Chapter II.

Planning for Sustainability: An Introduction to Sustainable Development

Chapter II
Planning for Sustainability: An Introduction to Sustainable Development

It is often said: stones instead of bread. Now these stones were the bread of my imagination, which was suddenly
seized by a ravenous hunger to taste what is the same in all places and in all countries.
Walter Benjamin, One-Way Street

1. Introduction

Current sustainability problems are of a various nature. They deal with the existing
environmental and physical degradation due to an irresponsible energy and resource use,
pollution, growing poverty and inequality, urban congestion, scarce and unaffordable housing,
transportation, and a loss of a locally oriented and socially responsible economy. All these are
interrelated aspects of the same problem, and they lead to an increasingly declining sense of
community.

The concept of sustainability firstly emerged in the early 1970s in response to the increasing
awareness of the environmental and social crisis that modern development practices had
caused. The term “sustainable development” became very soon a catchword for alternative
development approaches that could be aimed at preserving the environment for future
generations.

The Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2008) provides the following meanings for
the term “sustain”:
• To cause or allow something to continue for a period of time
• To keep alive

This term comes from the Latin roots “sub” + “tenere,” meaning “to uphold” or “to keep.”
The phrase “sustainable development” appears to have been first used in 1972 by Donella
Meadows and other authors of The Limits to Growth and by Edward Goldsmith and the other
authors of The Blueprint (Wheeler, 2008). The term “sustainable development” indicates a
changing and evolving human attitude toward the environment.

24
 Chapter II. Planning for Sustainability: An Introduction to Sustainable Development

“Cities” and “time” are at the core of sustainable development. Formulating a unified theory
of time in order to build future sustainable cities implies an integrated systemic approach to
the notion of “built environment.”

This chapter provides an introduction to the concept of sustainable development and the
important role of planning in defining the built environment. The application to the built
environment of sustainable methods of analysis and research is often sectorial; and in very
few occasions, they deal with concepts of time.

There are a wide number of different definitions of the term “sustainable development.” This
chapter provides a list of the most famous ones to show that although writers on sustainability
share the basic concepts, debates are recurrent, and a common strong theory does not exist.

2. Roots of the Concept of Sustainable Development and the Role of Planning

Since early civilizations, the natural environment has been changed by human action.
Through an increasing anthropical process, early human settlements have become big cities.
Century by century human beings have dominated nature for adapting it to their needs. The
notion of sustainable development is rooted in the relation of man-environment; in particular
it is related to the search for a “balance” within this relation.

Aristotle referred to those elements of the natural environment that had been changed by
interaction with humans as “second nature” (Forman 2008). The term “second nature”
indicates all those artefacts that gradually become part of the natural environment. This
indicates that beside nature and human beings, another element is emerging. It is the built
environment. Urbanization is an evident sign of human’s action on the environment. Charles
Tilly provided a definition of the term “urbanization” in his classic study The Vandée as “a
collective term for a set of changes which generally occur with the appearance and expansion
of large-scale coordinated activities in a society” (Van der Woude, Hayami, and De vries
1995: 44). The term “coordinated activities” refers to the built environment as a system, a
sort of socio-economic metabolism whose functioning depends on several aspects (Moffatt
and Kohler 2008).
The impact of human action on the natural environment became more dramatic in the
eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries during the Industrial Revolution. In this period, the

25
 Chapter II. Planning for Sustainability: An Introduction to Sustainable Development

pollution caused by coal smoke made many poets and Romantic writers extol nature as a
spiritually rejuvenating alternative to industrial society (Wheeler 2004). In 1864, John Perkins
Marsh published Man and Nature, which focused on environmental problems and, in
particular, deforestation. This book provided a description of the unbalanced relation between
man and environment, which was leading to decline both in ecological and social terms.

In A Sand County Almanac in 1948, Aldo Leopold discussed his conviction that humans had
an ethical responsibility to steward and safeguard natural ecosystems and that these had an
intrinsic value apart from human use (Wheeler, 2004). This was his response to the current
anthropocentric vision of the value of the natural environment. After the Second World War,
there was a wide literature on the question of sustainable environment. These works were
aimed at focusing ecological problems related to the industrial development. In this period,
Lewis Mumford, the great urban planning critic, published books such as The Culture of
Cities (1938), The City in History (1961), and The Urban Prospect (1968). In his books,
Mumford advanced an ideal of the city as an organic community designed on a human scale
and oriented toward human needs. In 1960 Kevin Lynch published The Image of the City. In
the preface he stated, “This book is about the look of cities and whether this look is of any
importance and whether it can be changed” (1960:v). Lynch recognized the role of the
citizens’ image of the surrounding built environment as pivotal for future planning. His book
deals with urban design, and it indicates a new growing interest in human perception as useful
source of information for future planning. Lynch laid the foundation for participatory
planning, a discipline aimed at increasing public participation in urban development
decisions.

