The Evolution of Green Community Planning, Scholarship, and Practice: An Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract

Problem: How have the major visions of urban form evolved over the past century, and have they influenced practice and scholarship in green communities? Purpose: I examine how the major visionary ideas about urban form have influenced the evolution of green communities and provide a context for the forward-looking articles in this special issue. Methods: I appraise secondary sources of primary scholarship to describe and synthesize the main themes that influence green community thought and practice. Results and conclusions: Visionary ideals of green communities that embrace bioregionalism and other environmental dimensions that emerged in the early 20th century failed to take hold in contemporary planning practice. The ideals of green communities have become more salient in contemporary debates about community futures. Despite growing market demand for greener communities and emerging scientific consensus that green dimensions of urban form have a positive effect on sustainability, there is a widely shared dissatisfaction with the effectiveness of efforts to integrate the dimensions of green communities into the ways we build human settlements. Takeaway for practice: The forward-looking articles in this special issue recommend how planning and policy can be improved to better support the greening of our nation's communities. Authors recommend collaborative planning processes aimed at strengthening and mobilizing social networks to support green community initiatives, requirements and incentives that stimulate greener community and household behaviors, and new assessment tools for green building rating, and greenhouse gas inventory and analysis. Research support: None.