Planning for a Sustainable Future

Sue Batty, Simin Davoudi, Antonia Layard

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780415232272
• eBook ISBN: 9781135158316
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

Sustainable Development is now firmly on the planning agenda and is an issue neither practitioner nor academic can afford to ignore. Planning for a Sustainable Future provides a multi-disciplinary overview of sustainability issues in the land use context, focusing on principles and their application, the legal, political and policy context and the implication of sustainable development thinking for housing, urban design and property development as well as waste and transport. The book concludes by considering how sustainable and unsustainable impacts alike can be measured and modelled, providing real tools to move beyond rhetoric into practice.

PART I

Introduction: Sustainable Development – Principles and Practice

Antonia Layard

Land use planning and sustainable development seem to be ever more inextricably intertwined. References to the ideas, principles and policies underpinning sustainability are everywhere – from planning policy guidance to good practice guides to inclusions in development plans. Yet it is also widely acknowledged that there is no single way forward to pursue sustainability. In fact, some even dispute that it is desirable at all; others disagree over what the concept means. Diverse views also exist as to its interpretation and implementation.

In practice, however, the principle has garnered widespread support. Even if it means different things to different people at different times in different places, it can provide a touchstone for reflection. Is cycling or driving a more sustainable form of transport? Should we build on green fields or brownfield sites to ensure that we meet the needs of current generations whilst protecting the interests of future ones? Even if we are unable to find a simple maxim to sum up the dictates of sustainability in a nutshell, we can simply and intuitively reflect on which of these two alternatives is the more ‘sustainable’ taking into account environmental, social and economic concerns. The answer may not be simple – driving has major ecological and safety effects but promotes mobility and personal freedom; greenfield developments reduce our open spaces but provide residents with a desirable place to live. By thinking about sustainability we can understand the tensions and dilemmas these issues pose, and we have an intuition of the outcome we wish to achieve. Sustainability is more than just ‘quality of life’ – it requires us also to consider the interests of ‘strangers in time and space’ as well as considering ecological limits and other species. It requires a holism that is often missing when we concern ourselves solely with the here and now.

To a large extent these are concerns that planners have always had to consider in a spatial context: they have long needed to balance social, economic and amenity issues, sometimes with an eye to environmental concerns as well. The new emphasis on sustainability, however, means that they must mediate between still more interests. There are new matters to be taken on board or concerns to resolve. This is a point stressed in Chapter 1 of this part by Simin Davoudi and Antonia Layard. If sustainability is to be more than merely a mantra on quality of life, spoken in the interests of electoral longevity, rather than long-term reform, we must integrate true concerns for intra- and inter-generational equity into our policies, in the spatial context and elsewhere.

The political context for such development is explored in Chapter 2 by Sue Batty. She analyses sustainability in its political context, considering how the principles can be used to inspire consensus rather than merely identifying causes. Sustainable development is more than merely a set of technical analyses, measuring emissions and absorptive capacities, depletion rates and waste generation statistics. The concept goes beyond these indices of measurement and assessment to call for ways to resolve the global political problem of the redistribution of scarce and limited resources. Scientific knowledge is also now more than merely technocratic – it empowers citizens and is no longer the prerogative of suited civil servants and scientists in white coats. Indeed, calls for sustainability now come from throughout the political spectrum, some see the consensual basis for sustainable development as implying bottom-up, participatory democracy, some even believe that anarchy holds the key to viable progress. Others hold more mainstream communitarian beliefs. In contrast, many believe that sustainable development is inevitably associated with the process of liberal democracy while others still opt for an element of authoritarian government or at least strong central regulatory powers. Advocates of sustainable development come from a broad range of political perspectives, and interpreting these is crucial if we are to understand what the political aspect of sustainability means, and how we are to implement it should we desire to do so.

Another key aspect of sustainability and one considered here is the legal dimension, as Chapter 3 by Antonia Layard explains. Laws can either underpin strategies by providing a legislative framework for subsequent policy development, or they can provide mandatory objectives and targets, requiring operators to reduce emissions or states to take responsibility for the harm they cause. There is, however, no central legal authority capable of implementing sustainability by legislative fiat. Under public international law countries need only make commitments on curbing greenhouse gas emissions or promoting equitable forms of trade if they wish to; should they refuse to sign up to such initiatives or breach laws once agreed, there is little the international community can do in law. It will be up to patient diplomatic negotiations or political persuasion to bring recalcitrant governments (back) into line.

