A question for you: What should the sustainable city look like?

I know I write posts in a certain way, and they tend to not generate a lot of dialogue. I am not on the Main Street e-list right now, but were I, I would send an email to the list on this question, asking what they think the sustainable city is and should be?

This is relevant to the planning projects I do in other communities. Thus far, in the reports we produce sustainability hasn't been addressed as a separate section with subreporting and recommendations.

Partly, this reflects my "bias" that by (re)building healthy traditional commercial districts, rebalancing land use away from sprawl and exurbanism, providing quality walkable environments, preserving historic buildings, rebuilding local economies, raising transit and bicycling issues, etc., is by definition sustainability in the most expansive sense, and will result in reduced energy use and carbon emissions compared to automobile-based land use and mobility paradigms.

Speaking of bias, because I use this way of thinking, which is a far more expansive consideration of economic and energy policy and the life cycle as well as "hard" and "soft" costs, is why generally I am pretty derisive of LEED building certifications as a be all and end all. LEED is just one little piece of many other considerations. Basically, why bother with LEED if everybody drives? (I know, it's still important to have green buildings, reduce water runoff, use less energy, etc.)

For example, last year I worked for the Brookland Main Street program and couldn't help but make a snide remark at one of the advisory committee meetings on the Brookland Small Area Plan when someone commented vociferously about how important it was to require that new buildings developed around the Metro station be LEED certified, when:

1. Most people in Brookland drive (and drove to that meeting);
2. That leveraging the location of the Metro site likely requires slightly taller buildings than is typical in Brookland;
3. which most people were opposing.

Isn't it "green" to leverage a transit system in which billions of dollars have already been invested?

A small LEED certified new building next to the subway station, by not best leveraging the transit connections offered by the location, by definition should not be able to be LEED certified despite using green construction practices and materials, because of the misuse of the land use opportunities presented by the location.

One sustainability issue though as it relates to the urban question concerns supplying metropolitan regions with food. Cities tend not to produce food. And the more developed is a region, the fewer the number of close-by farms.

Note that Baltimore has just released their goals for a sustainability plan, but the full plan will not be available until 12/30.

It's too difficult to tell if DC has such a plan, based on a search of the DC.gov website or the webpage for the DC Department of the Environment, not that sustainability is only the mission of that department. Of course, there is the green collar jobs initiative, which I don't imagine includes people doing work like what I do...

See "Green-Collar Workers Vital to Washington, D.C. Policy Goals" from the Center for American Progress.