What Are Sustainable Communities?  
For the City of Seattle, the definition of sustainable communities is evolving over time as we come to learn more about sustainability. Seattle’s Comprehensive Plan, "Toward a Sustainable Seattle," articulates a vision of how Seattle will grow in ways that sustain its citizens' core values, which include:

• community
• environmental stewardship
• economic opportunity and security
• social equity

Another way of thinking about these core values is within a framework that seeks to measure human well-being from a broader perspective, "The Real Economy."  This framework considers four types of capital: personal, social, built, and natural capital. Together, these represent both market and non-market capital that contribute to the well-being and happiness of individuals and communities.

The Comprehensive Plan includes goals and policies to help guide development toward a more sustainable future. The emerging field of sustainable communities, also called green urbanism, seeks to apply leading edge tools, models, strategies, and technologies to support cities in meeting sustainability goals and policies.

Why Develop Sustainable Communities?
By planning at the community or neighborhood scale and applying an integrated, whole-systems approach the City can achieve an even greater level of environmental protection.  The Mayor’s Environmental Action Agenda presents the City's goals for protecting environmental quality, promoting environmental justice, and improving quality-of-life in Seattle for current and future generations, including:

• Climate protection and clean air
• Healthy habitat and clean water
• Sustainable forests
• Connected and healthy communities

The basis of an integrated, whole-systems approach is to consider the interrelationships between systems and seek solutions that support more than one goal at the same time.  

High Point:  A Sustainable Community in Development
A great example of an integrated, whole systems approach to community development is recent the High Point Redevelopment in West Seattle.  To ensure sustainability Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) worked with the Seattle Housing Authority (SHA) to integrate a natural drainage system throughout the neighborhood to improve water quality and reduce peak flows into the Longfellow Creek.  Longfellow Creek has the highest Coho salmon return counts of any Seattle creek.  Natural drainage systems provide a much greater opportunity to cleanse, cool and infiltrate stormwater runoff than the traditional piped and centralized management approach. 

SPU considered the interrelationships between the built environment, stormwater, and the watershed, and sought to reduce stormwater impacts on Longfellow Creek and lower the overall costs for protecting the watershed.  SHA was interested in creating a greener, pedestrian-friendly community, and providing open space for the residents. 

The natural drainage system design incorporates vegetated swales, porous pavement, and surface and subsurface conveyance systems in the public right-of-way, and a wetland pond that is a featured in a new park that serves the community.  The plants, trees and healthy soils work together to form a living infrastructure that increases in functional value over time. 

The second episode of Seattle Channel's "Sustainable by Design" features the High Point neighborhood.

This is just one of many City programs that are making Seattle’s neighborhoods more sustainable. 

Questions?
If you have questions about the City of Seattle's work creating sustainable communities, contact our Sustainable Communities Planner.