Group Pushes Urban Sustainability

More than 225 million Americans live in cities, but this country’s metropolises are far behind their European counterparts when it comes to active discussion of urban sustainability based on 2000 Census data, according to Harvard Graduate School of Design Professor Martha Schwartz.

Given increasing environmental and social problems in American cities, urban centers must confront issues of urban sustainability, a trend that has led Schwartz to launch the Working Group for Sustainable Cities at the Harvard University Center for the Environment. The group aims to bring together the wide range of resources available at Harvard to address the complex issues faced by cities attempting to reach sustainable goals.

The group is by nature highly interdisciplinary, with members from six of Harvard’s graduate schools and two FAS departments. In addition, the group includes several professionals from the fields of architecture, urban planning, and business.

Schwartz, a professor in practice of landscape architecture, founded the group in 2008. Sustainability in an urban sense, she said, goes beyond using renewable energy sources or conserving water.

“Most people think of ‘green’ when they think of sustainability, but when you talk about cities, there are many more forces,” Schwartz said, stressing the complexity of the issues. “It isn’t just about technology and smart buildings.”

According to Schwartz, urban sustainability also involves ideas of governance, culture, transportation, infrastructure, expectations, and values.

While the working group is interdisciplinary, science plays an integral role in informing its work.

“Obviously science is critical—you have to understand what science and technology and engineering can provide,” said Daniel P. Schrag, a professor of earth and planetary sciences and director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment.

Schrag, a member of the working group and an expert on climate change and the environment, similarly emphasized the multidisciplinary nature of urban sustainability problems.

Schwartz said she was inspired to start the group after witnessing the consequences of rapid but uninformed urbanization in cities like Dubai.

The group is currently holding a series of informal “Mayors Luncheons” with city leaders from around the Boston area, which are hosted by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics.

These luncheons will be used to prepare for a future program of roundtables with Mayors from across the nation. So far, members of the group have met with officials from Medford and Somerville, among others, and plan to meet with Cambridge city officials today.