Livable Cities: A Sustainable Trend in Urban Planning

 Livable cities. It’s a concept on the minds of urban planners, developers and green builders around the world. Livable cities enhance the lives and well-being of its citizens, encouraging community and public participation through urban design that brings people together. Additionally, livable cities embody sustainability—ecologically, economically and socially.

The current trends in planning include infill and mixed use development. They’re quite old concepts, really. Traditionally, a proper functioning urban area would have retail and commercial space on the first floor (e.g., the baker, the butcher, the tailor, etc.) and residential space above. Everything one needed was within a sensible radius. Is that the case today? In many cities across America, particularly those that were built around the automobile and the required wide expanses of road and highway, it’s difficult to even get across the street by foot. However, many developers and planners have rediscovered mixed use and infill development.

Urban areas are rife with abandoned industrial and commercial spaces that, with some elbow grease and ingenuity, would be perfect for a mixed light industry/commercial development. Reviving our urban areas can also foster economic development, encouraging local entrepreneurs to try their hands in a business that meets the needs of the growing community.

Who lives in livable cities? Happy people. Studies have shown that livable cities—ones that are easily navigable by foot and bicycle—foster happy, healthy, fit communities of people. Want to improve the safety of your street? Get outside! In livable communities, children, adults and the elderly are able to walk to school, run errands or just enjoy the outdoors without having to worry about safety.

There is a lot of rhetoric from folks who argue that livable cities impede personal freedom. These individuals view personal freedom through their connection to their vehicles and ability to drive where they want when they want. How much freedom can you have with a car payment, maintenance costs (particularly if you’re like most Americans and commute in heavy traffic 20+ miles each way) and dependence on foreign oil with a machine that depreciates substantially as soon as you drive it off the car lot?

With people out of their homes and vehicles and populating the streets and local shops, an amazing thing begins to develop—community. They may not know that names of everyone who passes them on the street, but they feel comfortable enough to smile and say ‘hello’, a staple of ‘real America.’ A growing urban center can have as strong a sense of community as a one-road town. It all comes down to getting people out of their SUVs and homes and onto the sidewalks and bike lanes of America.