Attitudes Towards Sustainable Cities: Are Sustainable Cities Livable Cities?

Sustainability is a current trend in urban planning that encourages cities, counties, and regions to have less environmental impact. Promoting cities that are green, pedestrian friendly, and compact creates benefits to the environment; however, it is unclear how people perceive the human impacts of various proposals for sustainability. Sustainable development relates to urban designs that lower energy and resource use and pollution (Jabareen, 2006). Sustainable design concepts include compactness and density, mixed land use, social and housing diversity, sustainable transportation, passive solar design, and integrating nature into the urban environment. Compactness and density minimize sprawl and transportation use, protect the surrounding rural environment, and reduce energy consumption and pollution. Mixed land use reduces the use of cars for commuting, shopping, and recreation. Social and housing diversity are important for economic stability and environmental justice. Sustainable transportation uses walking, cycling, and public transportation to reduce energy consumption and pollution. Passive solar design reduces residential energy consumption. Natural areas within and surrounding a community reduce pollution and help to preserve ecological diversity. There is certainly a need to create sustainable cities from an environmental perspective, but are these sustainable cities good places for people? Livability refers to the quality of life for a group of people wh