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In the previous five posts in this series I’ve laid out the primary reasons that the auto-driven development patterns of the past 70 years have been so destructive. In the coming weeks I’ll talk about the actions that will be necessary to overcome past mistakes and set ourselves up for a healthier future.

By the early 1990s planners and other urban experts had realized the devastating consequences of the development path we had been on for the previous half-century and began the critical but lengthy process of generating the ideas, concepts and plans to reverse these negative consequences and put civilization on a more sustainable path. It made sense to look back at the kinds of development and transportation features, for instance, that had made urban areas successful in the past, analyze what had worked, what no longer seemed relevant, and come up with new ways of developing our urban and suburban landscapes.

While the way we attempt to implement this type of change is continuously evolving, the principal elements could be summed up as: plan for people first; respect the environment; and make sound, fiscal choices.

And this is beginning to play out in a number of different ways in cities and suburbs all across the country. In the coming weeks I’ll lay out three key ways to think about how this needs to work from a planning perspective, some examples of which I’ve discussed regularly in this blog. First is to create walkable, compact and equitable communities. Second is to provide a balanced transportation network. And third is to ensure that we maximize the efficiency of our infrastructure investments.