Uploaded on 2018-03-14 by Tim Ewart

In the City of Johannesburg, if not tackled, climate change & existing urban heat island and see temperatures in summer push closer towards 50°C, rather than the high 30s that are now common. Since the 1950s, the global focus of city infrastructure planning has been on cars, and on getting as many people as possible into tall buildings. A key step will be in greening cities, with an emphasis on public transport and converting areas for gardening and encouraging vertical gardens. Recently urban planners have tried to turn this sort of urban planning in another direction. The problem now is that budgets are small and any tweaking has to happen on top of existing infrastructure requireemnts. Johannesburg has started initiatives such as its “corridors of freedom” to lower emissions and heat coming from people driving their own cars. The initaive is to shift transportation to change the spatial dynamic of the city, mixing low-cost and high-cost housing projects with business districts so people do not have to travel as much.