Greener cities: a necessity or a luxury?|绿色城市：必需品还是奢侈品？
Are urban trees and parks essential to improving the environment and human health — or just a sop to middle-class ideals of gentrification? Two books debate these opposing views.
城市树木和公园对改善环境和人类健康至关重要吗？还是只是中产阶级中产阶级理想中的一种安慰？两本书对这些对立的观点进行了辩论。
A vertical forest in Milan, Italy.
意大利米兰的一片垂直森林
The Living City: Why Cities Don’t Need to Be Green to Be Great Des Fitzgerald Basic Books (2023)
《活力城市：为什么城市不需要绿色就能伟大》（The Living City：Why Cities Don ‘t Need to Be Green to Be Great），作者：菲茨杰拉德（Des Fitzgerald）
Age of the City: Why our Future will be Won or Lost Together Ian Goldin and Tom Lee-Devlin Bloomsbury Continuum (2023)
城市时代：为什么我们的未来会一起赢或输伊恩·戈尔丁和汤姆·李-德夫林布卢姆斯伯里连续体（2023）
In 2021, residents in Manhattan, New York City, chained themselves to trees in the local park. They were protesting the East Side Coastal Resiliency project — a roughly US$1.5-billion flood-protection effort that would raise the level of the park, install flood gates and reshape a 4-kilometre stretch of New York City’s shoreline. The protest was not just about saving trees, but about fundamental questions: whether the city should change, how it should change, whose vision for change matters and who should decide what changes will be implemented. Much of the work has gone ahead anyway since then, but the project continues to be contested by some.
2021年，纽约市曼哈顿的居民将自己锁在当地公园的树上。他们抗议东区海岸恢复项目-一个大约15亿美元的防洪工作，将提高公园的水平，安装防洪闸门和重塑4公里长的纽约市的海岸线。这次抗议不仅仅是为了拯救树木，而是为了解决根本问题：城市是否应该改变，应该如何改变，谁对改变的看法很重要，谁应该决定实施什么样的改变。从那时起，大部分工作都在进行，但该项目继续受到一些人的质疑。
Other cities around the world are grappling with similar conundrums. And these two books take radically different stances. In The Living City, Irish sociologist Des Fitzgerald takes aim at the concept of green urbanism, but misfires. By contrast, in Age of the City, UK-based globalization and development scholar Ian Goldin and journalist Tom Lee-Devlin make a convincing case for cities as key to global sustainability — as crucial nodes for flows of global resources, whether they be digital, cultural, economic or human.
世界各地的其他城市也在努力解决类似的难题。这两本书的立场截然不同。在《生活的城市》一书中，爱尔兰社会学家德斯·菲茨杰拉德瞄准了绿色城市主义的概念，但没有成功。相比之下，在《城市时代》一书中，英国全球化和发展学者伊恩·戈尔丁（Ian Goldin）和记者汤姆·李-德夫林（Tom Lee-Devlin）提出了一个令人信服的理由，即城市是全球可持续发展的关键–是全球资源流动的关键节点，无论是数字资源、文化资源、经济资源还是人力资源。
Cities are facing a polycrisis — from social challenges such as poverty, inequality and poor housing to ones arising from climate change and biodiversity loss, such as heatwaves, floods and sea-level rise. Solutions are needed. For example, Manhattan’s East Side project aims to avoid a repeat of 2012, when Hurricane Sandy caused tidal surges that flooded streets and power plants, leading to blackouts. Nature-based approaches are being increasingly deployed1, such as planting trees. Vegetation, wetlands and soils can absorb storm water, regulate air and water quality and cool streets and buildings. Those grounds can also act as recreational spaces, which have health and well-being benefits.
城市正面临多重危机–从贫困、不平等和住房条件差等社会挑战，到热浪、洪水和海平面上升等气候变化和生物多样性丧失带来的挑战。需要解决办法。例如，曼哈顿的东区项目旨在避免2012年的重演，当时飓风桑迪造成的潮汐潮淹没了街道和发电厂，导致停电。基于自然的方法正在越来越多地部署 1 ，例如植树。植被、湿地和土壤可以吸收雨水，调节空气和水质，使街道和建筑物凉爽。这些场地也可以作为娱乐场所，对健康和福祉有好处。
A garden city 一座花园城市
Yet, Fitzgerald derides such approaches in The Living City. Making his position clear — “I am against green cities” — he takes an impassioned stand against investing in nature as part of reimagining the city of the twenty-first century. The greening trend, he suggests, is being promoted by a group of elite architects and planners who want to realize a twentieth-century vision of the ‘garden city’. This outdated concept, Fitzgerald suggests, uses nature as a tool for improving the productivity of workers and creating amenities for wealthy people, including housing for middle-class professionals.
