Development of decision support system for sustainable community design

A number of shortcomings are associated with conventional subdivision design. These include environmental, social, and economic issues that affect not only the residents of the development, but everyone within the surrounding urban area. An alternative form of development, known as sustainable community design, has been proposed by many professionals to circumvent the deficiencies of conventional designs. Through an extensive literature review, a number of design rules for sustainable communities were determined and a design methodology was constructed. A prototype decision support system was developed, based upon this methodology, to design sustainable "green-field" communities. This prototype computer tool was written in C++ and is used in conjunction with a second program called SCAPE, to create three-dimensional community plans. The flexibility of the system rests in the hands of the user in the form of input variables that can be used to quickly change the entire layout of the development. It is hoped that the use of the developed prototype system will lead to consideration of a wider range of alternatives for urban fringe development, and ultimately to the construction of increasingly sustainable community developments.