A Place of Sustainable Development in Contemporary Urban Concepts

Abstract

The concept of sustainable development has promoted around the world for years by taking action to implement it on a global scale. Hence, as a development paradigm, it appears in many strategic documents at every planning level. The main goal of the research is to determine whether and to what extent the idea of sustainable development manifests itself in the contemporary urban concepts. The analysis covered publications, events and selected urban projects. As the beginning of the time frame, the 1960s were adopted, which together with the 1970s are the background to the changes that led to the crystallization of the idea of sustainable development. This is a period of decline and criticism of the idea of modernism, the crisis of cities, as well as the beginnings of the trend of postmodernism. The following years - the 80s, 90s and the beginnings of the 21st century - is a gradual development of the concept: a compact city, a green city, an intelligent city, as well as searching for ways to implement sustainable development in cities. The analysis of the contemporary concepts of shaping cities has shown a lack of consistent, uniform planning and urban planning criteria for sustainable development. However, this does not necessarily mean the faults of the idea itself, but the advantage of an individual approach to each city and the possibility of its flexible implementation. The conducted analysis also showed that particular contemporary concepts are based on similar assumptions, or even are opposed to each other. None of them offers the perfect city. Individual ideas of urban development can be implemented separately or creatively combined with each other. Although none of the ideas of shaping cities is fully complete and universal, it is important to treat the city as one organism, and seeking for its sustainability, consistently use selected planning tools, adapting ideas to the context and scale of the city. Further search for the right direction of urban development is a task that in a given time perspective may lead to an improvement in the spatial, social, economic and environmental situation, and consequently to a higher quality of life for the residents.