I think the article, “The Sustainable Cities Imperative” by George Beard in the March 16th issue of Nation’s Cities Weekly is challenging.

I think several points merited further reflection and discussion.

He says, “So here is a hypothesis for you: Cities and their surrounding regions that fail to manage land use over time and that rely almost exclusively on an auto-mobility model are the ones that may be least sustainable now and least likely to achieve a material degree of sustainability in the future.”

Concluding the first of his two part series he says, “I simply wanted to observe that sustainability is a strategy that persists with deliberate choices and hard work over time. In fact, sustainability is ultimately about time. It is about not despoiling one’s nest. Or, to use an agricultural metaphor, not eating your seed corn.

“Sustainable living, it seems to me, is born from an ethic that suppresses the desire to consume all in the here and now so as to ensure that there are resources held back for long-term future use. It is a point of view captured in the Aesop fable, ‘The Grasshopper and the Ant.’”

I’m looking forward to reading the second article and want to avoid dismissing his conclusions because of the size of our city.  I see this series as a great resource for the discussion we will have as we revise the City and County Comprehensive plan.

What do you think?