A shift toward sustainable development as a planning model has become increasingly apparent in Europe, but it has been little embraced by cities in the US. The biggest impetus for changing the world's development practice came as a result of the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio in 1992, at which the leaders of nearly all the world's countries acknowledged that development as currently practiced is not sustainable into the future, and that society is pushing enormous social and environmental costs onto future generations. The conference resulted in the Agenda 21 treaty, which enjoins both nations and local authorities to produce a sustainable development strategy.

The City of San Francisco took an early lead in adopting a sustainability plan in 1997, and many of the examples given here are based on its recent legislation and programs. This paper aims to support work being done in cities such as San Francisco and Santa Monica, California; Portland, Oregon; and Austin, Texas and to help move other cities in the US toward a more sustainable model by jump-starting an understanding by civic planners and private developers of sustainable development strategies.

Traditional approaches to improving quality of life have been uncoordinated and often in conflict. A healthy economy is critically important, but inadequately regulated free enterprise shifts pollution and resource-depletion costs of manufacturing and development to poorer members of the community and to future generations. Wealth generation in a global economy is much easier for those with a certain baseline level of income and social status—a baseline many in the society do not reach. Environmental efforts have been forced to focus on crisis management, when harm prevention is the only real way to preserve natural resources and biodiversity. Efforts to help particular needy groups in the community have fought uphill against a built environment that undermines feelings of community and ignores many social needs. Only by balancing the competing needs of community, economy and environment can there be stable, long-term quality of life improvement that recognizes that nature has value independent of its usefulness to humanity. Sustainable development meshes:

• Social progress which recognizes the needs of everyone for health, happiness, and a say in civic affairs;
• Effective protection of the environment;
• Prudent use of natural resources; and
• Maintenance of high and stable levels of economic growth and employment
to work toward a better quality of life for everyone, in harmony with the environment. San Francisco has adopted the goals and objectives set out in the Sustainability Plan for the City of San Francisco, which aims to provide for the needs of the present without sacrificing the ability of future generations and the natural world to meet their own needs. The San Francisco Redevelopment Agency's mission, to improve the City housing, economic development and quality of life, has long acknowledged the need for an integrated approach to development. Many other cities have planning documents with similar comprehensive goals. Sustainable development strategies now rapidly being developed around the world provide a set of specific guidelines to achieve these policy objectives.

The interdisciplinary nature of sustainability planning, its requirement for addressing more issues than traditionally have been of concern to developers, and the rapidity with which new building and planning techniques appear, makes it difficult for civic planners to incorporate the approach into their work—to move sustainable development from a policy concept to one that becomes real on the ground. The following outline of strategies to achieve sustainable development takes advantage of the tremendous growth of information available on the worldwide web to provide a highly condensed summary of sustainable development practice. Its references, available instantly on the web, provide more depth on issues and practice with which the reader may be unfamiliar.

Each link opens a new window to a website that is unconnected with this paper.

All links in this paper were active as of December, 2001.

For more detailed information on the whole range of sustainability issues and for technical assistance, contact the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) or the Local Government Commission (LGC).

Community Participation

Sustainable planning for the development or redevelopment of whole communities or neighborhoods entails:

• community participation,
• environmental protection,
• natural resource conservation and
• local economic development.

To ensure social progress through community participation in decision-making on matters that will have significant impact on the community:

1. Provide various types of housing to meet community needs, such as cohousing and supervised living situations as well as conventional houses and apartments.
2. Reflect the values of the surrounding community by harmonizing with existing buildings in materials, design and density.
3. Ensure that infrastructure will exist to serve neighborhood needs: every neighborhood should have a primary school, library, day-care center, and clinic. It should have adequate public transportation, a park, public restrooms, bicycle-parking, drinking fountains, and attractive street furniture and light standards; with a lively commercial district with rents low enough (or subsidized) to ensure that there are day-to-day necessities such as a grocery store, hardware store, laundry, postal services and pharmacy, and low-cost space for arts, social-service providers, and religious institutions.
4. Plan for safety of pedestrians, cyclists, and children at play outdoors with lighting and traffic calming; place and maintain landscaping so that pedestrians do not feel threatened at night, and design for the types of retail businesses that stay open late (such as cafes) near major transit stops so that people waiting for public transportation will not feel vulnerable.
5. Plan open spaces and development opportunities to provide for recreation for people at all stages of life, particularly for children, teenagers and the elderly.
6. Maximize green space and make its design appropriate to the community to be served, with a balance between natural areas, landscaped parks, community gardens, and sports fields. Green space can be increased by providing incentives for roof gardens. Streets, walkways and pedestrian gathering-places should be landscaped to increase residents' enjoyment of the shared outdoor space.
7. Select public art that reflects the aesthetics, values and talent of the local community.
8. Provide indoor public meeting space in which local people can discuss issues of importance to the community.

Environmental Protection

To address environmental protection as a key part of all new development:

1. Clean up any existing pollution hazards
2. Provide for an appropriate drive-through space for occasional organized collection of household hazardous waste.
3. Reduce global warming impact and use of polluting fuels
1. Where a new street grid is established, design to support a public transportation infrastructure shifted away from motorized transportation.
2. Expand the public transportation system to provide residents with a level of service that will allow them to do without a car for most in-town trips. Use low-polluting transit vehicles.
3. Minimize parking capacity to reduce the incentive for auto trips.
4. Require utility outlets and space set aside for car-sharing in commercial developments.
5. Require infrastructure to be put in place for easy retrofit of parking and fueling facilities to accommodate electric vehicles in the future; provide for some electric recharging capacity on build-out.
6. Plan for cyclists with secure parking in residential and commercial facilities, street routes, and showers and lockers.
7. Locate taxi stands in retail and commercial areas.
8. Reduce the heat island effect with vegetation and use of appropriate surfacing materials.
4. Prevent pollution of air, water, and soil
1. Design landscaping to be managed with integrated pest management and include a requirement in sales and tenancy agreements for on-site IPM management.
2. Require nonpolluting vehicles and lowest polluting equipment for facilities management.
3. Require best-practice facility design of potentially polluting commercial and service facilities.
5. Minimize biowaste impact
1. Plan for localized wastewater treatment and wastewater recycling facilities.
2. Reduce storm water impact on combined wastewater/runoff systems to minimize overflows of untreated sewage into the surrounding public waters.

Natural Resource Conservation

To address resource conservation and preservation of biodiversity:

1. Energy conservation
1. Maximize renewable energy sources and minimize conventional power generating source use for street lights, traffic controls, and other civic infrastructure.
2. Water conservation
1. Employ water-saving landscaping techniques, such as xeriscaping.
2. Reduce unnecessary use of potable water with
   gray-water systems and rainwater collection techniques.
3. Materials conservation
1. Specify building materials made from renewable resources, and ensure that they are reusable or recyclable.
2. For manufacturing facilities, replace a linear flow of resources with a circular flow, as in eco-industrial parks.
4. Preservation of biodiversity
1. Design to include nature and manage open spaces for wildlife.
2. Favor cultivation of native species over introduced exotics.
3. Include wildlife corridors where possible to link natural areas.
4. Maintain or restore wetlands, creeks and ponds in their natural condition.

Local Economic Development

To ensure economic opportunity for all:

1. Maximize the employment of people of all skill levels with situations honoring human rights, workers rights, and environmental protection.
2. Create adequate, non-polluting jobs in every neighborhood.
3. Increase educational opportunities.