SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

Code 3675

Lecture Four

PROF. DR. NOMANA ANJUM

ALLAMA IQBAL OPEN UNIVERSITY
ISLAMABAD
Unit 3 Unsustainable Settlements

3.1Unsustainable Land use Trends

3.2Environmental Impacts of Recent
Planning Trends
3.3 Reversing Current Land use and
Environmental Trends
Unit 4 The Neighborhood as Ecosystem

4.1 The Ecosystem Approach

4.2 Social Capital and Housing Mix
4.3 Access to Work and Services
4.4 Movement and the Public Reteam
4.5 Local Resource Management Functional
Intergeneration
Unit 4 The Neighborhood as Ecosystem

4.1 The Ecosystem Approach

An ecological system is healthy if it is stable and

sustainable - that is, if it is active and maintains its
organisation and autonomy over time, and is
resilient to stress’

(Constanza et al, Ecosystem Health: New Goals

for Environmental Management).
Unit 4 The Neighborhood as Ecosystem
4.1 The Ecosystem Approach

Planning neighbourhoods is a suspect activity It went out of

fashion in the 1970s as a result of the social scientists’, and
then the Thatcherites’, critique of physical planning. But
now there is the recognition that the laissez faire
approach to localities had produced an atomized,
dysfunctional, unsustainable and often unappealing
residential environment.

Residents, through LA21 processes, are voicing their

demands for something better. Government is advocating
design for quality and sustainability Urban designers are
recovering their self confidence.
Unit 4 The Neighborhood as Ecosystem
4.1 The Ecosystem Approach

Urban development in the late 20th century has arguably

happened as a piecemeal, disaggregated process.

Despite the existence of planning systems which are designed to

provide coordination, the reality has often been that of varied
public and private agencies making disparate decisions
according to their own remits.

Housing, commerce, transport, recreation, energy and water

have not only been ‘planned’ without adequate cross reference,
but within each of those spheres there are divided approaches.
Unit 4 The Neighborhood as Ecosystem

4.1 The Ecosystem Approach

Examples:

The energy supply industries (oil/gas/electricity/coal) are geared

to maximizing market share and increasing their turnover, while
governments are ostensibly promoting energy- efficiency.
Potential synergies with waste, water and sewage functions
have been underdeveloped.

The result has been progressive urban disconnection,

fragmentation and fission, with growing ecological and health
impacts.
Unit 4 The Neighborhood as Ecosystem

4.1 The Ecosystem Approach

A home, an estate or a town is an eco-system in the sense that to

provides the essential local habitat for humans, creating its own
microclimate, and should provide as far as possible for their
comfort and sustenance ... At every level the designer or
decision-maker should be attempting to maximize the level of
autonomy of the eco-system while enhancing its life-giving
qualities’.

(Barton et al, 1995)

Unit 4 The Neighborhood as Ecosystem

4.1 The Ecosystem Approach

Basic Principles

 Increasing Local Autonomy

 lncreasing Choice and Diversity
 Responsiveness to Place
 Connection and Integration
 Flexibility/Adaptability
 User Control
Unit 4 The Neighborhood as Ecosystem
4.2 Social Capital and Housing Mix
Basic human needs such as access to housing, and
access to networks of mutual association and support, are
central to eco-neighbourhood planning.
Social capital is concerned with the network of personal
relationships and associations that helps to give meaning to
people’s lives and provides mutual sustenance and support.
It embraces both the casual daily meetings that give some
stability and sense of belonging and the formal groups
(toddler groups, sports clubs, school parents associations,
local work groups) that provide shape to life and a source of
friendship.
Social capital is recognized as important for guiding
adolescent behaviour and for maintaining health and
happiness.
Unit 4 The Neighborhood as Ecosystem
4.2 Social Capital and Housing Mix
The single status suburban estates of both private and public
sectors that have been the predominant form of residential
development over the last few decades in the UK are
accused of aesthetic monotony and excessive residential
social polarization.
Such polarization is associated with the problems of
ghettos, the labelling of areas and resulting exclusion of
specific ethnic or social groups from wider employment and
housing markets.
As a result housing mix has returned to the government’s
agenda, especially in relation to affordable housing, as a
means of ensuring improved access to housing for all
groups
Unit 4 The Neighborhood as Ecosystem

4.3 ACCESS TO WORK AND SERVICES

Personal transport to employment, education, retail, health

and leisure facilities accounts for a substantial and growing
proportion of total energy use and related pollution.

