New Year’s Resolutions for Cities: 10 Keys to Sustainability Planning Success

The City Fix

Don Knapp // December 30, 2009

Any serious New Year’s resolution requires a plan. But a mayor’s pledge to make his city more sustainable takes a lot more planning effort than your vow to drop 10 pounds. Crafting a comprehensive sustainability plan, even without procrastination, can take a full year for a city, and involve close coordination among dozens of individuals.

Trailblazers like New York City and Minneapolis have already shown that the end product is worth the effort: a detailed blueprint to combat climate change, save energy and taxpayer dollars, nurture solid economic development, renew infrastructure, and improve public health and education for all.

The planning lessons from these leaders were distilled in a Sustainability Planning Toolkit, released last month by ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability USA to its 600 U.S. local government members. Boil down those lessons even further and you get 10 keys to sustainability planning success, listed below. They’re worth a read for urban planners, plumbers, lawyers—anyone who lives in a community that values sustainability and is beginning its sustainability planning process.
It may encourage you to know that such communities are becoming more common. A 2009 Living Cities survey found that four in five of the 40 largest U.S. cities consider sustainability among their top five priorities. Approximately one-half are either currently creating sustainability plans or have finished one within the past year, and another one-quarter finished their plans earlier. For cities, towns, and counties, the keys to sustainability planning success are the same.

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