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Toward Sustainable Campus Communities
EVALUATING ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT SCENARIOS
This study identifies and attempts to address three common shortcomings of today's
campus sustainability initiatives: difficulties in measuring social and economic factors; a
lack of consideration for integrative issues such as land use; and a generally reactive
approach to proposed development. To engage these concerns, we develop a model for
predicting the relative sustainability of different campus land use configurations.
The
model uses computer-based mapping software (a geographic information system or
GIS) to measure a set of six sustainability indicators for each land use scenario. The
indicators chosen represent all three competing interests of sustainable development:
economic prosperity (one indicator), social equity (two indicators), and environmental
integrity (four indicators).
We applied the model to the University of Michigan's North Campus as a case study to
test its effectiveness—and also to test the claims of sustainability made by smart growth
advocates. The North Campus land was purchased in the early 1950s and has yet to
reach build-out. We designed three scenarios for how the North Campus might be built
out. The first scenario is based on existing campus development practice at the
University of Michigan, under which the University develops housing and commercial
facilities only when such facilities are not adequately supplied by market forces in the
surrounding Ann Arbor area.. This scenario maximizes the space on North Campus for
the development of academic and research facilities while preserving the woodland belt
that surrounds the present academic core. We derived the second scenario from
principles of smart growth, creating an outcome that was more complex and urban in
character, mixing in housing and commercial facilities with expanded academic and
research facilities. For the third scenario, we employed surveys to characterize the
preferences of current North Campus students and employees and then used the results
to revise the smart growth scenario to include those preferences.
The results from the case study show that the two smart growth scenarios are more
sustainable than the existing trends scenario. Between the two smart growth scenarios,
the scenario that included public preferences produced slightly more sustainable results
than the original smart growth scenario.
Looking more closely at the individual indicators, all three scenarios score similarly on
the environmental indicators in absolute terms (e.g. area of impervious surface), but
when measured in per capita terms (e.g. area of impervious surface/population) the two
smart growth scenarios have significant advantages over the existing trends scenario.
For the economic indicator, all three scenarios resulted in a similar volume of expanded
academic research space on North Campus, suggesting that the ability of the university
to accommodate research dollars from North Campus programs is roughly equivalent.
The equity indicator results show that the development of affordable employee housing
on North Campus (in the smart growth scenarios) can dramatically reduce the
disproportionate commuting burden placed on lower-wage employees.
We believe our model can be very useful as a framework for assessing the sustainability
of future development options at other colleges and universities, as well as at different
scales of development. While our specific indicator package will not be appropriate for
every situation, we hope that it gives potential users a base from which to adapt
indicators for their particular situation. We also hope that our results lead to more
consideration of both absolute and relative (per capita) measures in sustainability
analyses. Most of all, we hope that we have made it easier for colleges and universities
to move ahead with new and innovative approaches to achieving sustainable
development on their own campuses and beyond. |
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