Tenth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

The recent diffusion of urban sustainability concepts has pushed new developer-driven master-planned models of sustainable neighborhoods to emerge around the world. This model of market sustainability is not meant any more to attract the early adopters, in contrast, it aims to mainstream sustainability in the market. While academia has either focused on measuring the technical performance of such models or criticized them for greenwashing sustainability, the popular press has been influential in portraying them to the public as the future of urbanism. This paper asks which design parameters and sustainability values gets emphasized in the disseminating of sustainable neighborhoods through the popular press. The paper tracks how the popular press portrays four new master planned sustainable neighborhood projects around the world. Through a qualitative and quantitative textual analysis, the paper aims to understand the values that are emphasized the most to the public, contributing to constructing their expectations and understandings of such projects. More than often aspects related to convenience and economic savings are overemphasized while downplaying design aspects that might need a change in lifestyle. The fluidity of urban sustainability as a concept allows it to be portrayed in various and sometimes conflicting ways. A positive transformation of the built environment should start by addressing urban sustainability as a process, not an end state. Such a process is embedded with values that contradict and overlap. Understanding these values and acknowledging the contradictions will help us in understanding how to navigate these conflicts for the sake of a better-built environment.