What is a sustainable city?
Perhaps the most honest answer to this question is that we really don’t know for sure. To paraphrase the late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, we may not be able to comprehensively define what a sustainable city is, but we know it when we see it.
One way to look at this is that a sustainable city is a city that is able to achieve a reasonable high level of economic growth without sacrificing the quality of the bio-physical environment. Another is a city that is able to serve as the center of commerce and economic activity without imposing environmental costs and consequences on other people and places.
In short, a sustainable city seeks to protect, improve, and take responsibility for its bio-physical environment.
What does it mean to “Take Sustainable Cities Seriously?”
While we may not know exactly what it takes for a city to be sustainable, we do know that there are many things a city can do – especially a city government – to work toward becoming more sustainable. What is important at this point in time is that cities and their governments do everything they can to take steps toward trying to become more sustainable than they otherwise would be.
What kinds of city policies and programs contribute to becoming more sustainable?
There are literally dozens of different programs, policies, and ordinances that municipalities can pursue if they want to try to become more sustainable. The cities that are trying the hardest – Seattle, Denver, and others – are doing close to thirty different specific programs. The average city in the U.S. does fewer than five.
Not all programs would work in all cities. Air pollution is not produced in great amounts in some cities, so reducing air emissions produced in the city might not be a high priority. Not all cities are equally willing to dedicate local resources to the endeavor. Understanding the range of possibilities and what will work and won’t work in a given city is what we can help with. How do you build the local political will to make the sometimes challenging decisions to try to become more sustainable? This is why a political scientist is interested in helping with this issue.
