Abstract:The term sustainable development came into existence in the early 1970s, and was first used in print in two books published in 1972: The Limits to Growth, by Donella Meadows and a group of colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Blueprint for Survival, by Edward Goldsmith and other staff members of The Ecologist magazine in London. The Limits to Growth was especially influential and controversial. The MIT team used newly available computer technology to model global population, resource use, pollution, and economic growth. Every scenario that the group fed into its model showed the human system crashing midway through the twenty-first century, subsequently stabilizing only at lower levels of population and consumption. When the original team revisited its model in 2002, armed with thirty years of additional data, the basic predictions remained accurate. Moreover, the researchers concluded that humanity had entered into a period of “overshoot,” in which its needs were substantially greater than the planet could support.

Note:Suggested citation: Wheeler, Stephen M. (2009) Planning for Sustainability, in Hack, Gary, Eugenie Birch, Paul Sedway, Mitchell Silver, eds., Local Planning: Contemporary Principles and Practice. Washington, DC: The International City/County Management Association