MAnAGinG And ModELinG fLuviAL sysTEMs: onGoinG PRojECTs AT ThE uRBAn dEsiGn LAB Richard Plunz + Kubi Ackerman The Urban Design Lab (UDL) at the Earth Institute at Columbia University offers a unique approach to helping communities develop sustainably within the framework of their distinct needs. This approach is driven by applied design research—including conceptualizing and prototyping alternative proposals—that can act as a catalyst for projects that advance sustainable development in New York City and the metropolitan region. While the core focus of the UDL is the physical design of cities, i.e., physical structure and physical change, its approach recognizes that a range of expertise is needed to make urban design relevant and sustainable in its unique and dynamic environment. Urban environments must be understood within the context of regional geophysical and infrastructural networks, and cities such as New York are intimately reliant on their peri-urban and rural surroundings. In this spirit of interdisciplinarity, the UDL has embarked on two projects that have sought to understand and address the development issues facing the great fluvial systems critical to the future of the New York Area: the Hudson and Delaware Rivers. 2006 Bangladesh
RURBAN AGGLOMERATIONS fatou Kine dieye With a surface area equivalent to the size of Utah and a population equal to nearly half the population of the United States, Bangladesh is seriously threatened by the prospect of globalization and rapid urbanization. As the urban populations of Dhaka and Chittagong grow at an alarming rate, so too do the threats and consequences of severe potable-water shortages. The threat to rural populations is just as great. While the Green Revolution has drastically increased the number of hand wells in use in rural areas, the increased number of wells has tainted the groundwater with arsenic. In 2005, nearly half of Bangladesh’s population was threatened by this deadly substance. Ironically, Bangladesh’s water crisis is in part a result of having too much water. As the watershed for an entire aquifer system, the Ganges delta is the confluence of three major rivers that flow through parts of Asia and Southeast Asia. With rising temperatures, the threat of severe weather catastrophes continues. Waterborne diseases are recurrent in water’s history. In the developing world, the threat of contamination poses additional challenges to already scarce water resources. Typically, diseases such as cholera and diarrhea are transported through unsanitary water.
The separate challenges facing the Hudson and Delaware watersheds are unique, yet their positions relative to the most densely populated regions of the nation allow for some commonality of approach. Both are “natural” geographic features that have been heavily inscribed by human activity and development, and both are vital infrastructure, water supply, and transportation corridors for the region and its inhabitants. The significance of these two rivers to natural and human systems is continually changing as the demands and pressures on rivers inexorably increase. In particular, the saturation of human population and development is becoming a critical issue for these two very different areas. In both projects, the UDL attempts to address the concept of a regional “carrying capacity” as part of an understanding of the limits of natural and constructed environments to sustained expansion. In order to address this issue effectively, it is necessary to transcend the physical boundaries of towns and districts that have hampered integrated planning efforts as well as disciplinary boundaries between designers, scientists, policymakers, and the public. Rivers and watersheds, with geographies of their own, are the perfect sites to explore and start to break down the disjunctions between continuous, ever-changing systems and imposed territorial and political boundaries. The two projects described below are re-
lated but distinct approaches to addressing the pressures of development in economically and ecologically complex regions. The first project, centered in the Delaware River watershed, focuses on specific case study development proposals and creates a new model for enhancing citizen participation in regional planning, including analysis and information about the planning process in an easily accessible format. The second project, encompassing the entire Hudson River estuary, seeks to develop a data-driven, multivariate computer model to assess the impacts of development across the region. These projects are part of an ongoing effort to address these disjunctions to create the progressive urban-planning tools that will be necessary in an age of increasing economic and environmental uncertainty. The Citizen’s Guide to Residential Development: Western Sullivan County and the Upper Delaware River Basin
