Green infrastructure
Green infrastructure is the network of parks, trees, green roofs, wetlands and corridors that provides services to the city as grey infrastructure —pipes, cables, asphalt— does: it regulates temperature, absorbs rain, cleans the air, hosts biodiversity. The word infrastructure is the key: it is not ornament, it is a system.
Ian McHarg set it out in Design with Nature (1969) before the term existed: plan from what the territory already does. Today it is measured in ecosystem services and designed as a continuous network rather than isolated parks. Its distribution follows the income map, and correcting that is politics.
Videos on this term (7)
- Urban ecology
Green Gentrification: When Parks and Trees Push Residents Out
Green gentrification is the paradox of the sustainable city: the park that a neighbourhood fought for raises rents…
3 min read - Urban ecology
Regenerative urbanism: polluting less is not enough
Sustainability asks cities to reduce harm. Regenerative urbanism asks them to repair it: to give back more to their…
2 min read - Urban ecology
Green infrastructure: the city that manages its climate
Parks, green roofs and wetlands are not ornament: they lower temperature, absorb rainfall and replace grey…
2 min read - Urban ecology
Urban biodiversity: Pickett, Cadenasso and Forman
How to integrate nature and city according to Pickett, Cadenasso and Forman: the city as ecosystem, green…
2 min read - Urban ecology
Urban Reforestation: Benefits, Examples and How to Do It Right
Urban reforestation cools the city, retains water and improves health. What David Nowak, the Arbor Day Foundation…
3 min read - Public space
Elinor Ostrom: governing the commons without selling them
Ostrom proved that communities manage shared resources well without privatising or nationalising them, and her…
Elinor Ostrom 2 min read - Climate change
Cities and Climate Change: Mitigation, Adaptation and Examples
Cities emit 70 percent of energy-related CO2 and feel the impacts first. What mitigation and adaptation mean and…
2 min read
