Complimentary clucking...

What then, is the ultimate goal of comprehensive planning? Especially when it relates to integrating the principles of sustainability within the overall context of the plan?

The creation of a successful comprehensive plan is dependant upon the planning of compact, consolidated, connected and consistent land uses which are arranged (or identified, planned, sited,etc...) throughout the development area (in this case the term development is used to describe the overall evolution and development of a large community, i.e. a town as opposed to a single-family development). There should be a diverse mix of uses throughout the entire planning area, although those uses must be complimentary and consistent.

Nearly all of the modern zoning codes, comprehensive plans and unified development ordinances take into consideration complimentary and consistent land uses designations. The finest example of this segregation of uses is the in almost all municipalities in the United States, land owners are forbidden from siting an adult-oriented business in close proximity to a church or school (which in the case of the church, it is qiute ironic considering the company that Jesus kept, this means you Mary Magdalene!).

When considering the integration of agricultural uses within an urban context in order to promote a self-sustaining community, there is no better example than that of the Garden City. The Garden City concept is a utopian planning ideal created by Ebeneezer Howard in the early nineteenth century, as a response to the negative effects of the Industrial Revolution.

The Garden City concept established a central core to the city, a residential "belt" and an agricultural "belt" on the outmost portion of the city's development area. All of these uses were to be connected through greenbelts (or greenways as they are called today) as well as a light rail system that not only connected points within the city, but it connected graden cities to one another.

Two English cities have been planned according to Howard's vision, Letchworth Garden City and Welwyn Garden City. While planning utopias are exactly that, these two cities have managed to adhere and utilize Howard's original vision for the logical, sustainable and equitable development of urban, suburban and rural areas as one comprehensive whole.

This is the type of approach we, both locally and nationally, should wholly embrace to ensure that the needs of the current generation shall be met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet thier own needs.

“We shall never achieve harmony with land any more than we shall achieve justice or liberty for people. In these higher aspirations the important thing is not to achieve, but to strive.” - Aldo Leopold.