Urban and regional sustainability

Abstract

Sustainability has become a key concept in the quest to define a normative framework for urban and regional development. This chapter presents an overview of what is meant by sustainability first from the regional and then from the city level. Both scales have a long history in the planning domain, but the notion of a sustainable city is key to both realms and is the main focus of this chapter. While there is widespread agreement on broad parameters and principles about urban and regional sustainability, there are entrenched debates over implementation. On one level, there are debates over implementation methods, especially the degree to which partial success in implementation is better or worse than doing nothing. More fundamental debates about sustainability involve the distinction between process vs. form and the integration of city versus nature.