SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

Code 3675

Lecture Two

PROF. DR. NOMANA ANJUM

ALLAMA IQBAL OPEN UNIVERSITY
ISLAMABAD
Unit 2 Environmental Sustainability in
Villages and Localities

2.1 Historical Back ground

2.2 Locality Based forms in Modern Living
Think Globally, Act Locally
Unit 2 Environmental Sustainability in Villages and
Localities
2.1 Historical Back ground
VILLAGES, LOCALITIES, AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

Why eco-villages (or eco- neighbourhoods),

The idea has emerged primarily because of our current
concern with the ecological damage being done to the planet
and our corresponding concern to construct environmentally
sustainable ways of living.
There is also something old in the proposal; they are (eco)
villages. And, in a world where people have come
increasingly to inhabit large towns and cities, the question
naturally arises: why propose villages? Why not towns, or
cities, or metropolises?
Unit 2 Environmental Sustainability in Villages and
Localities
2.1 Historical Back ground
VILLAGES, LOCALITIES, AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

As Gordon Cherry (1996) observed: ‘The preferred British

model remained the decentralist tradition based on
Howard’s garden city and Unwin’s style of cottage
architecture.. .’
One of the major pressure groups in the UK for town planning
in the early 20th century was the Garden Cities and Town
Planning Association, which was founded in 1899 explicitly to
promulgate Howard’s garden city planning ideas.
Unit 2 Environmental Sustainability in Villages and
Localities
2.1 Historical Background
VILLAGES, LOCALITIES, AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

Within the context of garden city planning, the idea of

neighbourhood planning was another expression of the ideal
of creating village-like communities.

The idea of neighbourhood planning originated in the 1920s

with the work of the American sociologist Clarence Perry
(1939), who proposed the division of the city into distinct
neighbourhood units, each with its own local communal
facilities such as convenience shops, a primary school, a
church, a local park.
Unit 2 Environmental Sustainability in Villages and
Localities
2.1 Historical Background
VILLAGES, LOCALITIES, AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

Within the context of garden city planning, the idea of

neighbourhood planning was another expression of the ideal
of creating village-like communities.

The idea of neighbourhood planning originated in the 1920s

with the work of the American sociologist Clarence Perry
(1939), who proposed the division of the city into distinct
neighbourhood units, each with its own local communal
facilities such as convenience shops, a primary school, a
church, a local park.
Unit 2 Environmental Sustainability in Villages and
Localities
2.1 Historical Background
VILLAGES, LOCALITIES, AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

As Cherry (1996) observed, neighbourhoods were conceived

by town planning theorists as ‘self-contained islands for
particular communities’ - in other words, as
ECO-VILIAGES: ‘villages in the city’ (Taylor, 1973).
Along with Howard’s garden city, Perry’s vision of
neighbourhoods as relatively self-contained local
communities also became very influential in British town
planning after the Second World War. Thus, the
neighbourhood unit became a central building block, or
structuring device, in the plans for all the post-war new
towns, as well as in Abercrombie’s plan for London itself.
Unit 2 Environmental Sustainability in Villages and
Localities
2.1 Historical Background
VILLAGES, LOCALITIES, AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

Moreover, it is not just that people are no longer so tied to

the localities within which they reside. These localities
themselves have been increasingly penetrated by non-local
forces and goods, and so are no longer so distinctly local.

Thus local shops have given way to national chains of

supermarkets selling standardized products, local buildings
are often no longer constructed in local materials, even the
news in localities is less local and more dominated by news
from distant places transmitted by national media.
Unit 2 Environmental Sustainability in Villages
and Localities
2.2 Locality Based forms in Modern Living Think Globally,
Act Locally

In the modern city, much of many people’s lives are not

lived in the neighbourhoods in which they reside, it still
remains the case that local neighbourhoods exist - if only as
distinguishable physical or geographical spaces.
And with respect to these areas, it is possible to provide
and/or organize things locally in ways which contribute to
environmental sustainability, for example, by providing
locally-based energy supply systems; local recycling of
organic waste and refuse; local traffic restraint measures
coupled with improvements to local facilities for walking and
cycling; etc.
Unit 1 Conflicting Perceptions of
Neighborhood

THE AGENDA FOR FUTURE DEBATE

Are Neighbourhoods Important?

Is There a Role for Local Place Communities?
How Far does Current Practice Achieve Sustainable
Neighbourhoods?
What Principles Should Guide the Planning of
Neighbourhoods?
What is the Potential for Local Resource Autonomy?
What is the Potential for Local Health and Safety?
What are the Implications for the Decision-Making Process?