Grounded in this increasing interest in urban design, a new movement developed. It was the
Livable Communities movement whose theme had been promoted through a series of
conferences held in California during the 1970s. The followers of this movement promoted
more pedestrian accesses, diverse and mixed-used development, and the establishment of a
wide range of urban amenities to make cities more livable. The dream of an ideal, livable
community was grounded in the notion of utopia. In the first chapter of his book The Story of
Utopias, Lewis Mumford stated, “We have set utopia over against the world . . . the more that
men react upon their environment and make it over after a human pattern, the more
continuously do they live in utopia . . . Utopia as a world by itself, divided into ideal
commonwealths, with all its communities clustered into proud cities, aiming bravely at the

26
 Chapter II. Planning for Sustainability: An Introduction to Sustainable Development

good life” (1922, 11). The Livable Communities movement was based on the developing
modern environmentalism, which critiqued existing notions of development and proposed
alternative paradigms emphasizing the spiritual, the natural, and the human over values of
profit and economic progress. In this period, earth problems became of great importance. In
1972 in Stockholm, the UN Conference on Environment and Development was held. For the
very first time, public officials and NGOs from around the world were brought together and
had the possibility to confront and debate. In the same year, Donella Meadows published
Limits to Growth. She and some other researchers at the MIT University modelled trends in
human population and resources consumption. Through their model, they showed the human
system crashing in the mid-twenty-first century. Meanwhile Edward Goldsmith published
Blueprint for Survival. The book began with a critique of industrial society. “The principal
defect of the industrial way of life with its ethos of expansion is that it is not sustainable . . .
Radical change is both necessary and inevitable because the present increases in human
numbers and per capita consumption, by disrupting ecosystems and depleting resources, are
undermining the very foundations of survival” (Goldsmith et al. 1972: 3–4). The authors
provided a review of the current strategies for resource management, agriculture, and social
and political reform. In the book, they defined their task as creating “a society that is
sustainable and will give the fullest possible satisfaction to its members. Such a society by
definition would depend not on expansion but on stability. This does not mean that it would
be stagnant; indeed, it could well afford more variety than does the state of uniformity that at
present is being imposed by the pursuit of technological efficiency. We believe that the stable
society is much more likely than the present one to bring the peace and fulfilment that hitherto
have been regarded, sadly, as utopian” (ibid., 21–2).

During the 1970s, the concept of sustainable development diffused rapidly. In 1974 the World
Council of Churches held a conference during which there was a call for a “sustainable
society.” Sustainability became subject of investigation for many spiritualists and theologians.
In 1976 the Lutheran theologian Robert L. Stivers published Sustainable Society: Ethics and
Economic Growth. In a journal article, he asserted, “First I will outline the vision of The
Sustainable Society, setting forth its setting elements and goals. Secondly I will consider the
poverty of present images of the future, the need for new positive images, and the religious
foundations for positive visions. Third, I will turn to the ethical or world view dimension of
the Sustainable Society, focusing on six guidelines or norms I consider to be at the heart of
the total vision” (1979: 72). The six principles he presented in his article are the following:

27
 Chapter II. Planning for Sustainability: An Introduction to Sustainable Development

• Limits. He defines social and physical limits. Social limits derive from human care.
The alliance between technology and growth must be regarded as positive only when
it is subservient to care. Stivers asserts that “care for persons means we take seriously
the social limits to technology and growth” (1979: 76). Physical limits are aimed at
maintaining the balance of nature. Although natural systems are resilient, there are
ecological limits to the intrusions of technology in each system.
• “Smallerness” and appropriate size. It means a reorientation away from large
physical size and organizational complexity. As Stivers asserts, “We need all sizes, for
human and ecological needs are various” (ibid., 77). The concept of appropriate size
focuses on the importance of place, which has been a key principle of many
sustainable-city advocates. In Stivers’ thought, there is an essential link between care
for persons and “smallerness” and, by consequence, between large size and
complexity. He states, “The Sustainable society suggests that our political
communities and our work situations should be designed to provide ample
opportunities for closed personal interaction. Care for nature points to a similar
direction. Ecosystems, while generally larger than small personal communities, can be
overwhelmed even by small intrusions . . . as with the awareness of limits, the
criterion of smallerness and appropriate size has radical implications” (ibid., 77-8).
Place-oriented communities have authentic connection to past cultures and ways of
life. They also develop a meaningful and strong system of orientation within their own
anthropical space.
• Holism. Stivers refers to a simple aphorism “when we care we share” (ibid., 78),
which is based on theology and experience. The concept of care is at the core of
sustainable communities. The sense of care for persons and nature provides awareness
of the whole reality, which is the right path for sustainability. A holistic outlook is
necessary in sustainability planning. This implies planning to consider all the different
disciplines such as housing, transportation, land use, environmental quality that are
involved in planning processes, by taking into account all integrating goals of
planning. The holistic approach suggests integration between sciences through the
application of the Christian concept of care.
• Distributional equality and political freedom. Stivers focuses on the importance of
equality and political freedom. These are two regulative principles of justice, which
are related to love and care. Distributional equality means fewer poor people and