On occasion, alliances can be set up, to promote sustainability and other goals, and these can be spectacularly successful. The most impressive of these is undoubtedly the European Union, where states have pooled sovereignty on an impressive scale adopting the guideline of subsidiarity, pursuing together what can best be achieved at the collective level while otherwise leaving governments to legislate alone. Here the pursuit of sustainability (so far focusing primarily on environmental protection) is steady and productive. Environmental standards have risen significantly throughout the Community as a whole, laggards have been brought into line and impacts on trade have generally been delicately defused. It is for this reason that the vast majority of United Kingdom law and legislation concerned with sustainability and environmental protection begins in Brussels.

Another key aspect of the political changes underway is an increased focus on public participation: it is widely accepted that sustainable development will not be achieved by ‘top-down’ approaches alone. And so the fourth chapter in this part is by Daniel Mittler who explains the origins and objectives of Local Agenda 21, analysing the extent to which these can be achieved in practice. There are real difficulties in achieving this end. Resources are lacking, institutional hierarchies are inflexible, planners prefer to stay ‘on top’ rather than being ‘on tap’ and it is much harder to actually implement progress than merely redefine it. And yet there are changes underway. The most important of these, Mittler submits, is the way Local Agenda 21 inspires and underpins calls for local empowerment. It provides a valuable focus to revisit relationships between local and central government and it is here that the potential for sustainable progress truly exists.

A further aspect of the political and legal framework for sustainability is the importance of institutions. The best principles and most coherent philosophies in the world cannot be introduced without effective and continuing institutions that both deliver and oversee implementation. This is a point stressed by Harry Dimitriou and Robin Thompson in Chapter 5. They refer to the work of Brinkerhoff and Goldsmith in developing a generic framework for understanding institutional sustainability. These authors believe that longevity alone is an insufficient goal for institutions; to be truly successful, two other aspects should be borne in mind. The first of these is that both an organisation's internal capabilities and its external environment matter, the second, that an organisation must chart a balanced course if it is to reflect its own internal strengths and weaknesses as well as external threats and opportunities. In the event of a mismatch between the two, it is said, institutional decline or demise will occur.

Dimitriou and Thompson broadly agree with this analysis and apply it to an urban development in the United Kingdom. The project they choose is the ambitious urban regeneration initiative in the Thames Gateway area on the premise that if the institution delivering the regeneration is itself unsustainable, then the outcomes of the project (sustainable regeneration) must themselves be in doubt. At first sight they certainly agree that the institutional arrangements in place for the regeneration strategy of the area represent a model of stability and sustainability in which an explicitly stated strategy is carried forward by a set of powerfully entrenched institutions. On closer analysis, however, they believe the initiative to have been characterised by institutional instability with many of the failing features evident in unsustainable institutions. Their analysis leads them to be cautious about the possibility of successful sustainable urban regeneration in the Thames Gateway area, though they note that improvements to the institutional structure can be, and are being, made.

The final chapter in Part I reflects two innovative theories on sustainability: that of a risk society (promulgated by the German sociologist Ulrich Beck) and the idea of ecological modernisation, a theory and practice developed largely in the Netherlands. Beck's risk society thesis argues that ‘we are eyewitnesses – as subjects and objects – of a break within modernity, which is freeing itself from the contours of classical industrial society and forging a new form – the industrial risk society . . . Just as modernization dissolved the structure of feudal society in the nineteenth century and produced the industrial society, modernization today is dissolving industrial society and another modernity is coming into being’ (Beck 1996: 9). Ecological modernisation, on the other hand, is an altogether more optimistic approach. Its advocates start ‘from the conviction that the ecological crisis can be overcome by technical and procedural innovation’ (Hajer 1996: 249). They ‘propose that policies for economic development and environmental protection can be combined to synergistic effect . . . [and rather] than perceiving economic development to be the source of environmental decline, ecological modernisation seeks to harness to forces of entrepreneurship for environmental gain’ (Gouldson and Murphy 1997: 94).

In Chapter 6 Simin Davoudi takes these two theories and considers their implications for sustainability in the planning context. Her conclusion is that they mirror two different forms and views of planning: one ideological, the other technocratic. Like these, the risk society thesis is moral; ecological modernisation meanwhile is rational. Her conclusion is that planning needs to take both these agendas into account. Both inspiration and application will be needed to implement sustainable development effectively in the spatial context.