然而，菲茨杰拉德在《生活之城》中嘲笑了这种做法。他清楚地表明了自己的立场–“我反对绿色城市”–他强烈反对将投资于自然作为重新构想21世纪世纪城市的一部分。他认为，一群精英建筑师和规划师正在推动绿化趋势，他们希望实现20世纪的“花园城市”愿景。菲茨杰拉德认为，这种过时的概念将自然作为提高工人生产力和为富人创造便利设施的工具，包括为中产阶级专业人士提供住房。
Fitzgerald is right that greening can be part of larger gentrification forces that displace residents. Yet, he skirts solutions, such as the provision of affordable housing, inclusive decision-making and increased access to jobs and basic services. His portrayal of urban developers as facing a simple choice of whether ‘to green or not to green’ is a false dichotomy. Greening shouldn’t be done in isolation, but as part of a wholesale agenda of urban transformation, with equity and inclusion at its centre.
菲茨杰拉德是正确的，绿化可以成为更大的中产阶级化力量的一部分，取代居民。然而，他回避了解决方案，例如提供负担得起的住房，包容性决策以及增加就业和基本服务的机会。他把城市开发商描绘成面临“要绿色还是不要绿色”的简单选择，这是一种错误的二分法。绿化不应该孤立地进行，而应该作为城市转型整体议程的一部分，以公平和包容为核心。
Ultimately, Fitzgerald privileges his own vision of cities. He loves the dirt, the grit and the seediness of the towns that he grew up in, such as Cork in Ireland, or has lived in such as Bristol, UK. He argues that cities don’t need to change, that they certainly don’t need to be made greener and that they are fine as they are: messy human constructs.
最终，菲茨杰拉德赋予了他自己的城市观以特权。他喜欢他长大的城镇的泥土、砂砾和种子，比如爱尔兰的科克，或者曾经住过的英国布里斯托。他认为，城市不需要改变，它们当然不需要变得更环保，它们本身就很好：凌乱的人类建筑。
Yes, people can be emotionally attached to trees, he writes, which could stem from sentimentality or an anxiety about a lack of control over urbanization and industrial progress. This attachment can also be used as a political tool. Fitzgerald isn’t swayed by experts, and summarily dismisses thousands of scientific papers from ecologists, planners, designers, economists, social scientists and medical professionals that have shown the benefits of urban nature to people’s lives and livelihoods2.
是的，人们可能会对树木产生感情，他写道，这可能源于多愁善感或对城市化和工业进步缺乏控制的焦虑。这种依附也可以被用作政治工具。菲茨杰拉德不受专家的影响，并草率地驳回了生态学家，规划师，设计师，经济学家，社会科学家和医学专业人士的数千篇科学论文，这些论文表明了城市自然对人们生活和生计的好处。
Fitzgerald’s argument will resonate with some. But it misses the big picture. Gone must be the days of paving over nature, car-centric development and growth for growth’s sake. Decades of climate change are inevitable, given the levels of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere. Existing cities will need to be retrofitted and redesigned to cope with the conditions of the future, and cities must adopt methods of climate-resilient development3. Resilience requires a diverse array of approaches, including greening.
菲茨杰拉德的论点会引起一些人的共鸣。但它忽略了大局。为了增长而在自然、以汽车为中心的发展和增长上铺路的日子必须一去不复返。鉴于大气中已经存在的温室气体水平，数十年的气候变化是不可避免的。现有的城市需要改造和重新设计，以科普未来的条件，城市必须采取气候适应性发展的方法。复原力需要采取多种多样的办法，包括绿化。
Age of the City recognizes this urgent need for transformation. Goldin and Lee-Devlin set out the immense challenges that urban areas face, regarding food, water, climate, the economy, health and education. For example, cities consume 75% of global primary energy, release 70% of greenhouse-gas emissions and produce 10 billion tonnes of solid waste annually.
《城市时代》认识到这种转型的迫切需要。Goldin和Lee-Devlin阐述了城市地区面临的巨大挑战，涉及食物，水，气候，经济，健康和教育。例如，城市消耗了全球75%的一次能源，释放了70%的温室气体排放，每年产生100亿吨固体废物。
Yet, the authors see cities as places that are also ripe with opportunity, where money, ideas, knowledge, goods and services mingle. Cities are engines of innovation and economic opportunity, with the potential to lift entire countries out of poverty, as they have in China, for example. People want to move to cities to better their lives, as well as to escape poverty, war or climate extremes — and nearly all of the global population growth this century will occur in cities. The authors argue that, because cities host more than half of the world’s people and most of its infrastructure and economic productivity, protecting and improving them is the greatest global challenge of the Anthropocene epoch. Working in, for and with cities is the best way to address global inequities and unsustainability.