The Delaware River watershed runs on a north-south axis that begins in the Adirondack Mountains in New York State and terminates in the estuary of the Chesapeake Bay in the states of Maryland and Virginia. The river itself divides the states of New York and Pennsylvania. The river naturally flows from north to south. Four main tributary watersheds feed the main Upper Delaware basin. The protection of the Upper Delaware as a Wild and Scenic River, designated by the federal government in 1978, is in part a recognition of its crucial position within the whole river basin. In a region experiencing exponential growth like western Sullivan County, which lies in the heart of this watershed, any change or impact in this upstream area will have a significant impact to neighboring communities downstream. The entire region is also under threat from the effects of rapid climate change, with projections indicating that temperatures in the Upper Delaware valley will rise by 3.2° C by 2020, with unprecedented and unpredictable effects on regional ecology and hydrology. The Citizen’s Guide was produced as a response to the past decade of unprecedented subdivision planning and construction within the Upper Delaware River basin. In part, this
The Upper Delaware Region represents many things to many people. Most elementally, it is a natural watershed basin, and its future lies with recognition of this fundamental geographic condition for both its natural and social ecologies. Until recently, it has been a region dominated by agriculture and riverrelated transportation and enterprise. Even as the East Coast metropolises grew larger and larger, the Upper Delaware maintained a coherent physical identity and distinct social character. For much of the 20th century, as local economic development steadily atrophied, the basin became more insular— often described as “a place that time forgot.” More recently, it has been the promise of this potential idyll that is proving to be both the attraction and the root of the potential demise of the region as it is being rediscovered and faces the pressures of increasing urban expansion. Residential development has grown along with associated environmental impacts. The Citizen’s Guide reflects the growing need within the region for a public understanding of the complexities of the residential development process within the watershed of the Upper Delaware River basin. The project presents an overview of issues related to the effects of residential development on the natural and social ecologies of the region. One can also find an explanation of the official review processes and public recourse related to development projects. The document includes five detailed case studies to illustrate these processes and assess the pros and cons of specific development proposals. These are drawn from western Sullivan County, where the recent rate of population growth has been highest. In one way or another, however, the same issues will apply elsewhere within the Upper Delaware basin. Before the real estate boom of the last decade, many newcomers noted that the Upper Delaware region was the last inexpensive refuge within a two-hour radius of New York City. The Chapin Estate subdivision complex in Bethel, for example, advertises itself as a “sanctuary” only “two hours from Mid-
CASE STUDY CU 81
The Citizen’s Guide to Residential Development is a document that assesses the impacts of new and proposed subdivision developments in the Upper Delaware River basin. The document also articulates and visually diagrams the planning and approval process to make it more accessible and transparent to the general public, whose involvement will be critical if planning decisions are to be responsive to a wider range of public concerns.
work is intended to augment the initiative of the Upper Delaware Roundtable, which has recently produced a GIS mapping of large approved development projects in eight counties bordering the Upper Delaware. This study provides a more detailed study of western Sullivan County, where development pressure has been particularly intense. This Upper Delaware Preservation Coalition initiative is a sequel to a similar research seminar conducted last year that resulted in the publication A River Endangered: Proposed Power Transmission and Its Impact on Cultural History along the Upper Delaware River1.