28
 Chapter II. Planning for Sustainability: An Introduction to Sustainable Development

proportional distribution of any surplus. In Stivers’ point of view, equality and

freedom are two basic principles of sustainable development.
• Diversity. The concept of diversity is related to that of care. Stivers asserts that “care
always has the same form, but is various and diverse in content. Theologically God is
one in the form of his love, but works differently in different times and places. Human
care is similar. Thus, within the limits of individual overload, we may even generalize
that experience is enriched by variety and diversity” (ibid., 81). Diversity means
richness. Diversity in human activities leads to more self-sufficient communities.
Nature is diverse. Diversity leads to resilient natural and anthropical systems.
• Stewardship. It is careful husbanding in the present so future generations can live at
least as well as the preceding generations. The present takes in trust a gift from the
past with the responsibility of passing it on in no worse condition than that in which it
was received. The care for future generations does not mean to neglect the present
needs. Presents and future needs should be considered in balance.

These six principles were suggested by Stivers as driving in sustainable planning. The concept
of care is of great importance in his thinking. Stivers was a theologian, and his works have a
religious character. He focused on the importance of achieving a whole awareness of reality,
which is possible only through experience. The concept of care is related to the human
experience of surrounding environment. In Dooyeweerd’s cosmonomic philosophy, the
concepts of care and experience are of great importance. The philosophical underpinning
provided in chapter four and chapter five demonstrates how the above-six-listed principles are
not strange to Dooyeweerd’s thought.

At the beginning of the 1980s, a new movement called Environmental Justice emerged. This
movement looked at the negative effects of urban development, such as exposure to toxic
chemicals, industrial pollution, and urban transportation. Robert Bullard, an environmental-
justice academic and archivist, described this movement as a network of civil-rights, social-
justice, and environmental groups (Schlosberg 1999, 108). Most of the defining arguments of
the environmental justice movement were about distributional patterns, which were violations
of any number of distributive principles of justice. Within this movement, many theories of
justice developed. Some authors as Iris Young and Nancy Fraser focused on individual and
social recognition as key elements of attaining justice (ibid.). In this context, recognition does
not have just a psychological meaning; rather it indicates the status of those less well-off in

29
 Chapter II. Planning for Sustainability: An Introduction to Sustainable Development

distributional schemes. Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum developed a theory of justice that
focuses on the capacities necessary for individuals to fully function in their chosen lives1
(ibid., 2007).

In 1985 during a Canadian conference held by professionals coming from the field of public
health, the term “healthy cities” was coined (Wheeler 2004). This term referred to a wide
range of issues related to pollution, toxic chemicals, safety, homelessness, education, and
community and urban quality of life. The emerging Healthy Cities Movement developed
thanks to international organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the
International Healthy Cities Foundation.

During the 1970s and 1980s, a new eco-oriented perspective developed. It laid the foundation
for late twentieth-century sustainability debates.

During the 1980s and 1990s, the movement called Landscape Ecology emerged and
developed. It was based on the work of Richard Forman and Frederick Steiner (Wheeler
2004) and it proposed a new way of looking at landscape in urbanizing and rural areas,
emphasizing patches of wildlife habitat. The movement provided a set of terms and issues,
which addressed a more systematic approach to preserving and restoring natural landscape
elements within cities and towns. Within this movement, planners and landscape architects
such as Michael Hough, Anne Whiston Spirn, John Tillman Lyle, and Rutheford H. Platt
explored the relation between cities and natural landscape, arguing that they are deeply
interrelated. As Hough asserted, “We have begun to understand human beings as biological
creatures immersed in vital ecological relationships within the biosphere . . . the dependence
on one life process on another, the interconnected development of living and physical
processes of earth, climate, water, plants and animals, the continuous transformation and
recycling of living and non living materials, these are the elements for the self-perpetuating
biosphere that sustain life on earth and which give rise to the physical landscape. They
become central determinants that shape all human activities on the land” (1995: 5).

