have a key part to play in attracting and retaining the larger scale processors that allow local produce to reach regional and export markets.

Is that really urban agriculture?
Land reserves, CSAs, and fruit canneries? Is that really urban agriculture? That depends.

If you think that the city stops at a line on a map then no. But a city is more than a place. It’s also a web of relationships and influences that push out well beyond its boundaries. Looking at cities that way opens up a broader vision of what counts as part of the urban agriculture movement. Rather than just seeing cities as productive places, they become productive players at the heart of larger sustainable regional food systems. If we really want to increase food security or reduce food-miles that is the direction we need to be headed. And with more and more people becoming interested in urban agriculture, this is a great time to use that energy to push our engagement one step further.

[Recently back from Tanzania, Afton Halloran is an Affiliated Researcher in the research program that I direct for Sustainable Cities International. She has an interesting post over on the SCI blog about why cities need to engage with food systems planning, and how urban agriculture figures in that equation. A

[Recently back from Tanzania, Afton Halloran is an Affiliated Researcher in the research program that I direct for Sustainable Cities International. She has an interesting post over on the SCI blog about why cities need to engage with food systems planning, and how urban agriculture figures in that equation. A taste is below.]

“We live in cities because rural livelihoods are no longer viable, but who produces the food?”

Although the modern city provides a multitude of opportunities, we are now on our way to creating a negative feedback loop that is more visible in the global North than South – we are ignoring what fuels our society: Food. So what do we do?

Obviously, de-urbanisation is out of the question. We are now left to acknowledge the rural-urban continuum and the interconnectedness of agriculture at the regional level.
Read More @Sustainable Cities