Overcoming the Barriers to Creating Sustainable Cities

Perceptual / Behavioural Barriers Institutional / Structural Barriers Economic, Financial, and Market Barriers National and Sub-National Barriers A number of programs and policies have been able to reduce resource consumption and vehicle emissions, while enhancing the safety of streets and fostering a sense of place. Other programs have targeted increased access to services for seniors and individuals living in poverty by changing land use patterns. Others have attempted to limit institutional barriers through organizational and structural change. Below is a compilation of suggested actions and programs by Jennie Moore that are working to overcome barriers to sustainable urban development. Limit the number of recommendations. Limiting the number of recommendations to two or three and providing detailed strategies regarding how these could be implemented is an approach which offers a higher chance of implementation success than presenting many recommendations with sparse guidelines for implementation. Revisit the report and attach priorities to the three most important things that need to be done. Demonstrate the advantages. Vague promises are not persuasive enough to gain the approval of skeptical decision-makers. Establish standards. Prioritize issues. Improve networking and cooperation among ENGOs. Provide an improved question and answer programme. Include civic staff and councillors in the creation of the recommendations. Develop government structures that accommodate long-term decision-making. Develop government structures that reduce the workload of elected officials. Appoint councillors to community centres. Examine other successful campaigns. Promote self-help. Delegate more power to the municipal level. Institute citizen review board. Expand communication links with other cities. Work on constituency building. In the same way that public recognition stimulates civic action, so too does it stimulate corporate action. Several interviewees representing large corporations expressed an interest in working with the City to achieve its goals contained in Clouds of Change. Programmes designed to facilitate this type of cooperation could build social capital and could positively influence employees, encouraging adaptation of their need-meeting behaviours to ones that are ecologically considerate. Identify lead agencies and coordinate policies appropriately. Develop policies that improve choices. Follow-up task force initiatives with a public participation process. Jennie Moore: What's Stopping Sustainability: http://www.newcity.ca/Pages/mooreindex.html

India Sweden Argentina Central Europe