Green Cities: we make it real - Main contents

Today we have a special 'guest blog' from our resident national expert here in the cabinet, Tjalling Vlieg.

Green Week 2018 is upcoming and this year it centers around Green Cities. I once tried to help green my city on a micro level and it was a challenge. It made me wonder what it takes to engage people, so they can successfully act on a small scale for a public cause.

I had the idea to discharge the rainwater from our roof in our garden. For me it was a way to help solve public water issues while making good use of the water. After convincing my girlfriend, I installed a system with two rain barrels, an overflow and an irrigation tube to discharge in our garden. It was a very rainy August month when my handcrafted system overflowed. The water had nowhere to go, and instead of watering our garden, I watered our bedroom. My girlfriend sadly had to clean the mess, because I was on a holiday. So it was not a complete success. Afterwards I made some modifications and now the system functions well.

Large parts of the Netherlands are below sea level. We drain and pump out the water to keep it dry. When there is extreme rain the streets can flood, because the sewerage gets overloaded. This can damage homes, or people cannot get to their work, and in some cities rats flourish. The problem is expected to get worse due to increasing rain intensity and frequency. We thus have to think of other solutions. If we don't, our streets will be flooded more often. Citizens can play a role in tackling this issue by buffering water in their gardens.

We look at mayors, policymakers and urban planners to green our city. They have a great responsibility, but so do we. In other words we need each other. I will to try to derive some ideas from my rainwater example, to see what our challenge could entail:

• 1. 

  We decided to take a measure, because I was happened to be familiar with the water issues via my work. Obviously we will need to reach more people than only those exposed via work. To trigger action public servants will have to facilitate the build-up of sufficient knowledge and awareness. A clear message on pros and cons matters. And citizens that are convinced may need help convincing others if we want things to really change.

• 2. 

  The system costed us money, was implemented on our property, at private risk. Not everyone gets excited when hearing that. The measures serve a public cause, thus deserve a form of public incentive. Though receiving finances often requires some sort of performance check and tracking performance of measures on private ground could be a complexity. We have to keep that in mind.

• 3. 

  The positive effects are not always directly visible. In our case a negative effect occurred and it could have been a reason for us to stop. Public servants can play an important role; in advance through advising on design and products; and along the way by giving support when issues arise.

• 4. 

  Our measure doesn't help much if others don't join. Success depends on the many. Governments rely on individuals or groups, to act and inspire. The high mutual dependency requires strong cooperation to be put first.

The example shows there is opportunity to do what many call for: getting greener. It will involve technical and very much social knowledge and skills to succeed.

I think a lot of this applies to other topics like our cities' air quality, circularity, mobility or biodiversity. I hope you will share this blog so we can also hear other's experiences and use those to actually make our beautiful cities even nicer to live and work in.