Ecocities Emerging Newsletter, August 2017
Ecocity 2017 recap, Ecocity 2019 announcement, New Ecocity Focus
Greetings,
Last month Ecocity World Summit 2017 opened its doors in Melbourne, Australia, bringing the largest gathering ever held in Australia of the world’s leading urban sustainability and climate researchers, policy makers and practitioners. Nearly 1000 delegates from over 30 countries delivered and engaged with 300 presentations on themes of urban leadership, city practice and academic research.
Inspiring stories of change in action were communicated skillfully, and none more eloquently than via the presentation from former Vice President Al Gore. Gore made the convincing case that although transitioning to ecocities is not going to be easy, it is definitely going to be worth it. “The solutions are in our hands. We just need to have the determination to make it happen.”
Another takeaway: ecocity ideas — e.g. compact urban centers built for people not cars; designing maximum access into city structure; small scale recentralization; renewable energy systems/smart grids; and supporting peer-to-peer urban networks and ecocity economies — are becoming more and more mainstream.
The Ecocity movement’s contributions to the city-building process will continue to come from a perspective that is both urbanist and ecologically informed. Through the Ecocity World Summit Series, we will continue to deepen our understanding of both of these concepts.
We now turn our sights to Vancouver, Canada, proud host of the next Ecocity World Summit in October, 2019. Between now and then we look forward to joining with all of you to help accelerate change towards cities in balance with nature and culture.
The future belongs to ecocities.
Kirstin Miller, Executive Director
ECOCITY 2017, MELBOURNE
Photos: Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute
“I’m so glad you’re doing this ecocity conference on a regular basis.”
– Al Gore
…FEATURED SESSION…
Cities becoming Ecocities: Standards, Tools and Methods for Cities, Citizens & Urban Service Providers
This #Ecocity2017 participatory workshop with demonstration and case studies from Cairo, Rio, and Vancouver featured Dr. Heba Khalil (Cairo University), Dr. Jennie Moore (British Columbia Institute of Technology), and Theresa Williamson (Catalytic Communities). After a presentation of their cities along the International Ecocity Standards, the session opened for participants’ assessment of their own cities.
And the host of #Ecocity2019 is…
VANCOUVER, B.C.
October 7-9, 2019
Socially Just and Ecologically Sustainable Cities
Thanks from all of us at Ecocity Builders to all the delegates who made #Ecocity2017 such a great success. A huge bow to the Melbourne Ecocity World Summit organizing team for the incredible job they’ve done, and congratulations to the Vancouver team who will now run with the baton to keep working towards manifesting the world we all envision.