Sustainable urbanism in temperate‐arid climates: Models, challenges and opportunities for the Anthropocene

• Published date: 01 November 2018
• Author: Carlos J. L. Balsas
• Date: 01 November 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1663

SPECIAL ISSUE PAPER

Sustainable urbanism in temperate‐arid climates: Models,

challenges and opportunities for the Anthropocene

Carlos J. L. Balsas

University at Albany, Albany, New York, USA

Correspondence

Carlos J. L. Balsas, University at Albany, G&P

AS210, 1400 Washington Ave., Albany 12222,

New York, USA.

Email: cbalsas@albany.edu

Climate change requires more sustainable urbanism developments. Locales in temperate and arid

climates are under added pressure to create more economical, ecological, and just neighborhoods.

Do sustainable urbanism developments have advantages over traditional urbanism projects in

temperate–arid climates? The main purpose of this paper is to examine four distinct neighbor-

hoods in the southwest of the United States in order to clarify the evolution of sustainable urban-

ism developments according to the three C's framework of compactness, connectedness, and

completeness. The methods included a study of each development's history, motivations, design

principles, and built environment features. The key finding is an up‐to‐date understanding of how

neighborhood development models have been implemented to help create more sustainable cit-

ies as well as the identification of a set of challenges and opportunities for advancing sustainable

urbanism research.

1|INTRODUCTION

Climate change requires more sustainable urbanism developments.

Locales in temperate and arid climates are under great pressure to

create more economical, ecological, and just neighborhoods. Do sus-

tainable urbanism developments have advantages over sprawl devel-

opments in temperate–arid climates? This is the main research

question of this paper. I am motivated by master planners' and

designers' aims to create more sustainable environments from walk-

able, energy, and societal perspectives.

The main purpose of this paper is to examine four distinct

neighborhoods in the southwest of the United States in order to

clarify the evolution of sustainable urbanism neighborhoods accord-

ing to the three C's framework of compactness, connectedness,

and completeness. I hypothesize that there are lessons to be

learned from examining these two‐paired neighborhood develop-

ments in each state and that bio‐climatic, morphological, urban,

and regional dynamics as well as public policies have important

roles in influencing what gets built and how it gets appropriated

by their owners and users.

The four neighborhood developments exemplify alternative land

development strategies, typical of urban design strategies in midtown

and suburban locations of the southwest. These strategies have com-

mon goals pertaining to the accommodation of urban growth, water,

and energy conservation, air pollution mitigation, mixed‐use areas

within each development in order to reduce immediate and long‐range

ecological risks and vulnerabilities within scenarios of climate change

(Ziegler, 2009).

The research methods and techniques comprised a study of each

development's history, motivations, design principles, and built envi-

ronment features. Special attention was devoted to understanding

their real estate motivations, ecological dimensions, and contributions

to more sustainable land development practices. Extensive literature

reviews of the theory behind sustainable urbanism, together with anal-

yses of the four site plans and neighborhood phases were instrumental

to comprehending the subtle distinctions among each development.

Furthermore, there was a concern in reviewing each municipality's

public affairs opportunities and constraints (Homsy & Warner, 2015),

permitting and approval processes and the existence or not of sub‐

municipal neighborhood governance mechanisms, such as homeowner

neighborhood associations (HOAs).

The key finding is an understanding of how neighborhood devel-

opment models have been implemented to help create more sustain-

able cities as well as the identification of a set of challenges and

opportunities for advancing sustainable urbanism research. This

research constitutes a novel effort to the comparative study of urban-

ization and associated urban form patterns in temperate–arid regions

of the U.S. southwest (Liverman et al., 2013).

Unique to this research is an up‐to‐date analysis of the most recent

iteration of a long evolutionary lineage of city‐building practices based

on land development and ecological thinking, which started with

Ebenezer Howard's Garden City movement, continued on with

Received: 22 April 2017 Accepted: 3 July 2017

DOI: 10.1002/pa.1663

J Public Affairs. 2018;18:e1663.

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1663

© 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of11