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The term regenerative city describes a concept of urban development built on an environmentally enhancing, restorative relationship with the natural systems from which the city draws resources for its sustenance. A regenerative city maintains a symbiotic, mutually beneficial relationship with its surrounding hinterland not only by minimizing its environmental impact but by actively improving and regenerating the productive capacity of the ecosystems from which it depends. The concept of a Regenerative City was first developed by an International Expert Commission on Cities and Climate Change convened by the World Future Counci in various subsequent reports〔 as well as in the book titled “Creating Regenerative Cities” by Herbert Girardet. Since 2011 the concept was also recurrently discussed during the annual Future of Cities Forum. The regenerative city is also included in the principles for the New Urban Paradigm as outlined in ''The City We Need'' document compiled by the UN-Habitat advocacy and partnership platform the World Urban Campaign. ''The City We Need'', whose aim is to set key principles and establish essential paths for building a New Urban Agenda towards the Habitat III conference, states that ''“the city we need is a regenerative city”.'' Examples of cities committing to the regenerative city concept include the city of Wittenberg in Germany which declared its intention to become a regenerative city in 2013. Similarly, Iowa City in the U.S. launched the Regenerative City Initiative in 2014, consisting of various projects and strategies to transform the city into a regenerative city. == Going beyond urban sustainability == At the core of the regenerative city concept lies the understanding that it is essential to go beyond a restrictive definition of sustainability and embrace a broader model of urban development that puts the emphasis on the need for cities not to only to ''sustain'' but to actively ''regenerate'' the natural resources they need and absorb.〔 While the original definition of sustainable development states that “sustainable development is a development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”〔 regenerative urban development recognizes that considering the speed and scale of current resource consumption, the ability of future generations to meet their own needs is many times ''already compromised.''〔 For example, in 2013, by August consumption worldwide had already overshot the earth’s annual natural production.〔 For the rest of the year humanity was incurring resource debt.〔 Therefore, in light of the problems related to resource consumption and overshoot, regenerative cities strive not only to stop consuming natural resources at a rate which is faster than ecosystems can recover, but reverse the trend by actively improving the regenerative capacity of ecosystems they rely on.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Regenerative city」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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