Planning for a Sustainable Compact City: A Way Forward

Abstract

Cities are the engines of economic growth. The concentration of population in urban settlements is a result of the centralization of resources and triggers in-migration. Sprawl, congestion, increasing densities, and social exclusion are the major urban challenges faced by the cities of the developing world. At this juncture, it is important for planners to address these issues to make the cities liveable. The compact city concept is one of the concepts to address similar problems faced by the developing world. Implementation of the compact city concept is limited to an increase in density, redistribution of density, implement transit-oriented development schemes, and mixed uses of the land resource in existing practices. The compact city concept is widely discussed and debated due to its benefits and costs with respect to sustainable urban development. This paper aims to conduct an in-depth study on the sustainable compact city concept by taking into account the literature available from various contexts around the world. The paper investigates the existing methodologies and proposes the optimal methodology for sustainable compact city planning.

Towards a Better Understanding of Compact Cities

“…Likewise, (Kjærås 2020), who advocates for a conceptual shift in compact city theories, adopts a relational perspective that encourages future research to draw comparisons between very different compact cities. In addition, study 5 (Bibri 2020 a ) emphasizes the huge variations in the form of compact cities and the difficulty to pinpoint exactly what constitutes a compact urban form. He posits these circumstances will make compact city policy implementation difficult.…”

“…What emerges is a vision for a policy model comprised of a set of integrated strategies that are concerned with: urban growth containment; density optimization; functions, and social groups collocation; accessibility enhancement and multimodal mobility enablement; green structure preservation. The five core elements distilled herein are neither exhaustive nor limited, but they offer those interested in applying this model to new contexts an adaptable conceptual framework that directs their attention toward the links, mechanisms, policies, and strategies by which different combinations of elements can produce desirable and sustainable planning outcomes. Furthermore, this conceptual framework joins a trending perspective that considers the compact city holistically as an integrated system of design elements and principles, the synergy among which renders the concept more than a total sum of its parts (Bay 2017; Bhagwat and Devadas 2020; Bibri 2020 a ; Stevenson and Gleeson 2018).…”

“…The researchers argue that data science can help us identify when optimal density is reached, and a new cycle of compact development is needed (207). Planning scholars conclude that this cross-fertilization with the field of urban science will make cities “sustainable, resilient, efficient, and liveable by rendering them more measurable, knowable, and tractable in terms of their operational functioning, management, planning, development, and governance” (Bibri 2020 a , 28).…”

The Resilience of Egyptian Cities against Health Crises 'Egyptian Pandemic City Tool'

“…Environmental: Compact cities affect the environment by reducing automobile pollution, reducing energy use per capita, and reducing carbon dioxide emissions [27,28,29].…”

Scaling the Potential of Compact City Development: The Case of Lahore, Pakistan

“…It can be characterized by an efficient, multifunctional, and multi-modal transport system, while fostering relatively high population densities [13]. The compact city consists of various elements such as high density, mixed uses, public transportation, accessibility, social equity, and urban containment [14,15].…”