Overall, then, the aim of Part I of this book is to provide an overview of sustainable development's central principles whilst also considering the concept's political, legal and planning context. The chapters are heterogeneous both in form and content, they make no attempt to provide a single definition of sustainability, nor do they advocate a single way in which to carry the idea forward. What they do, in conjunction with the other chapters in this collection, is to provide a snapshot of current thinking and analysis on the issue. The authors explore pivotal concepts and consider the issue critically. The idealistic and holistic worldview the notion of sustainable development incorporates provides a valuable focus, yet it is crucial to underpin this with analytical rigour if the vision is to provide a useful and tangible guide to future development. We often have a basic intuition about what is sustainable and what is not: these chapters illustrate some of the considerations on which these early (and often accurate) judgements are based.

1	Sustainable Development and Planning: An Overview

Simin Davoudi and Antonia Layard

This chapter addresses two issues. The first is the concept of sustainable development and its connection to prosperity and growth. Whether or not win-win solutions can be achieved, it is clear that policy-makers and politicians want to reach them. The most widespread recipe for sustainable development these days is a focus on ‘quality of life’. Human wellbeing – particularly for voters – is central. Sustainability is packaged as an idea that can deliver better homes, workplaces and lifestyles and many (particularly governmental) definitions seem to suggest that there are no hard choices to be made. One group who should know is planners, and this is the second issue to be addressed. For however easy or difficult sustainability decisions are to make, it is they who must determine them in a spatial sphere and balance economic, social and environmental concerns. The question is whether the requirement and language of sustainability demand anything new, or if this is in fact what planners have been doing all along.

The Concept of Sustainable Development

The language of sustainability has certainly been around for some time. It emerged from forestry practices in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe when foresters realised that they needed to plant enough trees to ensure that the wood fibre lost to harvesting was replaced. ‘Scientific’ or ‘sustainable’ forestry was to monitor the growth of wood fibre assessing what was needed to replace that lost to harvesting. And so right from the beginning, ‘sustainability’ showed a distinctive affinity with the older discourse of ‘limits’ (Batty, Mittler this volume).

Indeed, this notion of natural limits was taken up by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature when it prepared in its World Conservation Strategy in 1980. This stressed sustainability in ecological terms, calling for a strategy to ensure the sustainable utilisation of species and ecosystem (IUCN 1980). Its concern was the preservation of habitats, vital for conservation. Yet as critics noted, this was a narrow approach. Human activities are an integral part of the habitats conservationists seek to protect and neither should be seen in isolation from the other. The IUCN Report saw ‘poverty and the actions of the poor . . . as one of the main causes of non-sustainable development, rather than recognizing that poverty and environmental degradation are both consequences of existing development patterns’ (Soussain 1992: 24). As one analyst concludes, ‘this lack of vision of the relationship between the economy and the environment led to a reformulation of the concept of sustainable development to reflect concerns over what many commentators saw as an “anti-poor” bias in the IUCN Report’ (ibid.).

In light of this growing critique, and as a reflection of changing times, the poor were a key focus of the seminal work by the World Commission on Environment and Development in 1984. This meeting, better known as the Brundlandt Commission after its chair, Gro Harlem Brundlandt, was convened in response to a United Nations General Assembly Resolution following up the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment in 1972. Their 1987 report, Our Common Future, provided the most quoted definition of sustainable development of all time: ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs’ (WCED 1987: 8). This incorporated two key concepts: justice within generations (intra-generational equity) and justice between generations (inter-generational equity) and here already was the focus on human wellbeing. For according to the Commission, the ‘central rationale for sustainable development is to increase people's standard of living (broadly defined) and, in particular, the well-being of the least advantaged people in societies, while at the same time avoiding uncompensated future costs’ (Turner 1993:413). Sustainable development was an anthropocentric concept from the outset.

This call is powerful rhetoric, yet it is unclear how such ends are to be achieved. In particular, it is uncertain whether current economic processes are the problem or the solution to unsustainable ways. Are ‘win-win’ solutions – arrangements i...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• Part I Introduction: Sustainable Development – Principles and Practice
• Part II The Challenge of Sustainable Development: Exploring the Complexities
• Part III Sustainable Development in Practice
• Bibliography
• Index