GOOD CITY FORMS AND HEALTHY COMMUNITY Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

GOOD CITY FORMS AND HEALTHY COMMUNITY - Essay Example In the article, the author argues going back to these basics to make new cities worth living in. A re-examination of the urban planning ideas of Lynch includes efficiency and justice as well. It further appeals to consider city size, future growth, and conservation measures when making plans, as most cities today are also ill and sterile, lacking diversity and vibrancy (Ford 247). In this second article by Y. R. Jabareen, entitled â€Å"Sustainable Urban Forms: Their Typologies, Models, and Concepts† and published in the Journal of Planning Education and Research back in September of 2006, the author who is connected with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in the Department of Urban Studies, he identifies the four sustainable types of major urban forms, namely: neotraditional development, the compact city, urban containment, and lastly, the ecological city. Any of these urban forms utilizes a combination of the seven main design concepts in terms of environmental planning for sustainability which are compactness, transport, density, mixed-land use, diversity, passive solar design, and lastly, greening (Jabareen 39), which is essentially just an elaboration of the ideas of David Lynch. In â€Å"Urban Development and Climate Change† and published in 2008, an entirely new perspective was drawn based on concerns of climate change as countries grapple with the issue of urban sprawl, and that is how to reduce gas emission by reducing the vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT) by using compact development as the role model (Ewing et al. 201). By their estimates, compactness helps to reduce VMT by approximately 20% to 40% because it eliminates long commutes, which in turn reduces the gas emissions by around 7% to 10% as they made some plausible assumptions in their study models, up to the year 2050. For most of local governments worried about global warming, it is a good idea as it