Sustainable urbanism in temperate-arid climates: Models, challenges and opportunities for the Anthropocene

Climate change requires more sustainable urbanism developments. Locales in temperate and arid climates are under added pressure to create more economical, ecological, and just neighborhoods. Do sustainable urbanism developments have advantages over traditional urbanism projects in temperate-arid climates? The main purpose of this paper is to examine four distinct neighborhoods in the southwest of the United States in order to clarify the evolution of sustainable urbanism developments according to the three C's framework of compactness, connectedness, and completeness. The methods included a study of each development's history, motivations, design principles, and built environment features. The key finding is an up-to-date understanding of how neighborhood development models have been implemented to help create more sustainable cities as well as the identification of a set of challenges and opportunities for advancing sustainable urbanism research.