Lessons from Freiberg

Nspiregreen attended "Green Cities of the Future: A Transatlantic Perspective" at the Goethe-Institut located in Washington, DC. The featured speaker was Wulf Daseking who is the Planning Director for EcoCity Freiburg/Germany. Anyone who has ever spent enough time in my presence knows my fascination with Freiberg. One of these days I'm going to visit to experience the City for myself. When working as an urban planner at my previous job, the top 3 cited Cities for best practices were 1) Freiberg, Germany, 2) Portland, Oregon, and 3) Seattle, Washington. Any time we thought we had an innovative idea we would run to these three Cities only to learn they are already implementing it.


(photo from TU Bergakademie website)


Usually when you say the words "sustainability" or "green", people immediate jump to energy. Wulf points out that we have the ability to produce energy (via renewable and otherwise) to meet our power needs into the future. However, clean water is a scarce resource. Wulf continued with more gloom and doom, such as what happens to solid waste when the population grows? What happens to Africa, as most of the energy and flight patterns are around the country versus integrated into it?


(photo of a quite street in Freiberg)


I will admit I was feeling overwhelmed at all the problems the world could face if we don't change now. I felt a glimmer of hope when he transitioned into his talk about what Freiberg has done. There are plenty of articles and blogs, such as this one from Smart Urban Design, with more analysis on Freiberg, so I'll just highlight some things I thought was interesting from Wulf's talk:

• Freiberg has a parking garage the size of a typical 4 story garage you would see in the US, except this one is for bicycles. The parking garage was financed by leasing space for a cafe' and a bicycle repair shop.
• The City has disallowed motor vehicles in most of the inner city areas. Most of the streets are designated bicycle and pedestrian only.
  
• The City has an extensive tram (street car/light rail-like) system with development concentrated around the stations.
  
• Cities need crowded places, (i.e. public plazas and market places) and quiet places (i.e. passive parks)
• The City doesn't allow large shopping malls that tend to be car-centric. Most of the large shopping is ground level retails that is integrated with housing.
• He advised not to let developers do what they want. The City has to have the political will to tell the developers what to do.
• Cultural centers, such as arts, religious institutions, and schools are should be integrated into the community. He gave an example of a church that is shared by Catholics and Protestants.
• All houses built after 2011 have to be passive, which means the house has to produce its own energy. (Solar panels are commonplace in Germany)
  
• The City has taken an "oath" to not develop outside the growth boundary. In order for this to work the region has to have the same goals.
• There was a questions from the audience on how to make people change. Wulf quipped that people will change when they feel it in their pocket.
  

One thing Wulf cautioned was we can't just take the Freiberg model and apply it to Any City, USA. He stated we have to do it our way, with our people and our culture. That statement gets to the essence of why we do what we do at Nspiregreen. We have implemented public involvement and community organizing all over the US. Through our experiences we have learned that for each community you have to start from a clean slate.

I walked away "Nspired" and I look forward to doing our part to shape approaches, attitudes and practices for sustainable living and community development.

Veronica