2006 Brisbane
INFLOW/OUTFLUX odit feinblum
1
2
The correlation of population to local resources is being overlooked by developed nations wishing to maintain their dominance in the global economy. Australia, with about 20 million residents, the size of a hypercity, has net emigration of 50,000 a year, and announced a target of 130,000 to 140,000 immigrants in 2005–06, including 97,500 economic stream immigrants. Less than 10% of total immigration, and only a small proportion of refugees, are undocumented boat arrivals. Australia is addressing the global issue of migration by specifying the type of migrant the country will accept, and the government held a Skills Expo in London, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Chennai, India, to attract educated immigrants. It is the unauthorized arrivals that have generated the greatest controversy as Australia pours all its efforts into cultivating a society with a strong knowledge base poised to succeed in the world market. Brisbane, an emergent world city, with a population of 1 million, has become a center for new arrivals from abroad and from within Australia. The city is absorbing 100 newcomers a day and has launched a campaign to encourage rapid growth as the city vies for a strong economic position globally and within Australia. The acceptance and encouragement of large populations in Brisbane is dually problematic. The city is in a constant state of flux in regards to water, and Brisbane’s hydrologic patterns are erratic, with drought cycles occurring in uncertain periods. Moreover, many of the visas granted in Australia are temporary, bringing up the universal issue for any migrant, skilled or unskilled, that of uncertain legal status. The challenge to provide a limited environmental resource as well as a political rubric and paradigm for incoming masses can define a new type of infrastructure. This infrastructure will be embedded with policy and connect people rather than pipes to a resource reevaluating the notions of permanence in the shifting urban landscape. 1 Population comparison 2 Advertisement from Queensland Government 3 Identity Shifts: population 4 Sequenced housing network DENSE AREAS
MEDIUM DENSITy
ExISTINg CATCHMENT
SEQUENCED HoUSINg NETWoRK
5 Brisbane population statistics 6 Breakdown of current water use in SEQ 3
town Manhattan…unmatched anywhere on the East Coast.” The recent development boom has demonstrated the viability of this approach and validated the strategic importance of the region as a new primary focus of suburban residential growth. It also demonstrates that “growth” takes many forms—not just houses and subdivisions. Urbanization is also about infrastructure—about energy and water—and these two essential lifelines of New York City have had increasingly dramatic impacts on the Upper Delaware.
Additionally, the case studies show that the negative long-term local economic impacts of residential subdivision can be substantial. On average, in the five towns where the subdivisions are located, residential development costs each town $1.26 for every dollar in tax revenue collected. By contrast, commercial, agricultural, and open spaces produce a tax gain of $.50 for each dollar in tax revenue collected2. After reading the case studies, readers may be encouraged to learn more about their local regulations and zoning restrictions and to become advocates for their communities, their families, and their own personal and environmental health.
4
PROPOSAL CU 83
The western Sullivan County subdivision case studies considered in the Citizen’s Guide—Lake Diana Properties, New Turnpike Homes, Eagle’s Nest Estates, Delaware Ridge Estates, and the Chapin Estates—are illustrative of the nature of the public review and approval process2. They are diverse, representing five different town governments, and they range in scale from 8 to 177 lots. They reveal the value of an accurate and comprehensive approval process for the proper evaluation of environmental impacts and public participation. All demonstrate the importance of general public knowledge of development proposals, especially at a project’s inception, since there are difficulties and disadvantages of incorporating public input late in the approval process. The case studies also demonstrate some of the weaknesses in local town law in terms of providing sufficient criteria for informed decisions on the merits of any given project proposal and show the importance of considering projects in their cumulative context rather than as isolated parcels distinct from their surroundings.
5
In addition to residential development pressures, the Upper Delaware River itself has been increasingly affected by the demands of the New York City water supply in recent years. Mismanagement of water resources, including excessive drawdown and storage, has created ecological damage in lakes and reservoirs. There have been one 500-year and two 100-year flood events between 2004 and 2006, due in part to ill-timed water
6
2006 Brisbane
CYCLE RECYCLE INFRASTRUCTURE Marlin nowbakht At times, Brisbane’s water reservoir drops below 30% capacity. While these conditions resemble the typical pattern of growing cities, the city faces a paradox: Rainfall does not reach remotely located water-catchment areas, rather it falls within the city.
1
2
Adequate drought-mitigation strategies can reduce the city’s reliance on water through 1) water catchment outreach 2) water transportation 3) and climatic change. The proposal is to decrease the city’s dependence on water by introducing a series of water recycling infrastructures that provide new urban water-catchment areas and opportunities for waste water and grey water recycling. Goals: 1. Low density // High intensity Minimizing infrastructure length = minimization of wasted water through pipe leakage + minimization of cost of water transportation from remote water plants 2. Rain catching mechanism // counter flow resistance Vertical infrastructure = local water treatment plants for instant purification of grey water + modular rain catching entities + public access for educational water awareness programs. 3. Self-sufficiency // towards an autonomous water cycle 1 Free Body Diagram 2 Components 3 View 4 Site plan 5 Aerial View of high-rise structures 6 View 7 Urban turbulence 8 View
3
4
ed to regional climate-change regional energy infrastructure, en similar problems. Beginning e have been several highly deer-line proposals within the river ed to feed the increasing energy New York metropolitan region. d, they would have dire consehe river ecosystem and its tourA recent project proposed a would follow the Millennium Gas dor. This time, it was reinforced Energy Act, which diminished t of new power delivery corriwer-line project is still under ree Millennium Gas Pipeline said erred route. But the Millennium is already the site of negative impacts because of a sepament project tripling its size that ompleted.