1
Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum developed their theory of Justice within the Environmental Justice
movement. Their approach was grounded in the understanding of the centrality of distribution of goods as
element of justice. In particular they focused on how distributed goods were transformed into the flourishing of
individuals and communities. The central argument of their capability approach is that “we should judge just
arrangements not only in simple distributive terms, but also more particularly in how those distributions affect
our well-being and how we function. Capabilities are about a person’s opportunities to do and to be what they
choose in the context of a given society. The focus is on individual agency, functioning and well-being, rather
than more traditional distributive indicators” (Schlosberg 2007, 30).
30
 Chapter II. Planning for Sustainability: An Introduction to Sustainable Development

In the early 1990s, the emerging movement New Urbanism was aimed at revaluating the
physical layout of communities. The founders were Peter Calthorpe, Andres Duany, Elizabeth
Plater-Zyberk, Daniel Solomon, Stefanos Polyzoides, Elizabeth Moule, and Douglas
Kelbaugh (Wheeler 2004). They called for more livable communities, and they focused on
better-designed suburban development rather than the creation of “urban places” (Kelbaugh
2001).

In the same period, the movement called Smart Growth emerged. It focused on the
mechanisms to promote more compact, economically efficient urban development through
preserving open space, limiting the outward expansion of cities, promoting infill
development, and redesigning communities in the way similar to the New Urbanism
movement (Florida 2005).

In 1990s many city programs emerged through local initiatives. They were based on the
principles defined by the “Agenda 21” program, a comprehensive document adopted at the
Rio Earth Summit in 19922. This document sets out the global vision for the first century of
this millennium. The third paragraph of Agenda 21 calls on governments to elaborate national
strategies, plans, policies, and processes to ensure the implementation of sustainable
development.

One of the most famous disciplines is participatory planning, which is aimed at increasing
public participation in urban development decisions (Wheeler 2004). As suggested,
participatory planning developed during 1960s, thanks to planners such as Kevin Lynch.
Realizing that much of what planners do is mediate between various intrests, planning
theorists suggested a new approach called “communicative planning” (Haughton and Hunter
2003). It emphasizes processes of communications, participation, and consensus building; and
it is aimed at achieving more environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable
communities. Participatory planning suggests an integrated approach to urban questions.

Over the decades, many movements related to sustainable planning developed. As suggested
in this section, at the beginning the term “sustainability” was applied to environmental fields

2
available at www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/res_agenda21_00.shtml
31
 Chapter II. Planning for Sustainability: An Introduction to Sustainable Development

such as forestry, agriculture, energy use, and fisheries management. Only later the term was
applied to a wider perspective involving disciplines such as urban sociology and economy.
Planning is a multifaceted discipline. It joins with other fields of study in the search for the
understanding of the urban phenomenon. The term planning indicates “any activity which
seeks to achieve an objective in future time” (Perlof 1961: 198). The answers for a successful
planning do not come from planners or citizens, but all two. Planners have a great
responsibility. They have to grasp the complex dynamics of contemporary urban change.
Planning for sustainability implies dealing with a wide range of concepts from several fields
of investigation. Cities evolve continuously; they are like living creatures, metabolisms; they
are social-ecological systems (Moffatt and Kohler 2008). Cities have a temporal character,
and planning for sustainability implies dealing with time.

As suggested in the next chapter, time is not an immovable frame of reference inside which
events and places occur. It is structured on and it is the structuring element of the urban
reality. Planning necessarily relates to the manifold and multiple space-times of place. As
Harvey asserts, “The heterogeneous experience and construction of time within cities is a very
real phenomenon . . . multiple relational theory of spatio-temporality indicates how different
processes can define completely different spatio-temporalities, and so set up radically
different identifications of entities, places, relations” (1996: 284). The urban is an embedded
and heterogeneous time-space process, “the way in which multiple processes flow together to
construct a single consistent, coherent, though multi-faceted time-space system” (ibid., 260-
61). The city “cannot be examined independently of the diverse spatio-temporalities such
processes contain” (ibid., 263-64).

An introduction to the relation of space-time, related to urban contexts, is provided in chapter

three.

