Abstract
Sustainable cities will require major infrastructure investments coupled with widespread behavioral change. Examples of smart, green technologies abound, but evidence for actual use lags. This partly owes to the tension between public support and private choices: individuals thinking as members of the public may see solutions as smart for the city, but thinking of their private interests may see those same solutions as not smart for themselves. This also owes to the disconnect between private and public choices, on the one hand, and the workings of complex systems, on the other. Even if public and private interests align, existing built environment systems may resist change. This article examines public perception and use of the Atlanta BeltLine, a pioneering sustainability initiative to transform the auto-dependent city into a greener, denser city. Analyzing a general public survey reveals widespread support for the BeltLine alongside reticence from residents to change their commute or greenspace use. The findings also show that drivers of public support and prospective use of the BeltLine differ. Public support may be insufficient if individual use decisions do not follow. Yet, private adoption decisions may not follow until and unless the systems in which they are embedded are already changing.
Highlights
Urban population and areas are expanding rapidly in the past few decades (Angel, Parent, Civco, Blei, & Potere, 2011)
Even if private interests and public support were to align in favor of a smart infrastructure project, the existing systems of the built environment may resist any effort to bring about change, or deflect such efforts in unexpected directions
This study identifies the potential gap between public support and use of sustainable urban project using data from a survey of the general public
Summary
Urban population and areas are expanding rapidly in the past few decades (Angel, Parent, Civco, Blei, & Potere, 2011). Designing UIS with both strong public support initially and pro-environmental behaviors/utilization remains a challenge for smart solutions in urban development Another source of misalignment, and one much more difficult to detect and to alter, is the disconnect between private and public choices, on the one hand, and the workings of complex systems, on the other. Even if private interests and public support were to align in favor of a smart infrastructure project, the existing systems of the built environment may resist any effort to bring about change, or deflect such efforts in unexpected directions. As a pioneering urban sustainability project in the U.S, the BeltLine offers an ideal case to study whether or not public support and willingness to use of the urban sustainable projects align well with each other This analysis sheds light on the effective design and implementation of smart solutions for sustainable cities. We conclude this paper with a discussion of implications for sustainable urban planning
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