Regenerative Urbanism: Reaching an Urban Regeneration Model for Egyptian Cities

Abstract

This chapter concludes that, for humans in the twenty-first century, it is clear that cities, in one part of the planet, cannot continue to consume at an unsustainable level while other human populations subsist on very little. Modern cities consume resources and produce waste that is incommensurate with their populations, which has negative influences on the environment and ecological footprint. Thus, regenerative cities offer an alternative pathway forward, beyond the trajectory that modern cities are currently on, which enables human habitats to positively contribute to the ecological system. Regenerative cities adopt this shift from merely addressing issues such as climate change, green buildings, biodiversity, city’s ecosystem, urban development, and social inclusiveness, in isolation to working with them simultaneously. These regenerative cities represent a shift from seeing the planet as a clockwork system, in which humans are separate from nature, to seeing the city as an interconnected, living, and adaptive social-ecological system that is constantly in flux. Actions should be taken to deal with this overshoot gap as part of regenerative strategies. This means investing in technology and infrastructure that allow cities to operate efficiently. It also means taking individual action and creating the public demand for businesses as well as policymakers to participate. A regenerative city efficiently restores the resources it consumes as well as recycles and reuses waste. It supports the ecosystem restoration process and city-regional food systems, including urban and community-based agriculture. At the same time, the present findings confirm that regenerative cities enable urban wealth to be generated from natural capital in the region, and allow value to remain locally with the residents. Where cities are not only self-sufficient through focusing on local assets, however they can improve the capability of ecosystems to regenerate the resources. Since the core of the regenerative city, after all, is to establish a symbiotic relation between cities’ urban areas and their hinterland. Regenerative cities can regain some power in guaranteeing the provision of the basic services where citizens are capable of sustaining their quality of life by finding natural resources that are closer to home and making the most out of the present resources as well as regenerating them.