It should include all physical, social, economic, financial, cultural, and environmental dimensions systematically and coherently. Particular attention to the position of urban planning and changing or modifying processes, models, and previous patterns are some of strategies so as to achieve urban sustainable development.

Extraordinary complexity of natural and artificial environment regarding human activities makes the prediction of development effects difficult and it rejects predetermined and inflexible models. The model of compact city is one of the urban patterns that are appropriate for urban sustainable development as a substitute for urban sprawl and horizontal development. The idea of compact city can be useful for improving citizens’ quality of life by creating active, suitable, attractive, and spaces and be affordable for energy and encouraging for transport.

Compact city should have a form and scale appropriate for walking, cycling, and public transport and its density encourages social interactions. Another strategy to access urban sustainable development is strengthening social capital. Social capital is defined under components such as social relationship, social participation, social trust, and social belonging as a fundamental element for moving in the direction of urban sustainable development.

Fighting against poverty and inequality is a principal solution for urban sustainable development and one of its goals. It is so important that it is in the focus of most universal conferences and meetings about city. The first goal of millennium announcement published in 2003 was decreasing poverty in 2015 about half of poor population in 2000.

Training is the other fundamental strategy for achieving to urban sustainable development. Since one of the indexes of sustainable development is internalizing the concept of development inside and among the generations of the society, investment in developmental education and training human with science-oriented, skill-oriented, changeable, systematic, researcher, self-monitoring, mentally flexible indexes would be able to expand development in all aspects of the society. That is why the UN named the decade between 2005 to 2014 training for sustainable development and devoted the responsibility to UNESCO to lead it.

Source: Farhikhtegan Newspaper