3. Sustainable Development: Some Definitions

Despite several decades of debate, no perfect definition of the term “sustainable development”
has been provided. The most widely used is that of the Bruntland Commission coined in 1987
during the United Nations Conference on Environment and Sustainable Development
(UNCED). According to Our Common Future, sustainable development is “development that
meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet

32
 Chapter II. Planning for Sustainability: An Introduction to Sustainable Development

their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts: the concept of needs, in particular the
essential needs of the world’s poor, to which priority should be given; and the idea of
limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization in the environment’s
ability to meet present and future needs” (Development World Commission. 1987: 43). The
Commission’s main insight was that the world’s problems were tightly interlocked. The
Commission urged to take a holistic, global perspective that could interconnect all those
issues that were usually considered into separate compartments. On the global level, the
Commission pointed to “accellerating the ecological interdependence among nations”
(Tomalty 2008: 35); and it promoted cooperation aimed at solving common problems. The
Bruntland Report had a great impact, which refelcted on the 1987 Montreal Protocol on
Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, 1992 Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, the
1997 Kyoto Protocol till the Copenhagen Climate Conference held in 2009.

Although writers on sustainability share the same basic concerns, the existing debate has led
them to different definitions of the term:
• “Improving the quality of human life while living within the carrying capacity of
supporting ecosystems.” World Conservation Unit (1991),
• “Sustainable development is development that improves the long-term health of
human and ecological systems” Stephen M. Wheeler (2004: 24).
• “Sustainable development requires at least a constant stock of natural capital,
construed as the set of all environmental assets” (Pearce 1988)3.
• “Sustainability . . . implies that the overall level of diversity and overall productivity
of components and relations in systems are maintained or enhanced” (Richard
Norgaard 1988)4.
• “Sustainable development is improving the quality of human life while living within
the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems” (IUCN, UNEP, WWF, 1991: 10).
• “When human beings strive for enhanced life conditions without diminishing the
meaning of life itself—namely, our children’s future—we call this development
sustainable.” 3MFuture (2005)5.
• “Sustainable development is often thought to have three components: environment,
society and economy. The well-being of these three areas is intertwined, not
separate.” (McKeovn 2002)6.
3
Cited in Pierce et al. 1990:1
4
Cited in Wheeler 2004:24
5
In www.3mfuture.com/sustainability/definition_sustainable_development.htm.
33
 Chapter II. Planning for Sustainability: An Introduction to Sustainable Development

• “What is sustainability? Sustainability means to equally consider environmental

aspects, social and economic aspects. Thus future-oriented management means: We
have to leave our children and grandchildren an intact ecological, social and
economic system. The one cannot be achieved without the other!” (German Council
For Sustainable Development 2005)7.
• “Sustainable Agriculture is a system that can evolve indefinitely toward greater
human utility, greater efficiency of resource use and a balance with the environment
which is which is favourable to humans and most other species” (Harwood 1990)8.
• “Sustainable Development is any form of positive change which does not erode the
ecological, social, or political systems upon which society is dependent” (William
Rees 1988)9.

There are many existing definitions of the term sustainable development or sustainability. In
particular, the term sustainable is combined with a vast array of terms other than
development. There is a vast literature on sustainable growth, sustainable biosphere,
sustainable living, sustainable resource management, sustainable cities, sustainability of
ecosystems, cultural sustainability, sustainable communities and so on (Kenny and
Meadowcroft 1999, 13). No literature is available on sustainable time despite the fact that its
importance in urban planning is evident and cannot be ignored anymore.

The above-suggested definitions are an example of how the concept of sustainability is

conceived. The list is not exhaustive. It is aimed at showing the existing different attitudes
toward sustainable development. Sustainability can be seen as one of the values and goals at
the core of an emerging ecological worldview, which is interrelated with ethical, social, and
economic issues. Sustainability is a code word for a set of values (within different disciplines)
that become a starting point in urban planning. The IUCN Programme for the years 2009–
2012 adopted at the World Conservation Congress in Barcelona (5–14 October 2008) states,
“Any strategy must be a guide rather than a prescription . . . human societies differ greatly in
culture, history, religion, politics, institutions, and traditions. They also differ importantly in
wealth, quality of life and environmental conditions, and in their awareness of the significance
of these differences. Nor are these features fixed in time: change is continual . . . the world

6
The ESD Toolkit 2.0 is available at www.esdtoolkit.org.
7
available at www.3mfuture.com
8
Available at www.ecifm.rdg.ac.uk
9
Cited in Wheeler 2004: 25.
34
 Chapter II. Planning for Sustainability: An Introduction to Sustainable Development

needs a variety of Sustainable Societies, achieved by many different paths . . . living

sustainably depends on accepting a duty to seek harmony with other people and with nature”
(available at www.iucn.org/congress_08/).

