Introduction

City refers to “a social, ecological, and economic system within a defined geographic territory. It is characterized by a particular human settlement pattern that associates with its functional or administrative region, a critical mass and density of people, man-made structures and activities”.¹

Whether people approve of it or not, urbanization is the basic developmental trend of human society today. In 1950, one third of the world’s population lived in cities; in 2000, nearly half were city dwellers, and in 2050 more than two-thirds of the world’s population is expected to be living in urban areas.² As the Sustainable Cities International (SCI) claimed “our cities are our future”.³

Cities as the core of civilization, have brought great benefits to human development with their splendid creation in both material and spiritual terms, while at the same time, cities are also the knots associated with various problems, like traffic congestion, pollution, greenhouse effect and various crimes. Some have grouped these problems together and labeled them as “urban disease,” something that has brought unprecedented challenges to human beings.

City’s advantages and disadvantages are equally obvious; it may let us go to heaven and it also may let us go to hell. It all depends on whether we can build sustainable cities that could provide us and future generations with a proper human settlement and environment.

I. Sustainable cities: solution to city disease

1. Traditional sustainability vs sustainability in modern era

In the light of resource consumption, traditional societies based on agriculture were sustainable so they could last several thousands of years. The main factor for their sustainability was their limited capacity of production due to scattered settlements, low technologies, heavily reliance on man and animal power. They hardly imposed any impact on the environment, beyond nature’s ability to replenish. Therefore, traditional societies were sustainable and they could last a great long time. However, the sustainability of a traditional society was usually taken-for-granted, assuming natural resources would never be drained out and the environment would always rehabilitate itself, whatever people did on it. Hence, the sustainability of traditional societies was ecologically self-contained.

But the Industrial Revolution has entirely changed the ecological balance in the traditional pastoral picture. It has driven millions of people from the rural areas to compacted urban cities. As Alvin Toffler indicated:

The Second Wave Society is industrial and based on mass production, mass distribution, mass consumption, mass education, mass media, mass recreation, mass entertainment, and weapons of mass destruction. You combine those things with standardization, centralization, concentration, and synchronization.

Cities, thereby, have generated various unprecedented impacts on the environment, absorbing huge amount of resources, some of them to be used by coming generations to support their rapid growth. Interaction among economic growth, social livability and environmental support has become a vicious cycle. To stop the trend going from bad to worse, a new type of cities, entirely different from the old one, has to be adopted: the sustainable city. It will provide urban residents with proper human settlements.

2.What is a sustainable city?

The concept of a sustainable city was introduced mainly from an ecological perspective, suggesting that natural resources are limited in their storage and regeneration, so human beings have to make themselves partners with the environment rather than seeing it as an enemy to be conquered. This new concept demands humanity to reconsider existing social life and economic patterns in order to set up a new system of humanity and nature with a vision of co-prosperity.

Although there is no fully accepted definition for the sustainable city, the basic idea is clear. Sustainable cities have three pillars: a harmonious society, green economy and a viable environment, as figure1 shows.

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This new concept demands sweeping changes in all aspects of our current was of life and is bound to lead to fundamental reforms in the following three pillars:

• Harmonious society

Social harmony is indispensable to a sustainable city, not only because it secures a safe and enjoyable life for its residents but also because it has a direct impact on the ecological system of the city. The goal of sustainable urban development can be achieved only on the condition of social consensus by all residents. Sustainable city demands the highest level of collaboration by all members of a society, therefore sharing fundamental social values, such as equality, tolerance, inclusiveness, respect, etc., is essential for residents to act collectively in order to handle those sophisticated environmental issues. One cannot imagine that a society separated by serious social inequality and exclusiveness, full of distrust, could possibly act effectively to protect the environment. As a matter of fact, social disorder of various hinds always waste or even destroy valuable resources.

• Green economy

The Green Economy Coalition succinctly defines green economy as “a resilient economy that provides a better quality of life for all within the ecological limits of the planet.”⁴ This economic pattern encompasses a broad range of aims including the use of renewable resources, the increase energy of efficiency and reducing the environmental impact by public transport, accessible resources and services.

• Viable environment

Viable environment is the result of positive interaction among a harmonious society, green economy and the environment. Cities provide the scale of economies and the types of social activities that make such natural sources viable.

II. Role of sport in promoting sustainable city and human settlements

The key for sustainable city is socially and economically sustainable living, so city dwellers may enjoy a better quality of life, within ecological limits. Sports is a powerful means to facilitate sustainable living and to forge a friendly relationship between residents and urban environment, as figure 2 shows.

1. Activating residents’ environmental awareness

Environmental consciousness is the precondition for the sustainable city. In order to nourish this consciousness among greatly diversified ordinary people, it is necessary to link environment values with residents’ own interests. Here, sports has a unique role to play.