aware County alone, more than ave been signed. The upgraded peline will facilitate gas transaction process is highly water and there are no guarantees ion of water usage and quality, ruction of local road infrastruceral quality of life. In the rush for ources and delivery, the Upper particularly vulnerable, given its tion relative to the New York area. This vulnerability originates d resource extraction, not only rban sprawl but also through tructure. There is little discusce conservation, whether in the side, and too much reliance on utions to long-term problems.
6
7
e issues that are being decided ut from many of the affected inadequate consideration of economic and environmental izen’s Guide to Residential Dean attempt to increase awarecritical challenges facing the er region, the greater New York d the interplay between metroand the rivers they depend on e world.
8
PROPOSAL CU 85
most worrisome impact of the Act is the proliferation of gaswithin the region. Western Sullike much of the Upper Delas home to the Marcellus Shale r, which contains natural-gas combination of new extraction nd the relaxing of government he Energy Act has led to hunng contracts with local property
5
2006 Brisbane
WATER SCARCITY + FOOD MARKETS john sunwoo Nearly 70% of the world’s fresh water is used for agriculture. While water shortages are regional in character, their collective impact on food prices are global. A drought in one part of the world reduces worldwide stockpiles of certain crops, in turn leading to increases in the price of those goods. In impoverished regions of the world, households often spend up to 80% of their budgets on food. Because of the globalization of food markets, destabilization and starvation can result from water shortages anywhere in the world. Compounding these concerns is the nearly ubiquitous use of nonrenewable sources of potable water by largescale farms. Around the middle of the 20th century, a combination of market forces and fears of food shortages led to the general adoption of new practices collectively termed the Green Revolution. Among other changes, farmers began to rely heavily on irrigation to increase the productivity of their land, effectively shifting their water supply from rainfall to underground aquifers. As a result of this shift, food items have themselves become large consumers of nonrenewable water resources in a given locality. By understanding this link between the food produced in a region and its water resources, one can trace the role that trade plays in the redistribution of water resources. Studies conducted by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations show how commerce in agriculture can be understood as a network of water trading. Seen in this way, water scarcity is less a result of geography than an economic condition. If the effect of water shortages on food prices is global, the effect of the global trade in food is very much local. The trade of food exaggerates the continual impoverishment of certain populations, especially those in developing countries with agriculturally based economies. Nations that have difficulty providing clean water for municipal needs like drinking and sanitation consistently trade water to other regions in the form of agricultural exports. The expansion of farmland leads to the devastation of regional ecologies, and irrigation drains existing freshwater resources faster than they can replenish themselves. As water becomes a scarce commodity, these problems will only intensify. To address these issues, a strategy must take into consideration the role of water resources in global food markets.
The Hudson Regional Modeling Initiative While the Citizen’s Guide project is a critical tool for understanding development pressures in a specific region, the UDL recognizes the need for more comprehensive and adaptive assessment tools for fluvial areas facing intense development, density, and resource constraints. While conditions in every region are unique, the necessity of engaging a wide and complex range of variables in evaluating future development scenarios must be recognized by all planners and policymakers. Given the increasing volatility of climatic, economic, and demographic conditions in the 21st century, it will be necessary to develop evaluative tools and methods that are comprehensive, heavily data-driven, flexible, and responsive to real-time conditions. It is with this goal that the UDL has embarked on the Hudson Regional Modeling Initiative (HRMI).
