The notion of ‘sustainability’ emerged in The Ecologist's A Blueprint for Survival, in 1972. The quest to make modern civilization ‘sustainable’ inspired the UN's Stockholm Conference in 1972 and the ‘global trusteeship’ of subsequent international environmental treaties. ‘Sustainability’ is related to ‘futurity’, hence the Brundtland Commission in 1987 defined sustainable development as ‘development which meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. ‘Sustainability’ animates ‘the precautionary principle’, affirmed by the European Union (EU) in 1990 in its Bergen Declaration on Sustainable Development, which requires ecological preservation in cases of scientific uncertainty where serious or irreversible damage is threatened. The Earth Summit in 1992 established ‘sustainable development’ as the most important policy of the 21st century. ‘Sustainability’ is at the heart of The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and Agenda 21, accords signed at the Earth Summit that herald a new paradigm of society, economics and the environment. The EU's Fifth Environmental Action Programme (1993) pursues ‘sustainability’ in industry, energy, transport, agriculture and tourism. ‘Sustainability’ has also been endorsed by the Clinton Administration (1994). In the light of these events, ‘sustainability’ is now used widely in biology, economics, sociology, urban planning, ethics and other domains. It is regarded as tantamount to a new philosophy, in which principles of futurity, equity, global environmentalism and biodiversity must guide decision‐making. Far from being a mere doctrine of development science, ‘sustainability’ has emerged as a universal methodology for evaluating whether human options will yield social and environmental vitality.
SummaryA new city has emerged in the 1990s, designed to achieve urban "sustainability" The notion of sustainable urban form has its roots in the Garden City movement at the turn of the century. The "garden" cities Girardet (1990; The Hannover Principles (1992) that in order to make civilization sustainable, urban form will have to be based on the principles of nature, which makes no waste, maximizes biodiversffy and is sustained by the sun. The urban form designed by McDonald (1993), conceptualized with ideas from c~baos theory, contemplates a sustainable city within a sustainable watershed and a form "holistic " "diverse" "fractal" and "evolutionary" Lyle (1994) believes that the sustainable cities of the ne.~ century will be based on the "green infrastructure" of "regenerative systems" The commonality linking these landmarks of sustainable urbanization is the ideal of bringing the city into a ~fital symbiosis with nature. The sustainable city is a "green" or "living" city. The search for the su.~tainable city in the 20th century has not been Utopian buttopian, a quest to create a form of city suited to optimal development of the Earth island.
thinks ,it has a "circular metabolism', as distinguished from the "linear metabolism" of contemporary cities. McDonough (adviser to President Clinton on "sustainable development') theorizes in
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