Three of the World's Best 'Cities for People'

indotplace
Dec 16, 2016
1 min read

by CC Huang

A new Energy Innovation report, Cities for People in Practice, compares three sustainably developed communities that offer successful examples of the “cities for people” approach to urban development.

The three neighborhoods—located in Guangzhou, China; Stockholm, Sweden; and Freiburg, Germany—are located in very different countries and cultures. Yet each of these districts has a handful of common elements that has made the neighborhood a model of sustainable urban form:

1. There are very few cars.

2. People dominate the streets and public spaces.

3. Walking and biking are primary forms of transit.

By emphasizing public transit, walkability, and bicycling, these neighborhoods provide increased mobility and a higher quality of life for residents and visitors, but development costs have been comparable to traditional neighborhoods.

Promoting smart urban design

For the past two years, Energy Innovation has been working to promote smart urban design practices in China. Borrowing from the important mantra of Jan Gehl, we center our work on developing cities for people. Much of our work stems from The 8 Principles—a set of foundational urban design principles aimed at creating cities that are walkable, mixed-use, and transit-oriented that was first introduced in the ClimateWorks Foundation’s Planning Cities for People. Calthorpe Associates, Energy Foundation, and the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) were all important contributors to this document.