Energy from My Backyard - The Renaissance of Renewable Energy - page 253

in cities, it is clear that a return to the land is not on the cards (Blewitt 2008 ) . Cities, as
well as being a major part of the problem, will have to play a major role in the solution.
Some attempts have been made to produce functioning models of a sustainable urban
community. One of the most prominent of these is the suburb of Kronsberg in Hannover,
Germany, which was developed specifically for the 2000 World Exposition as a blueprint
for sustainable high-density development (see Figure 7.16 ). The core principles behind the
settlement were energy, water, soil and soil management to minimize its environmental
footprint. Today, the Expo Settlement in Kronsberg is a thriving community of 7,000
people.
Figure 7.16. The sustainable housing project in Kronsberg, Germany. The heating
requirements per household are 40 per cent below the German average, and the embodied
carbon dioxide emissions in the buildings are almost 75 per cent lower than in
conventional housing. Source: AxelHH at Wikimedia Commons.
Another model that hasgathered momentum isthe transition townmovement. Pioneered
in the English town of Totnes, it mobilizes urban dwellers in existing settlements to move
away from energy-intensive lifestyles. Rob Hopkins, one of the movement's founders, sees
urban sustainability in terms of energy: it is about coping with “a continual decline in the
net energy supporting humanity” (Blewitt 2008 , 162). He sees the solution in communities
becoming more localised and self-reliant. The transition town movement was inspired by
the example of Cuba, where, following the end of the Cold War and the loss of Russian