Chapter 3 - Land use and management strategies for shaping sustainable cities

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From the worldwide discussions in different fields, in technical, economic, as well as in social and political fields regarding assuring human sustainability it is obvious that this actually means developing and applying proper sustainable development strategies on different levels, that is, on global and national as well as on regional and local levels. By operationalizing the sustainability concept several inter-, multi-, and transdisciplinary approaches are to be taken into account with the aim of defining the best ways in various activity fields, for example, industrial, agricultural, economic, social, living, educational, or touristic areas. Sustainable urbanism is among the most critical issues of the 21st century, because more than the half of the world’s population is currently living in urban areas. There are several issues and challenges to be taken into account when applying sustainable urbanization. Besides the mentioned activity fields, in this regard the importance of proper land management and land use planning is self-evident, as general terms applied for getting subsequent urban planning including various disciplines. Land use and management represent the most visible targets of sustainability topics. Cities with sustainable land use and management are creating an obvious balance of environmental preservation and liability by carrying out economic industrial activities and commerce. A comprehensive assessment regarding efficient land use planning provides a vision for the future development in order to achieve sustainable cities. Gaining strategies on a local level means actually developing strategies for sustainable urbanization. The fairly new interdisciplinary subject called Technology assessment (TA), with its origins and development in the 1970s in the United States and during the 1980s becoming well-known in Western Europe, is used for its specific impact assessment studies with analytical methods and instruments applied in an interdisciplinary way not only to the environment, but also to economic and social areas as well. Currently TA represents a debated discipline at the international level because of its potential to integrate diverse assessment criteria from technical, environmental, economic, and social areas when carrying out interdisciplinary impact assessment of technological applications. The vision of shaping sustainable cities by applying TA and considering regional differences is currently worldwide a debated topic, where concrete strategies for assuring appropriate land use planning and management on a local level are of high relevance. In this context a real estate valuation is needed for carrying out several endeavors, such as financing, sales, property insurance, and taxation. Real estate appraisal is generally carried out by considering the real property purchase price, nevertheless sustainable real estate valuation concepts should be completed by supplementary criteria. Shaping sustainable cities is requiring the building of greater adaptive capacity into the real estate development process.