Analyzing the standards to measure sustainability

There are three aspects of sustainability in urban growth.

Environmental standards

What’s the standard to measure sustainability? The environmental standards are set by legislative dictate based on political perspective. The results of these standards show regulatory control and massive bureaucratic growth. While common sense practices have eliminated hazardous and toxic chemical wastes, the process of bureaucratic waste proliferates in unbridled fashion towards cancelling rational thought.

Economic standards

The economic standards of sustainability are virtually ignored. An honest observation of economic standards is the market place. The public market place is what regulates the standards for what is sustainable. The market, however, is overshadowed by legislative dictate.

Social standards

Measuring the social standards for sustainability is an unknown quantity. A large segment for this measurement standard is social relevance and is totally subjective. Acts of subjectivity are wholly individual. While it is possible to monitor social action, the discussion in terms of regulating individual action becomes a conversation about philosophic principles. This is an arena of theological, political, and philosophical choice. It’s an area of tremendous ignorance and subjected to propaganda promotion. When social standards are implemented by government dictate, individuality is removed. Control is strategically placed into the hands of a select few. The ultimate goal of propaganda is control of the masses to operate massive financial gain.

In viewing the relevance of social commentary from tv shows and popular media, the conversations are extremely controversial. What some consider as horridly pointless, others find value as entertainment. This causes a distorted sense of emotionalism that is embedded into the perception of sustainable conversation.  

Sustainability

How realistic is it to implement sustainability? Prior to the popularized term, life was predominantly sustainable. A hundred years ago, technology was at a low level, people followed nature. Today’s culture is completely submerged in technology, nature is foreign. The discussion of sustainability is largely philosophical and inundated with emotional context.

Regarding sustainability for urban growth, it has to be acknowledged that transportation is the foundation to all urban growth. With this understanding, sustainable transportation is very important.  

What is sustainable? 

Here's what Webster's says is the definition of sustainable:

1: capable of being sustained (maintained at length without interruption or weakening)

2: a; of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged

  b; of or relating to a lifestyle involving the use of sustainable method

The connection to sustainability is its land-use. There are four types of land-use: nature, agriculture, transit oriented, and automobile centric land-use design. Of these four types of land-use, the automobile centric design is based upon a wholly unsustainable foundation: the automobile. There is nothing about the automobile that is sustainable.

Unsustainable Land-Use Growth

To more clearly define unsustainable land-use design, there are three fundamental components in explaining land-use sustainability: environmental, economic and social. 

Environmental: the automobile requires road surfaces. These road beds are oil based. Ever watched a road being built? Lots of grading work, scraping dirt, filling and generally re-working the natural surface of Earth. Ok, not a big deal in small amounts but, tens to hundreds of millions of miles heavily effects the natural water flow of streams and runoff. Again, Earth is a big place, small impact. Secondly, millions of miles of road beds. Capturing of grease, emissions by-products, pollutants, carcinogens and oil spills funneled through oil canals called road beds flowing directly into the water basins. Yeah, that is environmentally unsustainable. Millions of electric and autonomous cars won’t resolve the damage caused by the oil-based road infrastructure.

Economic: economic impacts of sustainability. Ever hear the phrase: buy local spend local? This term is what creates regional economic sustainability. A dollar spent locally allows that dollar to stay in circulation, being used within a local area. When that money is spent out of the local area, the money is gone; which can no longer can be used.

Automobile centric land-use design is economically unsustainable. Here’s why. The first product of economic unsustainability is the purchase of an automobile. Today’s purchase price of an automobile is what on average? $50,000? That amount is instantly removed from circulation in a local economy, never to be recovered for circulation in that community unless that car was manufactured in that local community. Then there are the fuel consumption rates. Averages vary from region to region. A fairly typical region, as a county of one million, the county consumes 500,000 gallons of gasoline per day. At $3 per gallon, that is $1.5millon per day (less 2% for the wholesaler and retailer) permanently extracted from ever being used and circulated in that community. An even greater financial extraction from the community are insurance costs per vehicle, at an average cost of $120 per month per vehicle.

This is economic unsustainability spawned from the design of automobile centric urban land-use.

Social: what are social impacts? These aspects are rarely considered by studies, except by a very few stragglers engaged in non-traditional academia. It’s the cutting edge of far-reaching consideration.

There was a term coined in the early 2000s called: visual hostility. It was popularized then, not so popular now, due to the extent of its content. Visual hostility is found to describe blight. Scores of non-profit organizations declared war on urban blight. The support money behind non-profits came from big money interests that cashed-in on government subsidized, low cost, poor neighborhood gentrification near high value real estate areas. A lot of blight was erased within a few years. And, to elected politicians, like homelessness; urban blight no longer exists. 

Transportation solution

The biggest concern regarding the current transportation dilemma is to develop a solution, implementing the use of efficient energy use in transportation. The solution is found with finding a brand-new mode of transportation. The greatest need is discovering a superior alternative to the automobile.

Autonomous vehicles

The enthusiasm and speed of many organizations working on autonomous vehicles has simmered over the past few years. Google has high interest for profitability in the autonomous vehicle industry. Other organizations perceive the autonomous vehicle industry to be very lucrative, this is a strong motivation factor for its development.

One of the concentrated areas preforming research work for autonomous vehicles has been in San Francisco. One of the companies working to implement autonomous vehicle use was granted a public market test by the State to allow autonomous taxi cabs in San Francisco for one year. After the year long test, the State denied the company a license to continue its operation.

Tests in other areas have also failed. One of the obstacles to autonomous vehicle operation is the human component of unpredictability. In San Francisco it was the inability for vehicle sensors to detect hazards and emergency situations.

The advanced transit industry has acknowledged since its inception that automated vehicles require a grade sperate rights-of-way. Autonomous vehicle engineers feel there is no need for separate rights-of-way.

The reality of autonomous vehicles in public use sharing the roadways, is a political decision. There is consistency to political procedure. The final analysis will show that cars are an unsustainable form of transportation and people will still be stuck in traffic jams.

Flying cars

As for flying cars; it is possible for vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft to be viable. Is it practical? There has to be a restriction as to the number of “flying cars” that is allowed. Wrecks on the highways are bad, car wrecks in the sky would be much more damaging.

A solution for our modern society transportation is imperative. The solution can only be found in a brand-new mode of transportation. The future of transportation floats, its source of motion is by the manipulation of gravity. How soon can this new mode of transportation be discovered? As soon as people begin to look for answers, instead of focusing on building a different style of mouse trap.