Sheffield and York are in with a chance of piloting new ideas for sustainable living via an international competition whose results will be announced in San Francisco in May next year.
Both cities join London on a final shortlist prepared by the Living Labs Global organisation's project Pilot the Future which initially looked at submissions from 350 places around the world.
Five will be picked to present their suggestions at San Francisco on practical ways of improving mobility, economic development, social inclusion, health and wellbeing, urban management, lighting, energy, culture, future government and sustainable lifestyles. Local people and institutions are now being asked for ideas to supplement those already being considered by Sheffield and York city councils.
Sheffield is focusing on ways of capturing and distributing heat from industrial plants to add to a district energy network which is already the biggest in the UK. The council reckons that in spite of progress, too much heat is being wasted which could be redirected to keep homes, offices, schools and the two universities, Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam, warm.
Coun Jack Scott, Cabinet member for environment, recycling and streetscene says that the process involves partner cities collaborating, and ideas from others will be welcome. In turn, Sheffield will look at submissions from the 20 other participants and offer its take on them. He says:
The programme gives cities like Sheffield the opportunity to tackle some of the most difficult and important issues we face, by coming up with new ideas that benefit Sheffield and other major cities around the world. We want to find innovative ways of harnessing the energy produced Sheffield's manufacturing and use it in our city's heat networks. We're hopeful that this challenge will be taken on by the international community.
York is looking for new ways of increasing awareness of health issues and especially getting messages about them across to hard-to-reach groups. The city council says:
Residents of the City of York generally experience better health and wellbeing across a range of indicators than the United Kingdom as a whole - life expectancy is higher than the national average at 79.6 years for men and 83.2 years for women. However, health is substantially worse in York's most deprived areas and there is still a gap of nearly ten years in life expectancy for males between the most and least deprived communities.
Among current aims are: increasing physical activity particularly in men aged 35-65; reducing smoking among young people, pregnant women and routine- and manual-occupational groups; and reducing the number of teenage pregnancies. Current statistics show that 16.7% of women giving birth in York smoked during pregnancy and that 30.2% of people in the routine and manual occupation group smoke, making these priority groups for intervention.
The other participants range from communties of 100,000 such as Terrassa in Spain to the giant 21 mllion of Mexico City. They are Aalborg, Barcelona, Boston, Christchurch, Eindhoven, Fukuoka DC, L'Hospitalet,Lagos, Lavasa, Mexico City, Oulu, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Rosario, San Francisco, Sant Cugat, Tacoma and Terrassa.
Sascha Haselmayer from the Living Labs Global project says:
Partner cities to make a difference already in the short term, creating new markets, getting improvements to citizens faster and making significant savings along the way
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There's more on the pilot and the processes involved for getting involved and submitting ideas here, or contact Sheffield and York city councils.
