SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

Code 3675

Lecture Nine

PROF. DR. NOMANA ANJUM

ALLAMA IQBAL OPEN UNIVERSITY
ISLAMABAD
Unit 8: Managing Resources Locally

8.1 Sustainable Energy Resources in

Sustainable Communities
8.2 Environmental and Social Responsibilities
8.3 Sustainable Food Strategies from
Neighborhood
8.4 Planning for Non-Motorized and Motorized
Transport options
8.5 Managing Against crime in Realities
Unit 9 Towards Sustainable Communities

9.1 Community Decision Making

9.2 Shifting Hearts and Minds
9.3 Reorientation of Planning System
9.4 Changing Government Policy
Unit 9 Towards Sustainable Communities

‘Whatever you can do, or dream you can,

begin it! Boldness has genius, power and
magic. Begin it now. ’

Geothe, Dichtung und Wahrheit, circa 1825

Unit 9 Towards Sustainable Communities
9.1 Community Decision Making
It is clear that the significance of ‘neighbourhood’ in
people’s lives has faded, but the wish to reverse the
trend is very widely shared.

Technological evolution, community development

programmes and exemplary neighbourhood projects all
suggest there is potential to reinvent locality, but success
so far has barely touched the generality of situations.

The knowledge/skills base needs further development

and much wider dissemination, however, the key issue is
not knowledge but will.
Unit 9 Towards Sustainable Communities
9.1 Community Decision Making
There is a prevailing lack of determination on the part of the
public and private sector agencies who shape the physical
environmental to convert the noble (over-rehearsed) rhetoric
of sustainable development into practice.

Political and institutional inertia still prevails and impedes

the discovery of neighbourhood strategies that are effective
in the contemporary situation.
Geothe’s injunction the answer is not wait and see (in which
case we remain part of the problem) but begin now.
Uncertainties and conflicts of interest can only be resolved
by boldly taking steps forward, opening up the
neighbourhood option.
Unit 9 Towards Sustainable Communities
9.1 Community Decision Making

At the policy level there a gulf between rhetoric and reality.

Government sees neighbourhoods as essential building
blocks of the sustainable city, and is beginning to promote
policies of transport demand management, mixed land use
and urban intensification which in principle should assist.

However, some policies inevitably pull in different directions

(for example the maintenance of urban open spaces and the
pressure to find brownfield housing sites) and the lack of
integration between government departments is reflected in
the lack of coherence at local level.
Unit 9 Towards Sustainable Communities
9.1 Community Decision Making
Economic development priorities, for instance, lead to land
hungry car dependent business parks, often on greenfield
sites, whereas PPG13, in line with urban form theory,
suggests mixed use centres at public transport nodes,
embedded within residential townships.

The development industry, aided and abetted by the

planning system, is producing new residential areas which
seriously compromise the principle of neighbourhoods,
leading to a fragmented, increasingly privatized environment
characterized by high car reliance, wasted resources and
pollution intensity. Such localities marginalize the interests
of those who are tied to the local place, increasing social
exclusion and the risk of mental illness.
Unit 9 Towards Sustainable Communities
9.1 Community Decision Making
A central thrust of Local Agenda 21 is that all the main
stakeholders in a city, or a locality, need to be involved in
decision-making processes in order to achieve policy
consistency, shared ownership and commitment.
If localities are to be awarded any extra powers then this
probably depends on new neighbourhood or ward policy
frameworks. Some agencies are promoting a new-style
neighbourhood action plan (NAP) interpreting slimmed-down
local authority statutory documents in coordinated, holistic
detail at the local level (Johnson, 1999). Elements of such
NAPS could be given authority (even with current legislation)
through Supplementary Planning Guidance attached to local
or unitary Plans.
Unit 9 Towards Sustainable Communities
9.2 Shifting Hearts and Minds

Changed attitudes among the many interests (local

bureaucracies, politicians, business people, citizens etc.)
can only come if there is convergence of under- standing.

‘Sustainable development’ while an intellectually powerful

construct, has little emotive power - not sufficient in most
situations to win hearts and galvanize action. An alternative
banner is needed. ‘Quality of life’ is rather woolly, but
perhaps ‘health’, in the broad World Health Organization
(WHO) meaning, has some force.
Unit 9 Towards Sustainable Communities
9.2 Shifting Hearts and Minds
The vision of healthy neighbourhoods, shared by many,
has been strongly promoted by the WHO and, recently, the
UK Department of Health and Social Security. Linking the
health and environment agenda together begins to provide a
constituency of political support that can make things
happen. Cities such as Glasgow and Sheffield in the UK,
Toronto and Seattle in North America, Athens and
Copenhagen in Europe, have embarked in just such a
journey under the WHO Healthy Cities programme.

If health and environment could also be partnered by

economic development, then the triumvirate of sustainable
development would be complete.
Unit 9 Towards Sustainable Communities

9.2 Shifting Hearts and Minds

Coordination of any sustainable and healthy neighbourhood

programme needs to occur in relation to service coordination,
utilities and development policy.

Coordinated planning and development strategies are

illustrated, for example, in The Netherlands, where housing,
transport, land use and environmental control functions are
closely entwined. The next section concentrates on aspects
of this third area.
Unit 9 Towards Sustainable Communities
9.3 Reorientation of Planning System
In the UK the development plan system provides a potentially
valuable means of coordinating policy as it applies to
neighbourhoods; and government guidance is ostensibly
strongly in favour of a neighbourhood approach. The barriers
to implementing sustainable neighbourhoods through the
planning system no doubt consist of a range of attitudinal,
bureaucratic, market and political factors.
The government is now tentatively suggesting (DETR, 1998a)
that development options or contingency plans could be
considered over a 25 year period. This would be a welcome
shift of emphasis. In 25 years there is likely to be a
substantial growth increment (of the order of 25 per cent) and
most existing buildings will receive significant investment to
adapt them or renew them.
Unit 9 Towards Sustainable Communities
9.4 Changing Government Policy

It has been obvious throughout the discussion that

government holds the key to the move towards more
sustainable neighbourhoods.

The DETR has in the mid/late 1990s comprehensively

overhauled planning guidance, and the rhetoric of
sustainability is beginning to be matched by action through
the plan approval and planning appeals systems. Some
related areas of government are also showing signs of
embracing the new local approach - particularly in relation to
health and urban regeneration.
Unit 9 Towards Sustainable Communities
Concluding words
On many different counts there are admirable reasons for
trying to rejuvenate localities as living, active, place
communities based around common services and local
resource management. But the trends in the other direction
remain powerful, and innovative neighbourhood scale
projects are still very rare.
There is a widespread desire amongst Local Agenda 21
coordinators, community developers, urban designers,
health professionals and a wide body of public and political
opinion to reverse that trend. Achieving it relies on concerted
effort from a plethora of agencies - public, private, voluntary
and community sectors.
Discussion