Sustainable Urbanism: Theories and Green Rating Systems

Abstract

*Sustainability has been the core of debates on development for the past decades with the additional debate on quality of life as a right even to vulnerable groups. Thus, advocating a more holistic approach to urban development. Sustainable Urbanism theories have been developing over the past 2 decades or so, while only recently comprehensive indices to measure or rate the sustainability of urban agglomerations have been developed. This paper examines the relation between following an urban planning theory or pattern and scoring high on the sustainability charts. The paper examines a number of cities rated by the Green City Index reviewing the relationship between their scores in various fields related to energy efficiency and the concepts governing their urban growth. The paper concludes a matrix showing the correlations between sustainable urbanism principles and performance indicators. The paper then applies this matrix to one of the new cities developed in Greater Cairo Metropolitan Region to examine how sustainability can be ensured and achieved in its future growth. ustainability is the governing paradigm of the 21 st century. It has been the core of the debates of development for the past decades. However, the expanding cities, especially in developing countries, are still lacking good guidance to cope with this paradigm. In these countries the brown agenda surely dominates urban development, where the green agenda is seen as a luxury and something to be considered in future generations. However, the current debate of quality of life vs. standard of living provides a strong base to support more environmentally responsive urban development. There is a growing recognition that providing a good quality of life is a right to even the very vulnerable groups. This shift in paradigm advocates a more holistic approach to urban development. The question remains what kind of urban planning theory or trend should be advocated to ensure a more sustainable development? Currently sustainable development is measured using a number of indicators and scales, of which ecological footprint and human development index are of vital importance. Moreover, there is a growing body of indices to rate urban agglomerations, whether on macro scale of cities as the Green City Index and Low Carbon City Index, CASBEE for cities or the micro scale of neighbourhoods and urban areas as LEED for neighbourhoods. These indices tend to measure performance in a number of fields; namely Energy and CO2, Land use, Transport, Waste,