The Requirements of Sustainable Urban Development

Urban Design "Cross Section"

The requirements of sustainable development closely mirror the current agenda in urban design. The reactions to modern architecture and modern planning have led to a new appreciation of the traditional European city and its urban form.

The current preoccupations of urban designers with the form of urban space, the vitality and identity of urban areas, qualities of urbanity, respect for tradition, and preferences for developments of human scale can all be encompassed within the schema of sustainable development.

The Definition of Urban Design

is the process of designing and shaping cities, towns and villages. In contrast to architecture, which focuses on the design of individual buildings, urban design deals with the larger scale of groups of buildings, streets and public spaces, whole neighborhoods and districts, and entire cities, with the goal of making urban areas functional, attractive, and sustainable.

 

Urban Design "Prespective"

The two movements – Sustainable Development and Post Modern Urban Design – are mutually supportive. Post Modern Urban Design gives form to the menu of ideas subsumed under the title of Sustainable Development; in return it is given functional legitimacy. Without this functional legitimacy and the discipline a functional dimension imposes on the design process, Post Modern Urban Design may develop into just another esoteric aesthetic.

The foundation of urban design is rooted in social necessity: society today is faced with an environmental crisis of global proportions and it is coming to terms with the effects of this crisis on the world’s cities which gives purpose and meaning to urban design.

The Definition of Sustainable Urbanism

Sustainable Urbanism

Sustainable Urbanism, as a defined term, is application of sustainability and resilient principles to the design, planning, and administration/operation of cities. There are a range of organizations promoting and researching sustainable urbanism practices including governmental agencies, non-governmental organizations, professional associations, and professional enterprises around the world. Related to sustainable urbanism is the Ecocity movement (also known as Ecological Urbanism) which specifically is looking to make cities based on ecological principles, and the Resilient Cities movement addresses depleting resources by creating distributed local resources to replace global supply chain in case of major disruption. Green urbanism is another common term for sustainable urbanism. Sustainable development is a general term for both making both urban and economic growth more sustainable, but isn't specifically a mode of urbanism.