Public and private decisionmakers in the 21st century are fashioning sustainable development policies
and programs in response to a variety of global concerns that include climate change, resource
depletion, economic downturns, high levels of poverty, wasteful settlement and urbanization
patterns, and a scarcity of adequate, affordable housing and basic services. They assume that
human settlement activity has lasting effects on the well-being of individuals and society and
understand that sustainable development is an ongoing process, not a “fixed state of harmony”
(Hardi and Zdan, 1997: 9). In their choices of policies and programs, decisionmakers adhere to
the so-called Brundtland Commission’s interpretation of sustainable development to improve the
human condition to meet current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their needs, an idea refined at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 and further developed at the Rio
+20 Conference in 2012. The Future We Want, the outcome document of the 2012 meeting, defined
sustainable development as working for poverty eradication, changing unsustainable patterns of
consumption and production, and promoting inclusive and equitable economic growth