ABSTRACT
Changing land use patterns are a pressing challenge for sustainability planning. The reasons are multiple: to preserve important natural habitat, wilderness, and agricultural land; to reduce energy and materials consumption as well as GHG emissions; to rechannel investment into existing urban areas so that those areas thrive and social equity improves; and to create more balanced, diverse, and livable communities for ourselves. Urban regions in both industrial and developing countries obviously cannot expand forever in the extremely rapid fashion that they have for the past century and a half. Their growth causes many problems related to motor vehicle use, pollution, GHG emissions, congestion, quality of life, and social equity. But managing urban growth is not just a question of stopping suburban sprawl. Equally important is the need to improve land use and urban design within existing urban areas. The two strategies go hand-in-hand. Only by revitalizing existing urban areas and accommodating more people within them can pressures for outward expansion be reduced and growth management policies succeed.
