ABSTRACT
Life in the twenty-first century is full of paradoxes, no more so than the challenge of building sustainable cities. Vibrant, dynamic, successful cities result from a diversity of functions, ease of accessibility and a variety of choice. Places we enjoy and admire are often ‘loose fit’, ‘sub-optimal’, allowing room to manoeuvre. But minimizing the use of scarce resources can often contradict these directions. Planning for a sustainable city and minimizing energy consumption to future-proof against climatic changes are connected but do not always result in the same outcomes. An extreme focus on achieving zero carbon emissions can result in tightly coupled solutions that reduce adaptability, provide marginal additional benefits and may conflict with individual lifestyle expectations.
