ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses two issues. The first is the concept of sustainable development and its connection to prosperity and growth. Whether or not win-win solutions can be achieved, it is clear that policy-makers and politicians want to reach them. The most widespread recipe for sustainable development these days is a focus on ‘quality of life’. Human wellbeing – particularly for voters – is central. Sustainability is packaged as an idea that can deliver better homes, workplaces and lifestyles and many (particularly governmental) definitions seem to suggest that there are no hard choices to be made. One group who should know is planners, and this is the second issue to be addressed. For however easy or difficult sustainability decisions are to make, it is they who must determine them in a spatial sphere and balance economic, social and environmental concerns. The question is whether the requirement and language of sustainability demand anything new, or if this is in fact what planners have been doing all along.
