I came across this website (above) last night and it shows a very interesting approach to evaluating a cities Sustainability Index. The only issue I take with this measure is that so many of these things evaluated are not 'sensed' (taste, feel, smell) as they are city wide or regional aspects.
A London Tube Station
The physicality of the day to day usefulness of this level of Sustainability is not always something appreciable by the woman or man on the street. That, the perceptible appreciable 'incentives' for sustainability, is the level I wish to understand; where the bike tire hits a curb, when the tree provides shade and habitat, and where the bus stop is actually pleasant. There are so many reasons why a place will work or not, aside from the initial aesthetic design, which leads a person to want to take public transit over drive their automobile.
How do we create incentives to then reinforce supportive urban form? By being sure to encourage, by providing the zoning and bylaws to create the atmosphere where these things may be designed and built.
Often, when the idea of creating "sustainability" conjures Utopian new cities in the sky images by some. However, by expensively 'build all new' scenarios which are high reliant on vast financial arrangements there can be meltdowns and bland cost cutting which weakens the product. Rather a city must simply encourage incremental and organic densification as the markets catch up to policy. This is in many senses of the word more sustainable and likely to succeed.
My matrix
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