The “Hudson region� is a loose designation defined by geographic, hydrographic, and urban conditions. Centered around the Lower Hudson River, a 150-mile-long tidal estuary, the region maintains distinct geographical characteristics while simultaneously being inextricably linked with the megalopolis of the New York City metropolitan area, which lies at the mouth of the river. The Hudson region has played a critical role in the development of New York City as a result of the construction of the Erie Canal, and it has continued to influence the city as transportation modes and the trajectories of global commerce have changed. As the region has experienced rampant development over the past several decades due to its role as a critical transportation corridor and its proximity to New York City, increasing infrastructural pressures have exposed the need for more comprehensive planning tools to ensure the continued viability of the region both economically and environmentally. Additionally, the Lower Hudson itself, long neglected as a repository of various industrial byproducts, has seen concerted efforts at rehabilitation over the past decade. Nevertheless, severe water-quality and use issues persist, including combined sewage overflow discharge and the massive water volume needed to cool the Indian Point
PROPOSAL CU 87
The HRMI is an ongoing project that is intended as a test bed for integrating urban planning and policy with design, technology, and sustainable development. HRMI is a potential decision-support model for the long-term future design and planning of the Hudson Valley region, as well as an urban-knowledge platform to evaluate the challenges of climate change, population growth, and environmental health facing the wider New York City area and global cities around the world.
2006 Brisbane
HYBRID INFRASTRUCTURES john sunwoo
Sometimes a small change is more appropriate than a complete reinvention. If the global trade of water resources in the form of agriculture is too entrenched to alter (or even address) with a single building, the posing of this problem as such can inform a series of interventions. These interventions can take advantage of unique contours in localized conditions. None seek to solve these problems wholesale but instead put the related forces in play towards a particular end. The Underwater Hotel uses adventure tourism to address some of the problems of water scarcity. The market for adventure tourism encourages audacity and extravagance. Following this vein, the hotel is a series of pods attached to the structure of an abandoned oil platform. Solar panels and wind turbines power both the hotel and a small desalinization plant to provide water for guests. This water then gets reused to grow specialized crops with high water content (e.g., cocoa and coffee). By growing these crops with “free� water, this hotel acts to alleviate water scarcity in other parts of the world. The Rural Trading Post provides infrastructure to farms in the Amazon rainforest. Because of a lack of roads and general infrastructure, farms in these regions produce low yields. Water-storage tanks and related facilities are built to support an ecohotel. This infrastructure is designed to capture rainfall for use by the hotel’s occupants, a system made necessary by the remote location of the hotel. During dry periods, this system is shared by farmers to ensure high-yield harvests. By collecting shared interests, a strong incentive is formed to care for the land and use it efficiently. The Farm Tower is a hotel, park, and farm located in a city. Residents of the city can rent space for personal gardening. Hotel rooms look onto flower gardens that are publicly accessible. Because it can tie directly into the municipal lines, it eliminates the difficulties of storage and transportation typically associated with gray water reuse. The farm tower reuses water. It produces water-free agricultural products and reduces the load on local water supplies. These three interventions are only related in their attempt to follow up on the analysis of agriculture and water scarcity. Taken together, they do not seek to solve these problems. Rather, they use this analysis to propose unique hybrids that somehow address the issues presented.
Nuclear Power Plant. Regional open space and smart-planning advocates have been active for some time and have achieved notable successes, yet they still lack the ability to assess the impact of specific development or infrastructure proposals on a regional level. The Hudson Regional Modeling Initiative aims to fill this gap. Critical to the success of the HRMI is the ongoing development of a digital urban model to enable city planners, policy makers, designers, and other stakeholders to make better use of scientific knowledge. The model is a multiscaled GIS database interlaced with real-time data about the region’s ecosystem that would provide accurate scientific data to support long-term decisions. This cross-cutting predictive tool represents a new generation of urban modeling and data gathering.
