Sustainable living requires a multitude of conditions
The definition of the word sustain means: to give support or relief to. The definition for sustainable life includes urban growth. All urban growth is dependent upon its primary source of transportation. Attaining sustainable urban growth can only be reached by sustainable transportation.
A conversation of sustainable life could easily delve into a long philosophical dissertation about the theological aspects of life interpretation, rather than a discussion about the significant impacts of transportation. As an advocate for sustainable transportation, these words ring towards how much urban growth impacts environmental, economic, and social conditions on society. In the majority of conversations, people seem convinced that absence of plastic straws in a drink and a plastic bag from the grocery store will solve all the issues of unsustainability. Again, this writing is purposed to make the claim that transportation is the root of all urban growth, and as such is in need of a sustainable solution.
Sustainable urban growth is a quasi-important topic. Defining that sentence alludes to the popularity of trends more than resolving matters of importance.
The term “new urbanism” has a particularly fashionable nuance. There is a misconception with some people that artistically fashioned stripes or contrasting paint colors holds values of sustainability.
Sustainable materials do exist for construction. Window placement in design is important, shade in the summer and heat during the winter are key elements for home building design. Insulating materials are vital for weather and sound.
Sustainability for building requires more than addressing the five areas for human sensitivity of touch, smell, sight, sound and taste. Sustainable urban growth requires environmental, economic, and a long list of social considerations.
Regarding the ambiguous word: sustainability, what does it really involve? The terms: environmental equity and social justice hold relevance for sustainability. These two should be outlawed from being used as political terms. Forcing these two terms into political division removes the importance of what they represent. Environmental equity and social justice are interchangeable with justice and equity in relationship to land-use. Environmental equity is someone’s investment of effort into sustainability (building a garden is an example). In the automobile centric land-use design, this is a ludacris impossibility (you can not build a garden in a street). Social justice in regards to sustainability represents the government’s presumptuous irrationality to assume anyone can comply with rigid environmental restrictions in the face of economic repercussions when there are zero transportation alternatives to the ridiculous regulations they’ve imposed that even the government is unable to comply with. Much of social injustice is a product of urban decline. The consequence of irrationality and selective ignorance produces negative outcomes.
Building an entire society upon an unsustainable foundation is problematic. Sustainable life demands a supportable foundation.