Listened to an interesting program on sustainable subdivisions. I'm not sure how accepted the definition of a "sustainable subdivision" is, but some of the points the expert made sounded good to me. A sustainable subdivision is built so that residents can get to common services by walking, biking, or other active transport modalities. You shouldn't have to get in a car to grab some milk, pick up your mail, take a walk in a green space, go to school, go to the dentist, go to a pharmacy, etc... Subdivision today can't exist without the automobile, however if we accept the reality of climate change, we can't keep building subdivisions in ways that necessitate frequent and unnecessary automobile usage.

According to the expert, in green subdivision planning a developer would plan to use half of the development area for green space and half for housing. To make this profitable for the developer, and ecologically sustainable, the density of housing needs to be increased - smaller lots for each house. Developers like density because there is less pavement and other services to put in when housing is denser.

Proponents of sustainable subdivisions say that putting a green space into your subdivision up front is better than trying to create it afterwards. Not much mention was made about the use of the green space but lately I've been hearing about "food security" and the need to start growing more food locally, including in subdivision environments. When the price of oil goes up again, the issue of "food security" will be brought to forefront again as our industrial food systems are critically dependent on oil for their existence. Planting a community garden or Communty Supported Agriculture of some sort would get my vote for how a part of the green space might be used.

The expert talked about how "sustainable subdivisions" might be developed. He through that one important way was to get the first one built. This might be done with government assistence or it could be done as a green private venture wishing to gain expertise and credibility in an emerging market. I think we also need to come up with innovative ways to move the installed base of subdivisions into more sustainable directions.