然而，作者认为城市也是机会成熟的地方，在那里，金钱，思想，知识，商品和服务混合在一起。城市是创新和经济机会的引擎，有可能使整个国家摆脱贫困，例如中国。人们想搬到城市来改善生活，也想逃离贫困、战争或极端气候–本世纪几乎所有的全球人口增长都将发生在城市。作者认为，由于城市容纳了世界上一半以上的人口及其大部分基础设施和经济生产力，保护和改善它们是人类世时代最大的全球挑战。在城市中、为城市工作并与城市合作是解决全球不平等和不可持续性的最佳途径。
Goldin and Lee-Devlin are wary of gentrification, and its tendency to push people to the fringes of cities, through zoning laws, racist policies, lack of affordable housing, pay inequality and other forms of discrimination. How can cities become more equal, inclusive and fair? Through “fairer schooling, fairer housing and fairer public transportation”, alongside fairer wages and access to green spaces, which is crucial for physical and mental health.
戈尔丁和李-德夫林对中产阶级化持谨慎态度，他们认为中产阶级化倾向于通过分区法、种族主义政策、缺乏负担得起的住房、薪酬不平等和其他形式的歧视，将人们推向城市边缘。城市如何变得更加平等、包容和公平？通过“更公平的教育、更公平的住房和更公平的公共交通”，以及更公平的工资和获得绿色空间，这对身心健康至关重要。
Flipping how public transport is priced is one of the authors’ more compelling suggestions. In cities such as London and New York City, the cost of public transport is highest in outer zones. Yet, people living in more-affordable suburbs must endure long commutes and poor transport links, which make it hard for them to get to their jobs in the inner city. Travel from the outer rings should be less expensive, not the other way around, Goldin and Lee-Devlin propose.
改变公共交通的定价方式是作者更有说服力的建议之一。在像伦敦和纽约市这样的城市，公共交通的费用在外围地区是最高的。然而，生活在更便宜的郊区的人们必须忍受漫长的通勤和糟糕的交通联系，这使得他们很难到达市中心的工作地点。戈尔丁和李-德夫林建议，从外环出发的旅行应该更便宜，而不是相反。
A fairer city 更公平的城市
The authors document case studies of other mechanisms that work. For example, in Vienna, more than 60% of residents live in subsidized housing, compared with just 5% in New York City, with half of the units owned by the Austrian government and the other half by non-profit cooperatives. Japan has balanced its regional development through policies such as decentralized production and investments in high-speed rail networks. These allow for consistent standards of living across cities, as well as ensuring that other regions benefit from Tokyo’s economic growth. Leipzig in Germany has devolved decision-making and redistributed tax revenue to increase support for education and transportation.
作者记录了其他有效机制的案例研究。例如，在维也纳，超过60%的居民居住在补贴住房中，而纽约市只有5%，一半的单位归奥地利政府所有，另一半归非营利合作社所有。日本通过分散生产和投资高速铁路网等政策平衡了区域发展。这使得各城市的生活水平保持一致，并确保其他地区从东京的经济增长中受益。德国的莱比锡下放了决策权，重新分配了税收，以增加对教育和交通的支持。
However, both books focus on cities in high-income countries. Most examples are drawn from the United States and United Kingdom, despite three-quarters of urbanites living in low- or middle-income countries. Urban growth this century will be driven mainly by the expansion of cities in Africa, Asia and Latin America. China has more than 160 cities with more than one million residents each. Urban megaregions are emerging, such as the Pearl River Delta in China, which is home to 65 million people and has an economic output of $1.2 trillion. Two-thirds of cities with the worst air pollution are in India.
然而，这两本书都关注高收入国家的城市。大多数例子来自美国和英国，尽管四分之三的城市居民生活在低收入或中等收入国家。本世纪的城市增长将主要由非洲、亚洲和拉丁美洲城市的扩张所驱动。中国有160多个城市，每个城市的居民超过100万。城市大都市正在崛起，如中国的珠江三角洲，那里有6500万人口，经济产出达1.2万亿美元。空气污染最严重的城市中有三分之二在印度。
Science has made clear that if we want human-positive cities, they also need to be nature-positive4. People need to reconnect with each other and with the biosphere, not because of some philosophical ideal of a garden city, as Fitzgerald worries, but for the practical reasons outlined by Goldin and Lee-Devlin. This can only be done by tinkering, experimenting and scaling up what works.
科学已经表明，如果我们想要人类积极的城市，他们也需要自然积极 4 。人们需要重新连接彼此以及与生物圈的联系，这不是因为菲茨杰拉德所担心的花园城市的哲学理想，而是出于戈尔丁和李-德夫林所概述的实际原因。这只能通过修修补补、试验和扩大有效的方法来实现。