At the same time non-car-users are being disenfranchised by

the increasing distances involved in reaching facilities and
by locational patterns geared to the car. So for both
ecological and social reasons the reversal of the trend is
paramount.
Unit 4 The Neighborhood as Ecosystem

4.3 ACCESS TO WORK AND SERVICES

A fundamental problem is the increasing unit size of facilities

(notably shops, offices, schools, hospitals) with hinterlands
commensurately extending. Increased size may be
economic from the operators’ viewpoint but is often not
economic in overall social or environmental accounting
terms. It has led to the decay of neighbourhoods. If the
project of reinventing locality is to be success- ful, the key is
probably the cost of travel.
Unit 4 The Neighborhood as Ecosystem
4.3 ACCESS TO WORK AND SERVICES

Home Working: One sphere where the trends are positive is home
working. In some countries the rise of the post-industrial economy means
home working is a major sector. In Australia 21 per cent of all
businesses in 1993 were home based, and this was rising fast.

In the US 37 per cent of dwellings already have a home-based

business, and this could be 50 per cent in only a few years (Kemp,
1993, reported in Morris, 1996).
The EU’s working group on home working was (rightly) concerned with
issues of worker conditions, morale and level of autonomy. It tended to
see home working as a problem reflecting increased flexibility and sub-
contracting in the market, often leading to exploitation of low status
employees. The growth of freelance, home based teleworking has been
made possible by the advent of fax, desktop publishing, e-mail and the
world-wide web.
Unit 4 The Neighborhood as Ecosystem
4.4 Movement and the Public Reteam
The residential, economic and community activities within
neighbourhoods are interlinked by footpaths and streets.
This may seem a statement of the obvious but has been
largely forgotten in car-orientated layouts that are designed
primarily for exogenous trips: travelers dropping into the
area for a special function, or making a quick escape from it
to external attractions.

This approach represents the triumph of the goal of

motorized mobility over the goal of accessibility. For some
people design for mobility has indeed meant a decline in
accessibility, where walking, cycling and public transport
trips are actively deterred by inconvenient routing, danger
and intimidation.
Unit 4 The Neighborhood as Ecosystem
4.5 Local Resource Management Functional Intergeneration

In conventional, segmented thinking the social activities of a

locality are seen as independent from the provision of basic
infrastructure.
Utilities such as water supply, waste treatment and energy
supply are taken for granted, the functional backcloth to the
drama of human existence. But the 'joined up' thinking that
typifies the ecosystem approach recognizes the interplay
between people and infrastructure and the potential value of
its transforming power.
When energy, food and water are simply there to be plugged
into, purchased from a superstore or turned on, then
ecological realities are side-stepped.
Unit 4 The Neighborhood as Ecosystem

4.5 Local Resource Management Functional Intergeneration

Conversely when energy comes from a community-owned wind

farm, some food is home-grown, water caught on the roof and,
after use, treated in the local sewage garden before being
returned to its natural cycle, then synergy is evident. Local
economic and leisure opportunities are enhanced and the
potential for the development of social capital increased.
Unit 4 The Neighborhood as Ecosystem

4.5 Local Resource Management Functional Intergeneration

Application of the ecosystem approach to resource

management has been called the ‘principle of least effort.

It involves the idea that from minimum resources and energy,

maximum environmental, economic and social benefit are
available’ (Hough, 1995).

In developing countries amongst the rural and urban poor,

economy of means, maximizing local production, reuse and
recycling, is critical to survival.
Discussion