The 2001 Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (UNESCO) elaborates the concept of
sustainable development by stating that “cultural identity is as necessary for humankind as
biodiversity is for nature . . . it is one of the roots of development understood not simply in
terms of economic growth, but also as a means to achieve a more satisfactory intellectual,
emotional, moral and spiritual existence” (UNESCO 2001: 6, art. 1).

Sustainable development is not to be applied only to environmental problems. Planning for

sustainability should imply facing problems involving the natural environment as well as
humankind. Sustainable development is rooted in the search for a balanced relation between
man and environment; and it can be pursued only by considering all those elements, which
characterize this relation.

4. Planning with Time

Cities are grounded in time. They are characterized by discordant rhythms having their
genesis in the accidental intersection of time and space. Cities are experienced in everyday
life. Through individual and collective experience, cities evolve. Cities are like cultural texts
enclosing a wide range of interrelating symbols and meanings, “broad fashion as a space in
which there is a weaving together of symbols to create an irreducible plurality of meaning. It
is a signifying practice that abolishes the distinction between writing and reading, production
and consumption. A text does not occupy space as does a work on the library shelf, but is a
field within which there is an activity of production, of signification” (Duncan and Duncan
1992:27). An urban text is a physical structure, a combination of signs, monuments,
buildings, streets, etc., which is represented in maps, planning documents, real estate
publications, as well as films, music, art, literature, and other cultural forms (Gottdiener and
Lagopulos 1986). Citizens’ experience of the urban context is an interactive process of coding
and decoding of these signs and symbols (Stevenson 2003). Roland Barthes argues that “the
urban text is one where unstable and transient signifieds are continuously being transformed
into signifiers—forming an infinite chain of metaphors whose signified is always retreating or
becomes itself a signifier” (Barthes 1970-1971/1986, 95). It means that all users of the city

35
 Chapter II. Planning for Sustainability: An Introduction to Sustainable Development

write their own relationship with the urban space in highly idiosyncratic ways. Experiencing
the urban space means writing and reading the urban text by modifying it through action.
Action causes change; and change is related to time by motion, which is the passage from a
before to an after moment. The urban context is a cultural text rooted in time. For this reason,
planning, as a multifaceted discipline, requires an approach to time as a leading factor of the
urban evolution.
Spatial and environmental planning are caught in a process of change. Planning is a task that
up to now has been geared toward defined circumstances that are fixed in the future. This
traditional sense of planning is now replaced by actor-centred, process-oriented approaches;
and planning has assumed a strategic character. Because of its dealing with change,
sustainable planning should rediscover time as a connecting link, as mediator between nature
and culture, between economy, ecology, and social space. The concept of change as driving
for the urban evolution suggests that of transitions, which are “liminal spaces of possibility . .
. in transitional situations space and time come to be more densely compressed” (Hofmeister
2002: 106). The concept of transition indicates the passage from a situation before change to
another situation after change. Through the succession of transitional moments, the urban
context evolves by changing. Evolution is a historical-formative process, and planning is the
instrument of this process. Planning with time implies the abandonment of the principle of
separation that became dominant during the Enlightenment, which saw nature being
reconstructed with the aim of “separating that which is combined and homogenising that
which is separate” (Beck 1996: 38). Following these principles, planning was a conscious,
socially controlled means of organizing space by creating islands; everything had its time, and
everything had its space. Given that time is the leading factor for urban evolution, the
planning approach should be integrated in order to take into consideration all those aspects
and all those temporal dimensions, which define the urban system. The concept of the
diversity of time is an important aspect in planning discipline. Thinking about temporal
diversity involves thinking about the switching between different forms of time. Bernard
Albert in a report on the 9th Conference of the Tutzing Time Ecology Project (April 2000)
entitled “Temporal Diversity” provided the following grid of mapping temporal diversity
(Albert 2002: 91):
• The fundamental dimensions or elements of time were the moment/instant,
duration/extension, and temporality/change.
• The forms of time were designated as beginnings and ends, pauses and transitions, as
well as tempo and repetitions.

36
 Chapter II. Planning for Sustainability: An Introduction to Sustainable Development

• Time patterns were considered to encompass specific arrangements of forms of time

such as rhythm (repetition with variation, thus allowing for change), metronomic beat
(precision, repetition of exactly the same, that is, without change), and simultaneity.
• Time structured were denoted processes that have evolved into temporally ordered
events.
• Time Gestalten (forms) were formulated as context-dependent ensembles of
interdependent temporal patterns, forms of time, and interactive processes that are
specific to personal, social, cultural, and natural systems.
• Timescapes was earmarked as the overarching term in the debate; the tapestry that
weaves together all the elements, forms, structures, processes, and systems outlined
above. As such, it embraces the general and specific products and processes of time,
being, and becoming. Timescapes have to be understood in conjunction with their
spatial and material context, and they have to be appreciated as inescapably contextual
and perspective-dependent.

