Sustainable communities: the potential for eco-neighbourhoods

Abstract

Sustainable development is a phrase more honoured in the breach than in the observance. It is often used, with casual abandon, as if mere repetition delivers green probity. This is especially the case in relation to land use plans which lay claim to sustainability while promoting a continuation of established develop- ment patterns that, as we shall see, belie it. The phrase, ‘sustainable development’ is itself a paradox. It appears to puttogether two irreconcilable principles, that of environmental sustainability and economic development. Indeed this tension has led to two interpretations of sustainable development, one ecocentric, which puts global ecology first; one anthropocentric, which puts human well-being first.