The UAE is always working on the coolest and most innovative projects in the world. My initial response to the paper was shock because I was surprised that no one was making this a big deal- like, it’s the first zero waste, zero carbon, and zero car city, and I’m fairly certain there’s not many students outside of our class in Baruch who have heard about this initiative. We’re always talking about how important it is to educate the future leaders of the world about sustainability so they can make it a priority, so I thought it was really great that the city would incorporate a university offering masters and PhD programs in science and engineering, with a focus on advanced energy and sustainable technologies. It’s clear that this project wasn’t an inexpensive one seeing as how the city hired two of the world’s most prominent architecture and engineering firms to design Masdar.
Some of these initiatives sound like ideas we mentioned in class but rendered implausible for lack of funds or support or other reasoning, so it’s really interesting to see these ideal scenarios, like fully using renewable energy, being put into practice. The zero car aspect of this city was the most interesting one to me, because walking and bicycling will be the primary modes of transportation. I don’t really understand the mechanisms behind the two electric transportation systems but they sound significantly more advanced than anything we have here in the states. One criticism of the Masdar City project is that it is inherently unsustainable because it involves constructing a brand new city in a resource intensive location. While I can see the validity of that criticism I think Masdar is an important first step towards a more sustainable world because it would set a great precedent for other countries. I’m excited to monitor the success of this project in the coming years and hope that some day we’ll be able to implement similar practices to our city.
