Closing the Sustainability and Equity Gap: What Does it Mean to be both a Green and Just City? TNOC Podcast Episode 002

David Maddox, New York. 
8 February 2015

People & Communities, Podcast, ,
Art, Science, Action: Green Cities Re-imagined

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Story notes: Cities face many challenges with competing solutions: climate change, economic inequality, lack of access to resources and opportunities, and social and political conflict. Can we plan and design for outcomes that serve nature, provide nature-based solutions to real urban problems, and support human rights? Toni L. Griffin (Director of the J. Max Bond Center on Design for the Just City) and David Maddox (Founder and Editor of The Natures of Cities), have a conversation at the 2014 MAS Summit to initiate a year-long collaboration with the MAS Global Practitioner Network on creating green and just cities.

For The Nature of Cities it is the start of an international project with partners in cities around the world to discus the relationship of the green city to the just city, and moreover to craft actionable metrics for connecting green and open space to justice, equitability, and fairness. These metrics must incorporate concepts for access to open space, but access to minimum standards for types of and qualities of green and open space. This project is funded, in part, by a grant from the Ford Foundation.

You can see the video here.

Ten keys to just cities. Credit: Toni Griffin
Ten keys to just cities. Credit: Toni Griffin
Open space maps in New York City and Mumbai. Lower left a map of a greened canal in Mumbai. Credits: (upper left) New York City Department of Parks and Recreation; (upper right and lower left): P.K. Das
Open space maps in New York City and Mumbai. Lower left a map of a greened canal in Mumbai. Credits: (upper left) New York City Department of Parks and Recreation; (upper right and lower left): P.K. Das

 

David Maddox

About the Writer:
David Maddox

David loves urban spaces and nature. He loves creativity and collaboration. He loves theatre and music. In his life and work he has practiced in all of these as, in various moments, a scientist, a climate change researcher, a land steward, an ecological practitioner, composer, a playwright, a musician, an actor, and a theatre director. David's dad told him once that he needed a back up plan, something to "fall back on". So he bought a tuba.

David Maddox

David Maddox

David loves people, urban spaces, and nature. He loves knowledge, creativity, and collaboration. He loves art, theatre, and music. In his life and work he has practiced in all of these. He is committed to the creation of sustainable, resilient, livable, and just cities, and after a PhD in ecology and statistics at Cornell he spent 10 years with The Nature Conservancy working on climate change and stewardship. After this, he became a composer, musician, playwright, and theatre artist. As a composer, musician, lyricist and playwright, he has created various recordings and eight produced works of musical theatre, three published by Dramatic Publishing, and with commissions for new work from organizations such as the Kennedy Center, Signature Theatre, and George Mason University. He has created sound designs and scores to over 150 productions around the U.S., and has worked in dance, museum design, and documentary film. David has received various awards for work in theater, including 13 Helen Hayes Award nominations (and one win), and various other awards. In 2012, David founded The Nature of Cities and remains its Executive Director. TNOC is a transdisciplinary essay and discussion site—with 1,200+ writers from around the world, from scientists to activists, designers to artists—on cities as ecosystems of people, nature, and infrastructure. Core to this work is knowledge building from multiple sources, putting people with different ideas and creativities together: from art to science to planning to community building. As part of this work, he has co-created a poetry journal (Sprout), curated many art+science exhibits, a comic book series on nature-based soutions, written many papers and book chapters in science and urbanism, is an international speaker, created a website of nature-themed graffiti, led community projects, edited two books of short fiction, and co-leads (with the US Forest Service) an arts residency program that creates teams of artists and scientists to learn from each other. This work that has led to many arts happenings, from murals and installations, to participatory meetings merging art, planning, science, and communities. He lives in New York City.

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