How can urban planners balance the demands of economic development and environmental sustainability?

The major problem facing cities today is not necessarily the tension between economic development and environmental sustainability, but the idea that urban environments are, first and foremost, sites for capital accumulation. Long-term urban planning strategies that weigh and balance the interests of different stakeholders are pointless in light of the pressures of real estate markets. These pressures often drive out the very uses that make healthy neighborhoods.

This is a really important question. On the one hand, we have economic development as an essential lever for providing jobs, supporting businesses, and driving innovation. However, this growth also presents several environmental impacts such as increased traffic, air pollution, and demands on water and energy resources. Balancing these competing demands is no easy feat, requiring planners to take several approaches. Sustainable development is one such approach available, which for instance, may involve developing policies that encourage compact, walkable neighbourhoods with easy access to public transit and green spaces.

Point well taken. I have always thought that MBA real estate (developer finance) courses should incorporate ecological economics and sustainable urban development. The MBA ROI and profit and loss models need to be long term and incorporate and economically quantify ecosystem services in developing the urban built environment.

This perspective assumes that urban planners are somehow still in control of where and how development happens. According to the theory of the "Urban growth machine", posited by H. Molotsch in 1976, the reality is that growth interests of capital markets determine where and how urban growth is directed. Especially instrumental in this sense are on the one hand land values, and on the other hand expected returns on real estate investment. Global centers, such as London, Tokyo and New York, are seen as safe investments and are thus better able to attract investment from global markets, as opposed to regions which have de-industrialized, are de-populating and are unable to attract investment. Urban inequality is entrenched by this mechanism.

What is needed in most regions in the United States is investment by pro-active governments dedicated to the needs of all citizens and not just a few real estate developers or corporations. You can promise participatory and inclusive planning processes, but unless the government steps in and undoes some of the harm created by over a century of exclusionary zoning, redlining and environmental injustice, nothing will happen. Implicit in the statement above are a few dangerous prejudices, namely that the creativity and diversity of urban dwellers can be harnessed to drive urban growth, with gentrification and displacement of these communities as a result, and that technology can fix complex social and economic issues.

My many decades of experience has been that planning is often seen by non-planners as primarily a political process, sometimes environmental, but seldom an economically or financially driven activity. Economic and financial forces rule the day. Planners must understand and have strong ties and influence with these forces in order to harness most meaningful "urban or regional planning" goals and objectives.

As long as capitalism is left out of the equation, as long as the collusion of governments with real estate markets is not addressed, this article will only be able to offer generalizations and platitudes. Urban planners, ever since the neo-liberal turn of the 1970s and 1980s, are not really directing where urban development and investment happens. What is really needed is a systemic rethinking of ownership, and whether the Right to the City applies equally to all.

Public Planners need to work at least three sides of city growth: developer interest; the so-called public interest (civic & environmental) and tools that at least seek to “demonstrate” a win/win for both sides. And not compromise, but win/win. It’s not easy to do but it can be attempted with the goal of bringing all relevant parties into the tent. I’ve seen this “somewhat” work in several areas of the world.

I think Michael is right in the sense that it is the task of planners to find a balance between public interest and developer needs. With a well-functioning, steering government and planning apparatus this win-win is more easily accomplished than in contexts were the government is reactive (fighting growth and development), or completely beholden to real estate interests. For instance in the case of the development of Canary Wharf the expectation was that 'the market' would develop this area through incentives but no public transport infrastructure was put in place initially. From this the lesson can be drawn that the government needs to create conditions, and thus can place demands on development interests (fi taxation) for doing so.