Hard Earth Series: Green Gaffes

Urban planners are scrambling to design cities that are environmentally friendly, affordable, and delightful. Often they’re failing.

Near Tianjin, one of China’s largest industrial cities, a new “eco-city” was built with the stated purpose of environmental performance. Things didn’t work out as planned. The ostensibly model metropolis is using more energy and water per person than is London, one of the world’s oldest industrial cities. It focused so blindly on maximizing urban green space that it set its buildings too far apart, requiring people to drive among them. In another Chinese “eco-city,” some houses �" built entirely of recyclable materials �" were considered so uncomfortable to live in that they remain vacant.

Speaker: Rob Best, Stanford