What is sustainable urbanism about?
Farr: Yes, almost everyone is suddenly interested in sustainability and many bite off some corner of it. But so far we make progress mostly through half measures. For example, what’s the point of building a green building in an auto-dependent location? Some environmental benefits of such a building are cancelled out by its dependency on car access. A green building, energy efficient light bulb or Prius car are all important. But each by itself won’t lead us to sustainability. We need to start by looking at, and often questioning, the basic assumptions of urban settlements. Sustainable urbanism combines principles and standards of smart growth, new urbanism and the green building movement to create compact, walkable and transit-served settlements with energy- and water-efficient buildings and infrastructure. If you’ve got a settlement pattern right, go wild on green buildings, go wild on Priuses, go wild on energy-efficient light bulbs. But much of America hasn’t got the settlement patt
