The Notion of a Sustainable City

There are no existing models for 'a sustainable city' and few conceptions of what a sustainable future encompasses. One of the reasons for this is that sustainability can be evaluated in various ways, at the level of individual ecosystems, sectors of the economy or by geographic regions. The context in which goals, principles and objectives are defined is therefore crucial to a full and proper understanding of sustainability. Notwithstanding, the New Zealand government is commited to the pursuit of sustainable management. Integrated environmental management is not some indeterminate ideal, it is a matter of legislation and formalised agreement. However, implementation of the ethos of sustainability requires fundamental changes in societal values and attitudes: competitiveness must yield to complementation, and in some instances even co-operation. Sustainable management implies a more focussed role for governments, which in turn requires a greater understanding of the engineering and scientific implications of proposed courses of action. In this paper the authors propose that a strategy to effect sustainability should begin with a vision of a preferred future. The definition of a preferred future against a sustainability criteria set is a task requiring detailed and complex analysis. A framework for exploring a range of possible futures is defined, and an example of the use of this framework, including the utilisation of a sustainability index, is proposed for the East Coast Bays on Auckland's North Shore.