World's greenest city commencing construction in Persian Gulf

WWF and the government of Abu Dhabi have launched a Sustainability Strategy to deliver the world’s greenest city – Masdar City. Construction has now begun.

"Masdar City - which will be zero-carbon, zero-waste and car-free - plans to exceed the requirements of the 10 sustainability principles of the One Planet Living programme, a global initiative launched by WWF and environmental consultancy BioRegional. It is expected this will make it a global benchmark for sustainable urban development."
Panda News

While I'm highly skeptical about urbanism in the first place, this development will be interesting to keep an eye on. Issues one would hope to see addressed would be permaculture, ZPG (Zero Population Growth) or preferably less than ZPG, human rights and social justice. One suspects that such concepts might be a bit "out there", or "too '70s" (read too unprofitable) for the corporations and marketers behind this grand scheme. Still, one also senses a positive shift going on in the United Arab Emirates, which might well be light years ahead of most Western nations. It's the 'big is beautiful' philosophy behind it that makes me shudder to the bone. I've yet to be persuaded that cities and large towns are not intrinsically obsolete.

More at Wikipedia

Categories: sustainability, permaculture, environment, human+rights, population, zpg