Friday, September 28th, 2012 Aedan Hoar Student #209031055

Sustainability in Planning:
Key Planning Concept Essay

Introduction to Planning ES/ENVS 5121 3 A (F Term2012) Professor: Laura Taylor Faculty of Environmental Studies

I chose to do my paper on sustainability because I believe it is a popular term in the planning profession that denotes different things to different people. I feel as though understanding the perspectives behind sustainable planning will give me insight into how to incorporate ideas of sustainability into my planning projects. To me, planning engages in sustainability when we are able to adapt and coordinate plans to replace forms of development that threaten the survival of both humans and the natural environment we are a part of. It seems evident to me that it is our job to try to guide communities away from unsustainable development patterns that can lead to disastrous outcomes. Nevertheless, I have found that there is no regulation of the use of the term sustainability in planning. Because of this, I found it helpful to examine the question "What does sustainability mean in planning" in three sections. The first section of this paper addresses some examples of what I perceive as unsustainable development practices. It is my hope that this will help the reader understand what I believe planners must guide people away from in order to become sustainable. The second section of this paper will outline and assess the literature that I have read, describing discourses and initiatives that planners have linked to sustainability. Finally, the third section will conclude by discussing my view of our relationship to sustainability as planners, and how our role communicating with multiple groups requires us to understand the context in which the term is used. Regardless of the different perspectives that we as planners have, every single one of us relies on food, water, and air for survival. Unsustainable development threatens to end our ability to provide these resources to ourselves, and further more, it disregards the fact that large communities of humans and nonhumans are already lacking access to the necessities for their survival. Our impact as planners in creating unsustainability can be seen in the expansion of

urban sprawl into greenfields that lead to the loss of agricultural capacity (Jepson, 2001, pg. 506). These development processes also produce loss of habitat and the extinction of species that serve essential roles in the ecosystems we live in. Planners also take part in the industrial development of land, and the creation of brownfields, wastewater, and polluted air. We draw energy infrastructure plans that rely on finite resources like oil, or radioactive materials that pose the risk of creating yet another Fukushima, or Chernobyl type event. We even engage in food planning that relies on factory farming animals, requiring the majority of agricultural land in North America to be used for growing animal feed. We take part in building the plans for roads that allow for increased automobile usage, and thus increased air pollution. In all of these cases, planners are involved in either challenging or being agents of the mismanagement of the world's natural resources through interactions with governments, developers, and communities. It appears evident, based on my research, that sustainability in planning is a term that is used in recognition of the need to manage development properly in order to make efficient plans that can guide our communities towards sustaining the type of development they want. One of the problems with this approach towards sustainability is highlighted by Wendy Mendes (2007): "Definitions of sustainability are marked by deep disagreement over what is to be sustained, by whom and for what purpose" (pg. 96). This echoes the sentiment Beatley (1995) described as an issue of inclusivity in planning for sustainability: "We must always ask sustainable for whom?" (pg. 389). One commonly cited reference used for defining sustainability is the UN report, Our common future, that defined sustainable development as development that meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Basiago, 1996, pg. 135, citing Brundtland, 1987). In light of the critical approach

suggested by Mendes (2007) and Beatley (1995), we must ask who gets to define what our needs are, and, who defines what future generations needs will be? It becomes incredibly evident that these are serious questions when reviewing the current management of environmental degradation taking place in Canada right now under Stephen Harper's plans for "sustainable development". For some people, sustainability is not about sustaining the renewability of resources, or the survival of our species. Instead, for people like Stephen Harper, sustainability refers to the continuous growth of the economy, continuing to provide incentives to attract the investor class, and the production of goods and resource extraction. I feel it is also important to note that even in the case of those who echo the sentiment that sustainability should be focussed on the survival of our species, some people take the view that population reduction is the only feasible solution. This rhetoric is used by governments and big business groups who have a monopoly on political-economic power to excuse current development practices, as they view the loss of human life as inevitable and necessary. In this way, you can see how sustainability can be used in planning as a way to promote the existing inequality of power structures within our society, and to create unequal distribution of costs associated with development. Luckily, in the literature I have read so far, the emphasis in planning continues to be on creating a more equitable society, and, in most examples, to build upon William E. Reese's vision of planners as catalysts of change towards an ecological paradigm that "sustains the Earth's natural capital stocks and depends on the ecological interest gained from these stocks" (Beatley, 1995, pg. 341). In the planning literature I found addressing sustainability, Basiago (1996) traced the movements towards sustainability in planning to garden cities of the 1900s and the "ecological" cities of the 1970s (pg.135) because they aspire to work within the limits of our natural

