Why We Need Solarpunk Cities
Heyyo!!
Happy Friday!! This month, I envisioned what a future city could look like. As someone who spends a lot of time reading and writing about devastating paths global leaders and nations are treading down, this was a breath of fresh air. Taking time to imagine and walk around in a future world I want to see fuels my fire (and hopefully it fuels yours as well). As always, you can find the video below alongside three quotes and three links I found informative during my research. Enjoy!
Also, if you’re interested, consider supporting Our Changing Climate on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OurChangingClimate
Three Quotes:
“Because the city was produced chaotically for capitalist profits, no attention was given to accompanying environmental impacts. As the masses were driven from their land into the urban factories, the ancestral ties to the land and ecological knowledge of how to live sustainably on that land was lost.”
— Liberation School
“Degrowth can provide an alternative imaginary for the future. But this imaginary has to be transformed into spatial images, plans and practices for it to start having significant impact and effect. As noted in the introduction, if degrowth fails to address questions of urbanisation and spatial politics, it runs the risk of becoming yet another discourse for internal academic and activist consumption, an empty signifier that allows us to keep our souls clean – as it were – by staying clear of the political arena, while growth continues being the dominant paradigm for urban and regional development practices.”
— Maria Kaika et al.
“Solarpunk cities would drastically cut down on their heating/cooling carbon footprint and on fuel poverty by investing in environmental retrofitting of old buildings, starting with social housing. New housing would be built to an exacting passive-or-better environmental standard and to equally stringent earthquake safety standards. Social housing would be distributed throughout the city, without segregating low-income families in the least appealing areas.”
— Reckoning
Three Links:
Urbanizing degrowth: Five steps towards a Radical Spatial Degrowth Agenda for planning in the face of climate emergency (Maria Kaika et al.)
Solarpunk Cities: Notes for a Manifesto (Reckoning)
How To Build A Solarpunk City (Andrewism)
You can support Our Changing Climate directly through Patreon: www.patreon.com/OurChangingClimate
Hope you have a wonderful weekend,
Charlie