The model provides a unique opportunity to bridge the information gaps between scientists, community groups, and policy-makers. There already exists a wealth of data on landuse patterns and existing ecological conditions in the region that has been compiled by researchers. These data, however, are fragmented and can be difficult to interpret for nonscientists seeking to understand the actual implications of the documented patterns on proposed projects or policies. Partnerships within the various stakeholder communities will allow local groups and gov-
PROPOSAL CU 89
The model involves analyses of how continuing development will affect regional energy use and distribution, incorporating carbonfootprint analyses into the model and evaluating carbon management policy scenarios. In this sense the project offers an opportunity to build on and expand existing tools to significantly enhance their capabilities, leading to their potential application for a wide range of problems and geographic regions. The UDL has researched and experimented with a number of existing development forecasting and impact-modeling software applications. The model will necessitate forging relationships between members of the scientific community who have access to the hard data required to make accurate projections and the municipalities and community groups that are engaged in difficult decisions involving sustainability, economic development, and quality of life issues. The synergy of this state-of-the-art technology and the detailed data-gathering and analysis capacity contributed by our partners could result in a rigorous and authoritative tool for determining the impacts of various regional-development scenarios. The Hudson River Estuary model will be able to assess the comparative impacts and benefits of several alternative development or policy scenarios in order to contribute to truly informed decision-making.
2004 Brisbane MOBILE WATER AGENTS Jodi Ostrzega The reservoir for rain catchment in Brisbane is not located in the region of the highest rainfall. As a result, a substantial quantity of rainwater is lost in the city each year. The challenge then becomes to determine a way to capture this lost water so that it can be used for drinking as a more sustainable alternative to bottled water. 1
For example, the Stenocara Beetle traps water on the unique surface of its back. Once the water liquefies, it trickles down into the beetle’s mouth. Fog catchers can be found in Peru, where these fabric membranes capture moisture from the air and channel it into pipes for distribution into the city. Rain chains are devices that act like pipes to channel water vertically from one point to another. The mobile water agent travels through the city like a robot. It is programmed to follow rain and moisture and to deliver it to points in the city where drinking water is in demand. It can be found at different locations in the city at changing times throughout the day. 1 Mobile Water Agents 2 Mobile water agents location changes throughout the day 3 Filter details 4 Water Storage Belly 5 Sections 6 Mobile Water Agents configuration
2
3
erning bodies access to the vital hard data necessary for informed decision-making, while concurrently creating a broader platform for ecologists, biologists, economists, planners, and other relevant professionals to disseminate and apply their findings. The HRMI recognizes the need to address the issues of urbanization and development within a regional context. The Hudson River Estuary is a critical environmental indicator for the wider metropolitan area. Its diverse land-use and ecosystem distribution and the rapidly changing nature of its urban character and demography position it at the forefront of the struggle to define sustainable development and land-use policies in rapidly urbanizing areas. The area has the potential for establishing a paradigm for how socioeconomic and environmental pressures can be addressed through comprehensive regionalplanning initiatives.
Once operational, we foresee enormous potential to replicate both of these models nationally and internationally. With the rapid pace of global urbanization and development that we have experienced over the past decade continuing unabated, the capacity to make informed, strategic decisions about where to concentrate and limit human impacts on our environment will be more critical than ever. Tools such as the Citizen’s Guide to Residential Development and the Hudson Regional Modeling Initiative will play a crucial role in managing the increasingly complex interplay between anthropogenic and natural systems.
5
6
PROPOSAL CU 91
The scope of the project has also expanded beyond the goal of developing a merely projective modeling tool. While the projection of future development scenarios is critical in any modeling platform, the intent is to be able to make detailed qualitative assessments of the economic and environmental impacts of development and policy projections. This will take place through application of in-depth regional geographic data, which we are gathering in collaboration with our partners, to cutting-edge modeling and impact-assessment software. Through this process we hope to evaluate the region’s overall “carrying capacity” with respect to anthropogenic development. This evaluation will allow us to make specific, informed policy recommendations. Additionally, the UDL is collaborating with nonprofit organizations and community partners to identify specific areas, sites, and projects within the Hudson River Estuary that will be critical in shaping the overall trajectory of the region with regard to development and conservation.
4