environment (Jepson, 2001)(Jepson and Edwards, 2010)(Basiago,1996), to re-imagine the built environment's potential to take part in renewal of natural resources (Basiago, 1996)(Beatley 2007), and to create revitalized participatory spaces (Basiago, 1996)(Jepson, 2001). Initiatives that are being implemented in the name of sustainability are diverse and innovative, ranging from planning solar cities (Beatley, 2007), urban agriculture and food security initiatives (Mendes, 2007)(Smit & Nasr,1992), the application of ecosystems theory to planning (Jepson, 2001), energy-efficient design (Beatley 2007), disaster planning (Beatley,1995), and compact city development (Jepson and Edwards, 2010)(Basiago, 1996)(Jepson, 2001). Research such as Jepson & Edwards' (2010) article on planners' perceptions of the sustainability of New Urbanism, Ecocities, and Smart Growth emphasized that planners could incorporate ideas from all three approaches in order to work towards comprehensive sustainability (pg. 435). Social planners like Wendy Meres (2007) have documented the necessity of re-inventing multiscalar relationships, and the importance of new visions of scale in the implementation of sustainable policy. Similarly, Timothy Beatley (2010) brought up the need to create comprehensive plans that include maps of the flow of resources between cities and the regions that they rely on in order to study the true affect cities have on the overall system they are a part of (pg.43). Although all of these projects vary, they all reflect a notion that in order to be sustainable planning must make better use of our existing urban and rural areas, and adapt to the needs of both humans and nonhumans in order to sustain the Earth's ability to support human life. Sustainability and planning seem to go hand in hand as planners are in a position of communicating problems related to sustainability to multiple actors in the development process. We are relied upon for guidance in creating better land use practices, built forms, and social/

economic development. As Jepson (2001) points out sustainability requires forward thinking and that fits with planning quite well: "Not only is a long-term perspective intrinsic to the theory and philosophy of planning (Tonn 1986; Lang 1983), it is also the case that the principal area of its concernland useinvolves effects and consequences that are intrinsically long-term (i.e., intergenerational) (Manning 1986)" (pg.506). In conclusion, I view sustainability in planning as being the process of providing socially inclusive and equitable alternatives to the destructively unsustainable development practices that threaten the survival of our species and the ecosystems we live in. To me, this is also an essential part of being a responsible planner. I believe we need to become better communicators as planners in order to convince governments and private investors to support projects that will reinvent how we live together and produce the necessities our species needs to survive. Although the components of how to implement sustainability in planning seem to change depending on the views of each planner, the notion that we are here to improve and assist our communities remains. The necessity of remaining critical when popular words like sustainability come up in planning is evident. Planners must critically assess the impact of proposed plans on affected human and nonhuman communities, and challenge the limitations of our work within societies that are based on property-law, and capitalist governance. We must not label projects sustainable just because it makes them more appealing to the public. It is our job to navigate between groups that may not share the same interests. Our discourses around sustainability highlight the notion that as communicators we must be able to clarify what we mean by the terms we use in planning, and in turn, we must ask questions about the context in which we encounter them.

Bibliography 1. Basiago, A.D. (1996). The Search for the sustainable city in 20th century urban planning. The Environmentalist, 16, pg. 135-155. Web. Retrieved September 23, 2012 from: Moodle. 2. Beatley, T. (1995). Planning and Sustainability: The Elements of a New (Improved?) Paradigm. Journal of Planning Literature, 9(4), pg. 383-395. Web. Retrieved September 23, 2012 from: Moodle. 3. Beatley, T. (1995). The Many Meanings of Sustainability: Introduction to a Special Issue of JPL. Journal of Planning Literature, 9(4), pg. 339-342 Web. Retrieved September 23, 2012 from: http://resolver.scholarsportal.info.ezproxy.library.yorku.ca/resolve/08854122/ v09i0004/339_tmmositasioj 4. Beatley, T. (2007). Envisioning Solar Cities: Urban Futures Powered By Sustainable Energy. Journal of Urban Technology, 14(2), pg. 3146. The Society of Urban Technology. Web. Retrieved September 23, 2012 from: http:// resolver.scholarsportal.info.ezproxy.library.yorku.ca/resolve/10630732/v14i0002/31_escufpbse 5. Jepson, E. J. (2001). Sustainability and Planning: Diverse Concepts and Close Associations. Journal of Planning Literature. 15(4), pg. 499-510 Web. Retrieved September 23, 2012 from: http://resolver.scholarsportal.info.ezproxy.library.yorku.ca/resolve/08854122/ v15i0004/499_sapdcaca 6. Jepson, E. J., and Mary M. Edwards. (2010). How Possible is Sustainable Urban Development? An Analysis of Planners Perceptions about New Urbanism, Smart Growth and the Ecological City. Planning Practice & Research, 25(4), 417437. Web. Retrieved September 23, 2012 from: http://journals2.scholarsportal.info.ezproxy.library.yorku.ca/ details.xqy?uri=/02697459/v25i0004/417_hpisudsgatec.xml 7. Mendes, W. (2007). Negotiating a Place for Sustainability Policies in Municipal Planning and Governance: The Role of Scalar Discourses and Practices. Space and Polity, 11(1), pg. 95 119. Web. Retrieved September 23, 2012 from: http:// resolver.scholarsportal.info.ezproxy.library.yorku.ca/resolve/13562576/ v11i0001/95_napfpirosdap 8. Smit. J., and Joe Nasr. (1992). Urban agriculture for sustainable cities: using wastes and idle land and water bodies as resources. Environment and Urbanization. 4(2), pg. 141-152. Web. Retrieved September 23, 2012 from: http:// resolver.scholarsportal.info.ezproxy.library.yorku.ca/resolve/09562478/ v04i0002/141_uafsculawbar