What is an ECODISTRICT?

By Philip Parsons posted on Fri, 2009-06-26 17:06 , 513 reads, 0 comments

If you Google "EcoDistrict", you mostly find greenfield or brownfield sites transformed into comprehensive sustainable communities in Northern Europe.  These are somewhat utopian projects that tell us little about how to make our existing cities into sustainable communities - but existing cities account for the vast majority of global population, and the vast majority of the global carbon footprint. 

 

 

We have been experimenting with ideas about how to create 'ecodistricts" in existing urban areas.  The problem can be addressed from the infrastructure end (how do we deal collectively with energy, waste, storm water, etc.?), or from the user end (how can we effect behavioral change, and technical adjustments on an individual basis?). 

 

We think that feedback loops are essential to this.  Think of an urban district as a Prius - like the Prius, you get constant feeback on how you are doing - but in this case, environmentally, socially, and economically - at the individual level,the block level, the district level.  The data you get, and the data you provide, become the basis for research on impact on sustainability (using local university resoruces), and this data puts your own efforts in a larger context.

 

The concept builds on new notions of community building that grow out of social networking (e.g. Facebook) and community mapping (e.g. Google mapping).

 

More to come... and comments and suggestions invited.

 

The image is one of many screens that suggest how the "Digital Mirror" might look on your home page.