urban sustainability
Assignment 2
We discussed in our classes that, how physical elements, such as roads, buildings, different land uses,
and public spaces, are arranged and laid out in a place, has significant implications on the people’s
behavior and psychological conditions, which ultimately affects urban sustainability. In this assignment,
we consider a number of dimensions/aspects related to the physical urban environment that are of
signifiance to sustainability and are amenable to public interventions through policies and planning.
These dimensions include:
Urban Form and Land use
Landscape, nature and ecology
Water, resources and energy
Transportation
In the next 5-6 weeks, we will discuss how these dimensions of the urban environment are connected
with urban sustainability, and will learn about the sustainable development principles and strategies
pertaining to those dimensions by examining some of the internationally known best practices. While it
is certainly an experiemental process to explore the proper ways of achieving sustainable urban
development along those dimensions, consensus on the viable and practical directions have emerged
among urban designers and planners, activists, policy makers, and scholars.
This assignment asks you to –
1. Develop a summary of the key sustainable urban development principles and strategies for each of
the dimensions (use bulletin points and concise explanations to describe the principles).
2. Provide one to two examples to illustrate how those principles have been manifested in urban
development. You can identify examples by searching online using keywords from the SUD themes and
by exploring the case studies provided in the SUD Reader book.
3. Identify planning and policy tools that can be used to promote and/or achieve those principles. Refer
to the APA’s “Policy Guide on Planning for Sustainability”.
All students: Your write-up should not exceed 7 pages and you are encouraged to use table(s) to
summarize information. Include necessary references when describing an example and discussing how
the example demonstrates the underlying principles. (15 points)
Graduate students: You will present your work for this assignment on Feb. 28. The presentation will
include your summary of the principles and strategies and 1-2 examples. I’d like to ask each graduate
student to focus on one or two dimensions when presenting the examples – we will be discussing this in
class (5 points).
