Print PageRe-Imagining Cleveland as a More Sustainable City is a planning initiative in Cleveland, OH that seeks to re-purpose vacant urban lands for productive, sustainable uses. Cleveland has experienced significant population loss and has accrued a large inventory of surplus properties that contribute to further social instability. However, the Re-Imagining process views these surplus lands as assets for expansion of green infrastructure and enhancing ecosystem services for the revitalization of stressed urban communities.
Our ULTRA-ex project is capitalizing upon the Re-Imagining process as a framework for long-term investigation of the relationships among ecological and social sustainability, and for exploring approaches to integration of ecological science into urban planning and redevelopment processes. We have identified and consolidated existing information on ecological services and disservices relevant to potential re-uses of vacant urban lands, established initial phases of sensor networks and probabilistic sampling designs in support of research and planning. In addition, we have initiated pilot projects designed to evaluate the role ecological information in the decision-making process and to quantify actual ecosystem service performance of vacant parcels, as well as changes in ecosystem service quality with re-purposing vacant parcels to new uses as green infrastructure.
Results/Conclusions
Our initial effort to implement ecological principles into the decision process emphasized the Vacant Lands Rapid Assessment Procedure (VL-RAP), a multimetric index developed to score vacant parcels according to their potential for providing one or more ecosystem services. The VL-RAP was designed for use by planners and community development workers, and incorporates information on parcel size, hydrology, soils, connectivity, social and ecological condition. Initial testing indicated that the tool distinguished among sites varying in ecological quality. The VL-RAP was disseminated to a cohort of stakeholders for testing, evaluation, and calibration on a larger scale in spring 2011. Over the long-term, we will investigate the role that VL-RAP has played in land use decisions, future redevelopment, and the actual performance of ecosystem services on the re-purposed parcels. We will illustrate the quantification of actual ecosystem service performance of vacant parcels with preliminary results of pollination and bio-control services in support of urban agriculture, a principal re-use envisioned in the Re-Imagining process.