Sports is people-centered, designed to promote the sound development of human beings that would orient sport participants’ attention to themselves, concerned with their own health status in its physical, mental and social dimensions. People would be more sensitive to the social and physical environmental settings when sporting. This is because many sport activities, outdoor activities in particular, involve constant interaction between people and a variety of environments such as ground, water, snow, ice and air. Sport participants use all their senses to perceive the environment, thus becoming aware of its subtle changes and thereby easily acknowledge environmental values which activate their desire for environmental protection.

This awareness is crucial for urban residents keen to share the values of sustainable cities. Taking, into consideration the huge member skip of their participants, sports are an efficient tool, rare in our society, to stimulate the ecological awareness of the general public and to disseminate relevant information to all city dwellers.

2. Promoting the three pillars of the sustainable city

• Promoting social equality and inclusiveness

Sports are the most inclusive social activities in human society; all residents, regardless of their differences in race, religion, social status, economic background, cultural heritage, gender, age, etc. can find their own position in sports.

More importantly, the fundamental principle of sports is fair play, which demands equality among participants. Participation in sports is, in a sense, a process of equal interaction among participants from various social backgrounds. It definitely helps to break social barriers and to cultivate the social values and behaviors needed by sustainable cities.

In addition, sports organizations, involving various social sectors, have their efficient mechanism to integrate all efforts made by diversified parties. This would promote the social network of sustainable cities.

• Stimulating green economy

Sport industries, such as professional sports, creation, sports tourism, are typically sustainable. Sport industries are an inseparable and fast growing part of economy in our time. A study by A. T. Kearney, a global management consulting firm, indicates, with 7% annual growth between 2009 and 2013, the sports market has grown faster than GDP in most countries in the world, from $58 billion in 2009 to $75 billion 2013 and $80 billion in 2014. When you add in sporting goods, apparel, equipment, and health and fitness spending, the sports industry generates as much as $700 billion yearly, or 1% of the global GDP.⁵

Sport also provides unexpected solutions for handling those abandoned areas and for industrial building in economic transition from traditional patterns to sustainable ones in many cities of the world. Some cities have smartly turned those useless areas to attractive sport venues. For example, the IBA Emscher Park, a project carried out in Germany, successfully integrated sports with an industrial “rust belt” towards a sustainable green urban area.⁶

• Enforcing the viable environment

Over the last two decades, sustainability has become an increasingly important consideration when staging sport events, and the Olympic Games are a typical case. Host cities have tried to use these occasions as showcases to demonstrate those sustainable public transport systems, using renewable energy sources and recycled materials, water conservation, pollution control and waste management. In addition, sport events have also been used for urban revitalization so that some abandoned urban areas are rehabilitated with the creation of public parks and green spaces.

Now, the environment is the third pillar of the Olympic Movement, as the IOC suggested. This means that the environment is a pillar shared between sport and sustainable city.

3. Promoting a healthy lifestyle for the sustainable city

Nowadays chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, depression, and osteoporosis have become the main health threat. To tackle the issue, health care has consumed a huge amount of resources but had little effect because the chief reason of chronic diseases is the physical inactive lifestyle. A healthy lifestyle is much more important than good medical care. As attractive physical activities, sports are an antidote to chronic diseases, thereby becoming a key component of the healthy lifestyle.

Moreover, lifestyle is optional and people may or may not choose those behaviors in favor of environment protection – such as walking and cycling instead of driving to work. The social values of sports tend to persuade the residents to go for healthy behaviors in their daily life such as producing less harmful waste (i.e. a smaller ecological footprint), avoiding unhealthy activities such as smoking, drug and alcohol abuse. Sport is a low-cost and high-return means to promote healthy lifestyle.

Environmental problems are often directly or indirectly associated with an unhealthy lifestyle, therefore healthy lifestyle promoted by sport is fundamental to sustainable cities and human settlements.

Final remarks

Urbanization has brought unprecedented opportunities and challenges to human settlements. The best way of capturing the advantages of urban living and addressing the disadvantages is to construct sustainable city. Both sustainable city and sport are people-centered and emphasize harmonious relationships between residents and their social and natural environments. Sport, due to its unique role in social cohesion, economic development and environmental protection, has become an indispensable tool to promote and solidly establish sustainable cities.

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1. “Towards a Green Economy” (PDF). United Nations Environment Program. Retrieved 17 November 2011.

2. UNDP, Human Development Report 2015, p. 67.

3. http://sustainablecities.net/about-us/

4. UNDESA, A Guidebook to the Green Economy, 2012, p. 9.

5. A. T. Kearney, Winning in the business of sports. https://www.atkearney.com/communications-media-technology/winning-in-the-business-of-sports#sthash.qBZZAt3k.dpuf

6. Emscher Park, From dereliction to scenic landscapes, http://www.dac.dk/en/dac-cities/sustainable-cities/all-cases/green-city/emscher-park-from-dereliction-to-scenic-landscapes/

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REN Hai, "Sport as an effective tool to promote sustainable cities and human settlements",in:K. Georgiadis (ed.), Olympic values-based learning as an effective tool forenvironmental protection, 56th International Session for Young Participants (AncientOlympia,11-25/6/2016), International Olympic Academy, Athens,2017, pp.122-128.

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