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_., R ,<.+. ~ _ 19 • Y . _~~. ~~- South Island Development Corporation to design a community with the "loop and feel of a small coastal village. "Plans call for 12, 000 residents on the 1,560-acre site. of a variety of community groups. Sustainable communities make sure the interests of all groups are considered, and that all voices in the community are heard. Putting it all together While many of the goals and programs discussed here are not new or unique in planning, we believe that the vision of sustainable communities has the po- tential to connect them in compelling ways. U.S. communities face new and seri- ous ecological constraints-some at the local level, such as shrinking landfill capacity, some at the global level, such as long-term climate change. The con- cept of sustainability can help localities respond to these challenges-while at the same time creating places of endur- ing value. Vice President Gore argues in Earth in the Balance that environmental protec- tion must become "the central organiz- ing principle for civilization." Ina simi- lar spirit, and for similar reasons, we believe that planning must make sus- tainable communities the single organiz- ing concept for planning now and into the 21st century. Timothy Beatley is an associate professor and head of the urban and environmental planning program at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. David Brower, AICP, is a re- search professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. helped start in 1989 in Richmond and Wayne County, Indiana, under the rubric, "Sustainable Urban/Rural Enterprise." There are now many similar coalitions around the country; they're described in a newsletter called S. U.R.E. Exchange (call 301- -7227 to order. ecently, notes Euston, the states have started getting in- volved. The governor of Kentucky is sponsoring a conference May 25-28 in Louisville called "From Rio to the Capitols: State Strategies for Sustainable Development" call 502-564-2611 for 4~~ r I Solid Waste Breakdown Percent by weight Waste Type (~X) ~ Psper Producd ® YaN We50t1 0 c~ea c2%) +ex) ~%) ® Foes Wea[e fax) Pleallo ce%) ~"') rexd~.. ® wood n 3 A "sustainability profile"produced ~ ~ last fall by the Sustainable Cam- ~ ~ ~ bridge Coalition in Massachusetts }~ ~ t pointed out that the average local _ _ ®~ resident generates 2.3 pounds of solid ~ waste a day /better than the national - average, which is fourJ. Peter Calthorpe produced this model of a "transit•oriented development" for 1000 Friends of Oregon. The light rail station is surrounded by the village green, with commercial development and high-density housing nearby. Radial streets connect to the townhouse and single-family neighborhoods. details, and the Florida Cooperative Extension Service has scheduled "Community sustainability: AFuture That Works" in Sarasota. May 25-27 call 813-951-4240. The next step is to involve the federal government. Euston, for one, would like to see community sustainability made a centerpiece of the new administration's domestic policy. For descriptions of actual projects-built and unbuilt-sev- eral publications are helpful. Earthword is an irregularly pub- lished "journal of environmental and social responsibility," produced by the Eos Institute in Laguna Beach, California x$20 for four issues; ca11714-497-1896 to order. The Urban Ecologist, published quarterly by swell-established nonprofit group called Urban Ecology in Berkeley, is "dedicated to developing and communicating a new vision of ecologically and socially healthy cities-or ecocities." (Annual membership is $30; call 510-549-1724. Sustainable Cities is a compendium of presentations made at the 1991 Ecocity conference in Los Angeles. It includes a plan by Joseph Smyth of Thousand Oaks for converting an old shopping center in Anaheim into a sustainable community. The book is $20 from Eco-Home Media in Los Angeles (213- 662-5207).. Peter Calthorpe's new book, The Post-Suburban Metropolis, is due out this month from the Princeton Architec- tural Press x$24.95 in paper). It is based on Calthorpe's belief that "environmentally benign places and technologies are fun- damentally more humane and richer than those which are demanding and destructive of natural ecosystems." Calthorpe says the new book pays more attention to urbanism ~"which makes communities socially vibrant and alive"~ than his 1986 Sustainable Communities, coauthored with Sim van der Ryn. Finally, look for The New Urbanism: Toward an Architecture of Community, by Peter Katz, due out this fall from McGraw Hill. Katz, a marketing consultant in the San Francisco area, has surveyed 25 sustainable and neotraditional projects in the U.S. and Canada. Among them are a neotraditional development in Miami, the first test of Dade County's neighborhood traditional zoning code, and Bamberton, a major union-funded effort in British Columbia. Ruth Knach, Planning