The above grid suggests time as contextualized. The temporal aspect of the urban evolution is
not an a priori character, which is to be fixed outside of the evolving process of the urban
context. Time is rooted in the urban space, and the urban space is rooted in time. Planning for
sustainability requires the analysis of the symbiotic relation existing between urban space and
formative time.

Planners are resorting to the dimension of time. Chrono-urban studies is starting to emerge as
a subdiscipline of urban planning. In Italy, Prof. Sandra Bonfiglioli from the Polytechnic of
Milan is the head of a laboratory named LabSAT, which is specialized in spatial and temporal
urban planning. Together with other universities all around Europe, Professor Bonfiglioli and
her team carry out a research aimed at finding an answer to the increasing need for a better
quality of life in terms of time and space. Principles and goals of this research are:
• Everyday life time quality and time equity
• Safer and more accessible public spaces
• Environmental protection

The research promotes a program on the politics of time, which is aimed at a more equitable
use of time and space in urban contexts. Several Italian cities have adopted time-oriented

37
 Chapter II. Planning for Sustainability: An Introduction to Sustainable Development

programs (Bolzano, Bergamo, Varese, etc.) aimed at planning public spaces for a more
intense use along the twenty-four-hour-time axis (Zedda 2008).

The development of the chrono-urban studies and the adoption of time-oriented programs
indicate an increasing interest in time as grounding aspect in everyday life.

In a time-oriented approach, the first task for urban and environmental planners should be to
observe time in space. In particular it should be to observe social/historical time (time related
to social interaction and human evolution) in its connection with biological time (time of
nature). The relation between historical time and biological time and, in particular, the
discrepancy existing between them are at the core of sustainable planning. As suggested by
Prof. Enzo Tiezzi, of the University of Siena, historical time and biological time follow
different rhythms and have different time horizons (Tiezzi 2005). The different and
contrasting temporal character of the social and natural environments is the main problem
facing sustainable planning. Differences in time horizons make it difficult to decide for a
shared direction to take in order to plan a sustainable urban future. Nevertheless, time is a
driving aspect in urban planning; and it cannot be ignored. Dealing with time in planning
procedures is not an easy task. All the theories, which flourished around the term “sustainable
development” have suggested two basic and shared principles (Hofmeister 2002: 119):
• The principle of use-integration, which is based on an understanding of space in the
unity of economic space, socio-cultural, and ecological living space
• The principle of the preservation of long-term use options, which are based on the
requirement of justice within and between generations

Planning for sustainability involves several interacting aspects, which follow different
rhythms and have different time horizons.

Given that the evolution of the urban context is defined by a succession of temporal phases,
related transitions (passage from a temporal phase to the following one) mark changes
occuring within places in the urban space. This thesis provides an analysis of the urban
structure as defined by a succession of phases through time. In the following chapters,
through an investigation of the philosophy of cosmos developed by Herman Dooyeweerd, the
important role played by time in the urban evolution is taken to surface.

38
 Chapter II. Planning for Sustainability: An Introduction to Sustainable Development

Planning for sustainability implies planning with time. Planning with time implies dealing
with change and the impacts it causes.

In everyday language, an impact is the effect of a specific cause. An impact is any alteration
of environmental conditions or creation of a new set of environmental conditions, adverse or
beneficial, caused or induced by the action or set of actions under consideration (Rau and
Wooten 1979). More particularly an impact “can be described as the change in an
environmental parameter over a specific period and within a confined area, resulting from a
particular activity compared with the situation which would have occurred had the activity not
be initiated” (Wathern 1992: 7). Impacts can be direct or indirect. The direct ones fall on the
environment as the result of the project input; the indirect ones are generated by activities
resulting from the project.

Impacts are to be measured with relation to time. Among all techniques that have been
developed in impact assessment, none of them has properly considered time factor. Among
the few available urban analyses dealing with time, a remarkable example of long-term view
was the study conducted by the city of Vancouver.

In 2000, the International Gas Union held a competition in order to determine a sustainable
city in one hundred years’ time. The winner was the city of Vancouver in Canada whose plan
was well appreciated by the judges (The Vancouver plan is available at www.sheltair.com).

