Many congratulations to my colleague and co-conspiritor at SCARP, Dr. Cornelia Sussmann. Cornelia finished her Ph.D. this August, unfortunately (for me!) just after my move to Amsterdam. She has been a friend, mentor, collaborator and valuable sounding board before, during, and after my Ph.D. years at SCARP.
Dr. Sussmann’s dissertation, Towards the Sustainable City: Vancouver’s Southeast False Creek, tells the compelling story of sustainable planning initiatives in a city that tops the “most livable” lists each year. Through in-depth interviews and analysis of the Southeast False Creek project goals and targets, she showed that only minimal reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and ecological footprint were achieved–quite an underachievement for a LEED-ND Platinum-rated project that won a UN Livability award. However, the City of Vancouver may have achieved important political, bureaucratic, industry and public support with this “stepping stone” project. After all, in the past three years the City has embarked on The Greenest City initiative, a comprehensive and broad-based attempt to make Vancouver the world’s greenest city by 2020. While the technical achievements of Southeast False Creek won’t impress our Professor Emeritus Dr. Bill Rees, they illustrate the messy collision of planning politics, construction and development paradigms.
Dr. Sussmann is currently working as a post-doctoral fellow at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in a continuing collaboration with SCARP alumni Dr. Meidad Kissinger (Ben-Gurion University).
