Planning for a Greener Urban Ukraine

How will small cities in Ukraine rebuild both during and after the war? This question is the focus of a course, Topics in International Development: Urban Plans for the Ukraine, led by Penn IUR Co-Director Eugenie Birch and Penn IUR Faculty Fellow David Gouverneur, both faculty in City & Regional Planning, assisted by Penn IUR Faculty Fellows Randy Mason (Historic Preservation), Wendell Pritchett (Law), and Megan Ryerson (City Planning and Engineering).

Undertaken as a project for the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomacy Lab that Penn joined last spring, the course centers on developing a climate sensitive conceptual plan for the reconstruction of Bucha, a wartorn site 15 kilometers from Kyiv. Known for the February 2022 invasion by Russia and a subsequent massacre that left 501 dead and some 3,000 homes and structures damaged, Bucha has shown remarkable resilience and dedication to remaking itself amidst adversity. While it has maintained the prewar population level of 37,000, its residential composition has changed dramatically as refugees from other parts of Ukraine have moved in, the military-age male population is in the army, and others have fled the country. Further, Bucha’s leadership is eager to explore how to strengthen the city’s economic base, memorialize the recent history with dignity and respect, and accommodate a green and just recovery.

Working with representatives of the Bucha City Council and C40, a global network of mayors of the world’s leading cities that are united in action to confront the climate crisis, 13 students are employing satellite imagery, stakeholder interviews, data assembled by the Ukraine Rebuilding Action Group (URAG), an international team of professionals sponsored by the American Planning Association, and RO3KVIT, Urban Coalition for Ukraine, as the basis of their work. They have set up operations in the Penn IUR conference room where they are documenting current conditions on oversized maps of Bucha and its environs hung on the wall and spread across the tables as well as on GIS based state and regional maps on their computers. They are also exploring the regulatory framework related to planning, building codes, historic preservation, and infrastructure requirements.

During a recent session of the course, students traded chats and voice messages over WhatsApp with Andrew Melnyk, a local private sector leader working with the Bucha City Council. Despite the ongoing war, Melnyk stressed the importance of Bucha’s transformation into a more sustainable city and was already thinking ahead to a time when the city will host tourists – even dark tourists, surveying the damage of war. “Green is good,” Melnyk wrote.

Meanwhile students outlined the area’s natural and transportation systems, located key cultural and historic sites, including the recent temporary memorials, new construction, the makeup of 11 surrounding villages, and the relationship with Kyiv as they considered the components of a green strategy for the city. Students and professors exchanged questions: How could the city reconnect better with the river and its broader region? How could the city expand its bike lanes and sustainable transportation options? Birch read from a report that local architects in Ukraine have provided conveying residents’ vision for Bucha’s future and how its identity can be enhanced through a land use plan. How should the city incorporate a monument to the war?

By December, Penn students and faculty hope to contribute to the thinking of how to develop a roadmap for a rebuilt sustainable, economically vibrant city and its environs.