The study took eighteen months of work, and it involved more than five hundred citizens as
representative of the major stakeholders.

The plan was conducted following three main stages:

1. Stage one, defining the context
2. Stage two, developing the long term plan divided into other three stages
a. envisioning our future
b. exploring the options
c. implementing the plan
3. Stage three, the legacy of the endowment

39
 Chapter II. Planning for Sustainability: An Introduction to Sustainable Development

This kind of approach is innovative in considering time as an added value to the assessment
methodology.

Time and space are two main aspects in urban planning. They have a complex meaning and
structure. Both in spatial and in temporal terms, scales are various. The spatial scale may
correspond with a farm, village, town or a city, region, country, and so on till the entire world
has been considered. The difficulty is that all scales are interlinked.

Time scales are a further dimension to be considered. Establishing time scales within a social
urban system is not an easy task (Bell and Morse 1999):
1. Different systems may require different time scales.
2. Different components of sustainability in the same system may be measured by
different time frames.
3. Important is the choice of the starting point (need of a reference point).
4. It is important to establish where the length of time is to start.

Planning for sustainability requires an integrated approach to time, which can be provided by
Dooyeweerd’s cosmonomic philosophy. In the following chapters, the thesis provides an
analysis of the urban context as defined by fifteen succeeding modalities (aspects of reality),
which are grounded in time. The multiaspectual reading of the urban text suggests a new way
of approaching urban planning.

The importance of spatial and time scales is relevant in planning discipline. In 1996 during a
meeting held in Bellagio, Italy, the following set of principles was suggested for monitoring
progress toward sustainable development:

A summary of the ten Bellagio principles for gauging progress toward sustainable
development
1. What is meant by Sustainable Development should be clearly defined.
2. Sustainability should be viewed in a holistic sense, including economic, social, and
ecological components.
3. Notions of equity should be included in any perspective of sustainable development. This
includes access to resources as well as human rights, and other nonmarket activities that
contribute to human and social well-being.

40
 Chapter II. Planning for Sustainability: An Introduction to Sustainable Development

4. Time horizons should span both human and ecosystem time scales; and the spatial scale
should include not only local but also long-distance impacts on people and ecosystems.
5. Politics toward sustainable development should be made on the measurement of a limited
number of indicators based on standardized measurement.
6. Measures and data employed for assessment of progress should be open and accessible to
all.
7. Progress should be effectively communicated to all.
8. Broad participation is required.
9. Allowance should be made for repeated measurement in order to determine trends and
incorporate the results of experience.
10. Institutional capacity in order to monitor progress toward sustainable development needs
to be assured.
Table 1: source Bell and Morse (1999)

These principles have maintained their validity and importance till today after more than ten
years. Principle 4 is about the importance of taking into consideration both human and
ecosystem time scales into assessment. The difficulty is to put it into practice as these scales
are often conflicting.

Time is a complex and dynamic concept. Experience of time is necessary in order to

understand all relations time creates within reality and, through them, to try to foresee the
possible directions to take in order to built a common sustainable future.

Planning for a sustainable common future should take into consideration space and time as
interconnected aspects of the urban becoming. The environment, the citizen as user of the
urban space, and the collectivity are the three main spheres10 to be considered while planning
for the future.

5. Conclusions
Cities are at the core of sustainable development. Cities are everyday inventions. They are
informed and imagined by people at a time (Kempf 2009). The urban structure is an evolving
field of changing configurations, spatially and temporally defined.

10
The Club of Rome addressed these three spheres as main issues for future development in the Report to the
Global Marshall Plan Initiative (2006). The report is available at www.clubofrome.at/archive/rep-kap.pdf.
41
 Chapter II. Planning for Sustainability: An Introduction to Sustainable Development

Sustainable development suggests time as driving aspect in urban planning. Time and space
are the ground in which the sustainable principles of care and limitation (balance) can be
applied in a holistic approach. What do the terms time and space mean as applied to
sustainable urban planning? How is the connection of the two defined? What is the role
played by the human being (as user of the urban space) within space and time? In order to
answer these questions, a further investigation of the terms is required. In the next chapter,
space and time are analyzed as related aspects describing urban environments. By using
concepts belonging to different fields of investigation (philosophy, mathematics, sociology,
psychology), chapter three provides an introduction to the urban-system analysis. The figure
of the observer helps in understanding the existing relation of man-surrounding environment,
and it introduces the concept of naive experience (sensitive experience), which is analyzed in
chapter four. Chapter three lays the foundation for the understanding of the concept of time
and space provided by Dooyeweerd’s cosmonomic philosophy.

42