Image: Financial District, Downtown Toronto, Canada by Yeonju SEONG on 500px

Today I learned about something new called 2030 Districts. They are: “designated urban areas committed to meeting the energy, water, and transportation emissions reduction targets of the 2030 Challenge for Planning.”

Toronto’s new 2030 District is downtown, which is bound by the lake in the south, Bathurst Street in the west, Dupont Street and Rosedale Valley in the north, and the Don Valley in the east. 

It’s the first district outside of the US. The other established districts are in Seattle, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Denver, Stamford, San Francisco, and Dallas.

The goals for Toronto’s district are as follows (quoted from 2030 Districts):

• To cut district-wide emissions in half, including zero-emissions from new buildings by 2030.
  

• Support a better understanding of where and why energy use, water use, and GHG emissions occur across the District.
  

• Work in partnership with building owners, service providers and conservation groups to accelerate the adoption of best practices for building design and management.
  

• Facilitate broad stakeholder dialogues to uncover and overcome systemic barriers to long term reductions in energy use, water use and GHG emissions.
  

I’m looking forward to following and learning more about this initiative. I think many of us can agree that producing less, not more, GHG emissions in the future would be preferable. And we know that the bulk of it comes from both buildings and transportation.

Some people believe that cities are all about bricks and mortar. While other people believe that they are first and foremost about people. Though I wholeheartedly believe that our built environment has a profound affect on our lives, I am in the latter camp. 

Real estate to me is an outcome. It is the result of people needing space. A new condominium is built because people need a place to live. A new office building is built because somebody built a great company and it needs to house its growing workforce. So at the end of the day, what is a city without people?

Perhaps the best way to demonstrate this point is to show you what cities look like without them. This morning I stumbled upon an interesting series of city photographs where almost all of the people have been removed. They are by artists Lucie & Simon and the project is called Silent world.

The top image is Times Square and the bottom image is Queensbridge in New York.

Images: Lucie & Simon