Making our cities more sustainable is an important component of that response. Cities are the primary source of global consumption that is rapidly exhausting the Earth’s natural capital.

As the number and scale of cities grows to accommodate (a predicted) 60% of the global population by 2030, this situation has the prospect of only getting worse.

Clearly, we must begin to substantially transform our cities, responding to immediate challenges like drought, while also achieving major improvements in sustainability. As ‘hotspots’ of consumption, production and waste generation, cities possess an unparalleled potential to increase the energy efficiency and sustainability of society as a whole.

While the principles of sustainable cities have often been articulated either in their form, function or governance, less emphasis to date has examined how to overcome the basic barriers to realising sustainable outcomes.

Cities Face Complex Challenges

Developed cities around the world face a similar set of challenges. Not only are the basic needs of housing, transport, water supply, sanitation and energy under strain, but demands for effective communication make the supply of broadband services (for example) an important part of infrastructure provision. And while climate change has emerged as a major threat to society, it is important to recognise that it is still only one of a spectrum of significant and inter-related sustainability issues.

Failure to recognise the complex emerging mega-trends that will shape our cities threatens to undermine the robustness of public and private investment and is a significant planning risk.

Consequently there is real potential to invest precious public funds in infrastructure that will have limited future adaptability, usefulness and hence sustainability. Conversely, successfully navigating the landscape of emerging trends is central to ‘cracking the code’ of sustainable urban development.

Can Cities Be Sustainable?

Cities can certainly be much more sustainable than their current state.

Ultimately the design, function and sustainability of cities are a function of aspiration, imagination and choice, which is why sustainability is more a socio-political than environmental issue. We will get what we choose as a society, whether through passive inaction or proactive design.

Just as city planners must think systemically about the issues and trends that are faced by cities, so too must they recognise the systemic nature of cities. Cities are organisms that respond (dynamically and sometimes unpredictably) to external stimuli over which there is little direct control. It is not only governments that shape cities but the industries, businesses and citizens that inhabit them through an ongoing interplay of choices, actions and investments.

Yet city planners and government agencies generally assume the role of ‘managers’ seeking to control and optimise the operation of the city features and functions over which they have authority. Indeed, planners and engineers have traditionally based the design and operation of cities on the (often unstated and unrecognised) assumption that they can be planned and operated according to the rules of mechanics and hierarchy.

Quite simply, these assumptions are false. The problem is that accepting this reality presents a major challenge to the status quo. The question is “what’s the alternative?”

The alternative is to recognise and deal with cities as dynamic systems, where the objective is to sustain the human and ecological systems, and the physical, financial, ecological and human assets (or capital) they contain.

But here’s the crunch – how do you shape and effectively manage cities as dynamic organisms that foster sustainability?

The Way Forward

The answer lies in maintaining the attributes of the social, economic and environmental systems that sustain their health and continuity, and thus the capacity of these systems to provide services and resources into the future.

Some people may reasonably question ‘Aren’t we already doing enough to sustain our cities by securing water supplies and reducing the carbon footprint of our energy use?”

Certainly these are useful and important steps, but hardly sufficient. There are many important social and economic reasons to act, including:

• Supporting the changing needs of a city’s citizens (such as an ageing population and one requiring global connectivity).
• Dramatically reducing resource use per capita while improving people’s quality of life.
• Meeting growing demands for investment in public infrastructure and services when the revenue (tax) base is declining.
• Improving the health outcomes available through good urban design.
• Ensuring cities are economically productive and competitively attractive to business and to the financial and human capital they require.
• Developing transferable (exportable) knowledge to assist developing countries that lack effective governance and skills.

There are many compelling reasons why business and the community should be holding governments to account for their role in shaping and investing in the sustainability of their city.

Locally and globally, cities continue to be developed in ways that are unsustainable. Only a handful of cities exist (or are in planning) that could potentially carry the tag of ‘sustainable’, such as Curitiba in Brazil, Dongtan in China, and Masdar in the United Arab Emirates.

It’s not so much that there’s a lack of plans to enhance the sustainability of cities, but a lack of political will, inspiration, funding and delivery skills.

Now is the time for decisive action to deliver an improved quality of life and amenity that communities will embrace because time is the ultimate non-renewable resource.

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