Built Environment
What we CAN control.
Guide to the Page
Built environment and land use decisions have significant impacts. Our choices--and our voices--matter.
- Build Environment Dashboard and Map
- Build Environment Data Layers
- Infrastructural Investigations!
- Make your City More Like a Sponge
- Special Focus on Warehousing
- Regional Housing Needs Assessment
Built Environment & Land Use Dashboard
From sewer lines and fiberoptics to street lights, bridges, storm drains, and freeways, we pass over many elements of the built environment without even noticing them. As global warming accelerates, the challenge to create sustainable, resilient infrastructure that harmonizes with surrounding landscapes is both urgent and possible.
How we plan for and use land is the key to sustainability, now and in the future. Innovative land uses and inclusive planning processes can provide the most benefits and build resilience while minimizing risks to communities and the environment.
General plans can be amended and the State of California requires that they include housing, environmental justice, and other elements.
Are local agencies on track with the goals outlined in their elements? If you don't understand something, ask your planning department or city council member.
Exclusive local government control over land use makes regional planning for climate change or air quality across city boundaries difficult to address.
Because our viewsheds, watersheds, airsheds cross municipal boundaries, our planning process needs to too.
Local governments have exclusive control over how land is used and zoned through something called a general plan.
In California, general plans only need to be updated once about every thirty years but can be amended. Ask your planning department where the next update or amendment is in your community.
Planners, commissions, city councils, and other elected and staff representatives make decisions on behalf of--and sometimes in spite of-- the wishes of residents.
Find out more about inclusive, community-based planning on the Equity page.
A LULU (Locally Unwanted Land Use) is deemed necessary by some but negatively impacts residents' health, environment, property value, or quality of life (think landfills, power plants, highways, and warehouses).
We can find balance but often we fall short of this goal. How can we change that?
LULU's are often placed in or near low-income or marginalized communities—raising issues of environmental justice and equity. Ask yourself: Who is being impacted by unwanted land uses? Why?
When one part of town hosts a LULU, people, places, and species there pay the price. This is called a "sacrifice zone."
With an increasingly unstable supply chain and clear oversaturation of warehousing in certain communities, we need to rethink our continual expansion of this particular type of land use.
Special Focus: Make Your City More Like a Sponge
A whole world of ancient and new, high tech and low tech building materials and techniques are beginning to reshape how and where we build to save energy, protect from climate hazards, and benefit humans and nonhumans alike.
Sponge City is just one approach that can be scaled at any level.
Infrastructural Investigations!
You are in charge of figuring out how infrastructure can be better, stronger, and healthier. The challenge is not just to design for humans but for multiple species. Click on the categories below to find out more.
Runoff
It's time to let the water trickle back down to earth instead of treating it as waste. Our built environment can make the difference. Think about how you can decrease runoff or water waste at your home, school, neighborhood, or city!
Material
Concrete is useful but super carbon and energy intensive. Investigate new and old building materials that can absorb carbon, create cooling, allow water to percolate, and provide structural strength! Remember to pay attention to the three P's: who is pitching the idea, who profits, and what's the process.
Heat
Heat is a study in inequality. The amount of asphalt, rooftops, and pavement all increase heat. While trees provide shade and cooling, the lack of trees combined with the above elements creates the "urban heat island effect." Brainstorm some cooling opportunities in your neighborhood!
Waste
Think of the difference between you and a tree. We humans create waste--a lot of it. How can we use fewer resources while still having fun, enjoying ourselves, eating good food, and working? Spend one day thinking about waste on your own or with friends, and tell your local city councilperson or principal about your ideas.
Deconstruct
Did you know that you can remove a dam? You can daylight a creek that's long been buried in a storm drain tunnel? You can un-pave a road or remove concrete from a driveway? When we deconstruct things, we also deconstruct the thought process that created them. Be careful not to make waste in a quest to deconstruct. Adaptively reuse or repurpose!
Reconstruct
Imagine the world you want to see. How can we reconstruct our built environment to support that vision? To benefit multiple species and the earth as well as humans? Imagine solutions all around you, starting at home. Think of pathways and challenges for making change even more broadly.