Neighborhood Sustainable Analysis

Neighborhood Sustainable Analysis

Renewable energy resources

Located in the Northern part of Toronto, one of the main energy sources that Black Creek has is Humber River. It is part of the tributary that makes the entire river and benefits most from it. This is its biggest renewable resource because when heavy rains come they are able to benefit from the generation of energy. Through this great mass of water, the residents are able to generate hydroelectric power that powers up their city. This energy generated plays is the main energy supply in the area and it ensures that the residents can continue with their daily lives when sufficiently managed (Amborski et al., 2019).

Dams have been built as a primary means of transforming the water into a viable energy resource. This is then well transmitted and is very useful in lighting the streets and ensuring the safety of residents. This energy not only lights us the residential areas, but is also used in the industries and in other power-intensive business which collectively improve the economy. More and more developments are being made towards improving the quality of water and ensuring that it continues to serve the people in the most useful and beneficial way  (Eidelan et al., 2017).

Waste and pollution

Being mostly an urban area, Black Cree ward is faced with a lot of pollution challenges that affect its sustainability plans. Key among these is the pollution that is witnessed at Humber River, as the authorities have not created an efficient way of preserving the river and preventing any waste from going to it. In addition to this, the ward has very little forested area and this leads to a lot of water wastage when it floods. Additionally, soil erosion is also high for the same reason and this reduces the good quality of soil cover available for agriculture (Gaetz et al., 2018).  The city produces a lot of waste that is as a result of their not being an efficient way of managing waste in the urban areas. With this challenge, most of it ends up in the river and this is bad as it then moves to other parts of the river and leads to total pollution. There are few storm water controls and this means that the water cannot be adequately managed and pollution spreads much faster (Moss, 2017).

Urban planning

Being a city that houses many individuals, there are many different apartment buildings that have been built to house residents. They all comply with the Toronto bylaw enforcement, RentSafeTO, that seeks to ensure all apartment buildings are safe for inhabitation (Amborski et al., 2019). By adhering to this bylaw, they ensure that they abide by sustainable building practices and create a safe environment for the residents. Most of the residential apartments and buildings were built in the 1960s and 70s and there is a need to create a more urban planning that will be sustainable to the environment and the needs of the community. There are also plans to create urban buildings and more accommodative plans that will create more space and a more urban look (De Liso et al., 2019).

One major aspect of urban planning is that there is a road classification system that designates streets into different classes based on the services each provides. In this way, they have created order and simplicity in that roads in similar classes improve road infrastructure design, maintenance, transportation planning and road operations. In addition to this, more recreational spaces such as parks have been created to increase and improve the scenery and also use the natural resources that the ward has (Ford et al., 2018).

Managing density

The city is booming with the increase of residential areas and this means that it will become more densely populated. It is for this reason that more residential areas are being created in order to be able to accommodate all these people and provide quality living spaces for them. Density is being handled through the urban planning that seeks to create more living spaces for people (Moulay et al., 2017). This is done in consideration of the available land in order to ensure that there is no crowding and there is enough space left for the creation of leisure places such as parks and other recreational places. This is done through properly dividing the available land and coming up with residential areas that do not take up too much space (Moss, 2017).

Sustainability policies

Black Creek ward is dedicated to creating a better society for its people and establishing sustainability in all it does. One of the policies that the government has put in place is to reduce pollution and in the same way increase the amount of forest cover. By doing this, they will be dealing with the great issue of pollution that plagues the ward and also ensure that there is enough fertile land for agriculture (Ford et al., 2018).  The local residents are in support of the sustenance policies that the government puts in place and it is for this reason that they have created a neighborhood watch. It is called the Sustainable Neighborhood Action Program (SNAP), and its aim is to transform the neighborhood into a green, healthy and self-sufficient community (Blom, 2019).

Their aims are to harvest rainwater and in this way reduce basement flooding that affects their entire community and all their operations. Also on water, they aim at using water efficiently through irrigation and conserving the rest for later use. The other important one is that SNAP aims to help in the conservation of energy by encouraging individuals and businesses to generate renewable energy that will be more sustainable to the ward (Shaker et al., 2020).

Role of the private sector

When it comes to sustainability, all industry players have a role to play and the private sector has not been left in these efforts (Ledsham et al., 2017).  They support the efforts of SNAP as they do appreciate that in the community all of them depend on each other. They therefore play in important role by accepting to take part in the conservation efforts. One key way that they can do this is to reduce the ecological footprints of their industries and create a more sustainable society and environment that they can equally benefit from. in addition to this, they also partner with the planning department in creating work spaces that are efficient and that do not take up a lot of space and in this way becoming sustainable (Ford et al., 2018).

References

Amborski, D., & Lister, R. (2019). TORONTO A LIVABLE CITY/REGION. Community Livability: Issues and Approaches to Sustaining the Well-being of People and Communities.

Blom, M (2019). Suburban Metabolism: Growth and Sustainability in the Greater Toronto Area.

De Liso, A., Yerashotis, G., & Fusco, C. (2019). Playing in the Shadow of Event Urbanism: Newcomer Youth, Neighborhood Change, and TO2015. International Journal of the Sociology of Leisure, 2(1-2), 195-218.

Eidelan, G., Horak, M., & Stren, R. (2017). 3.11 Toronto: Metropolitan Transformation and the Governance of Sustainability. The Metropolis,332.

Ford, C., Igbinakenzua, E., Wireko, J. O., & Phiri-Nkomo, M. (2018). SUSTAINABLE BUILDING DESIGN STANDARDS.

Gaetz, S., Kimura, L., & Ward, A. (2018). Better measurement, better outcomes: Housing first for the youth in Canada. Parity, 31(10), 46.

Ledsham, T., & Savan, B. (2017). Building a 21^st Century Cycling City. Metcalf Foundation.

Moss, M. (2017). The Velocity of Density: Can We Build More Sustainable Cities Fast Enough? Sustainability, 9(12), 2326.

Moulay, A., Ujang, N., & Said, I. (2017). Legibility of neighborhood parks as a predicator for enhanced social interaction towards social sustainability. Cities, 61, 58-64.

Shaker, R. R., Aversa, J., Papp, V., Serre, B. M., & Mackay, B. R. (2020). Showcasing Relationships between Neighborhood Design and Wellbeing Toronto Indicators. Sustainability, 12(3), 997.