Green Infrastructure and the Future of Our Cities
By Cal Engstrom
Since the Industrial Revolution, millions of Americans have migrated to large, sprawling cities across the country. These cities have had to adapt to the mass influx of citizens looking for new opportunities in these metropolitan areas. Across the nation, brick and mortar were used as a backbone to create the vast quantities of roads, sewers, and buildings that we needed to sustain such a population. Fueled by oil and coal, this process of infrastructure allowed Americans to become docile in how the public sector functioned. Centuries later, we are starting to feel the everlasting effects of this compliance in the form of Climate Change. We need to begin to change our behaviors towards what came to be known as grey infrastructure, and design cities with the Earth in mind.
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| Geneva by French artist Luc Schieten, portraying a city in which Green Infrastructure flourishes amongst the urban environment. |
This was the framework that made me
choose to study the vast benefits of alternative Green Infrastructure and to
share my findings with the public. In a recent study conducted by PLOS
One, it is estimated that 13 million climate refugees will move inland by
2100, numbers that our current public systems will not be able to sustain.
As it is inevitable that new infrastructure will need to be built and
maintained, I am advocating and educating the public to decide to be Eco-conscious through Green Infrastructure. What is most important for my
project is the showing the vast economic benefits of using green energy and
public systems. The concept and end-goals were present, but I did not have the
execution yet.
Working under a tight deadline and with limited resources, I wanted to influence as many people as I could given the circumstances. Utilizing communication concepts and ideas from Phaedra Pezzulo and Robert Cox's Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere, I concluded that my best option would be to use social media and easily shareable content to garner attention from the public eye. I then decided to create various infographics that can be shared between people across the internet, as this appeared to be the best option to summarize complex issues into a more digestible way. As discussing economics and public works projects can be tiring and difficult, infographics provided an outlet to get the major points across without leading to fatigue. To further prevent people from clicking (or swiping) away, I narrowed down to four main aspects of Green Infrastructure: green roofs, rain gardens, permeable pavement, and renewable energy. According to the Center for Neighborhood Technology, these 4 aspects would have the greatest social and economic impact on cities. I then decided to use Canva, a graphic design website, to create the visuals for my project.
As the public may not be aware or completely knowledgeable about Green Technology, I framed my first infographic as an entirely educational piece, as I discussed the effects that each point attributes. Although I had to rely on the deficit model of education to lay these points across, I also attempted to connect each portion to an average American’s point of view while also using graphics to help visualize what it may look like in a community.
For my second infographic, I
narrowed down my framing to an economic point of view. As these were designed to
be shared together, I could assume that the reader would understand the topics
and thus, I can focus on my main points. I highlighted the two largest costs of
our current infrastructure to bring attention to the amount of resources that
are currently being wasted on the systems we currently have in place. Although
objectivity is typically the goal so not to dissuade the audience that may hold
an oppositional stance towards my infographics, I wanted to end the visuals with
a hard hitting statement about how the technology can be implemented today and
there is no more waiting for something to save us.
I shared the graphics to my social media accounts, and was enlightened to see both likeminded people talking about how they would like to see these solutions in their neighborhoods as well as those who were not aware of Green Infrastructure and the benefits they have. I've recently had friends of mine share it across their platforms to get the word out as well. Although the initial time constraints and decision making proved to be tough, I'm happy with how it turned out. Hopefully the public will begin to recognize the opportunities that Green Infrastructure provides and helps persuade policy makers to create our cultural hubs and neighborhoods with the environment in mind.
Sources
Canva.com
CNT. (2011, January). The Value of Green Infrastructure: A Guide to Recognizing Its Economic, Environmental and Social Benefits. Retrieved September 22, 2020, from https://www.cnt.org/publications/the-value-of-green-infrastructure-a-guide-to-recognizing-its-economic-environmental-and
Imgur. https://imgur.com/a/SbMPtgm
Mahayni, B. (2017, April 17). Refugees Are Straining Urban Infrastructure and Services - Now What Retrieved September 22, 2020, from https://www.chemonics.com/blog/refugees-are-straining urban-infrastructure-and-services-now-what/
Pezzullo, P. C., & Cox, J. R. (2018). Environmental communication and the public sphere (5th ed.). Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE. doi:9781506363615
Robinson C, Dilkina B, Moreno-Cruz J (2020) Modeling migration patterns in the USA under sea level rise. PLoS ONE 15(1): e0227436. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0227436
Schuiten, L. (2018).
GENÈVE [Painting]. Cité Végétale. http://www.vegetalcity.net/en/geneve/
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