The Adoption of Sustainable Development Policies and Techniques in U.S. Cities

In this article, sustainable development is defined in terms of thirty-nine policies and techniques. In October 2001, a survey was sent to U.S. cities that (1) measures the extent to which actions are being taken relative to these policies and techniques and to local planning offices being involved in the taking of such actions and (2) identifies the principal impediments to the taking of action. Among the findings were that communities of all sizes and in all parts of the country are active in a wide range of policies and techniques, planning offices are playing an important leadership role with respect to the adoption of such policies and techniques, and impediments to such adoption are less related to politics and institutional capacity and more to motivation and knowledge.