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At the heart of a livable community are people who work together
to make a street, neighborhood, town or city a better place to live.
An excellent way of engaging people and building a sense of community
is to get as many people together to think about how to create a
better place to live. This can often be done through greater public
participation in the planning process and by designing places that
encourage people to interact with their neighbors.
The Ahwahnee Principles
The Ahwahnee Principles
- which form the basis for the Local Government Commission's work
on livable, sustainable communities - address the issue of people
and community in numerous ways:
- Create complete and integrated communities containing housing,
shops, workplaces, schools, parks and civic facilities essential
to the daily life of the residents.
- The size of the community should be such that housing, jobs,
daily needs and other activities are within easy walking distance
of one another.
- A community should contain a diversity of housing types to enable
citizens from a wide range of economic levels and age groups to
live within its boundaries.
- The community should have a center focus that combines commercial,
civic, cultural and recreational uses.
- The community should contain an ample supply of specialized
open space in the form of squares, greens and parks whose frequent
use is encouraged through placement and design.
- Public spaces should be designed to encourage the attention
and presence of people at all hours of the day and night.
- Streets, pedestrian paths and bike paths should contribute to
a system of fully-connected and interesting routes to all destinations.
Their design should encourage pedestrian and bicycle use by being
small and spatially defined by buildings, trees and lighting;
and by discouraging high speed traffic.
- Regional institutions and services (government, stadiums, museums,
etc.) should be located in the urban core.
In addition, the Implementation Strategies included
in the Ahwahnee Principles emphasize that:
- Plans should be developed through an open process and participants
in the process should be provided visual models of all planning
proposals.
For more information, click on one of the following
topics:
Health and Physical Activity
Public Participation
Social Equity
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