Desert Urbanism - Design with the Desert: Conservation and Sustainable Development - page 438

policies in creating environmental-sensitive urban development in the Sonoran Desert of
central Arizona. From its early stormwater management practices and hillside ordinance
to its environmentally sensitive land ordinance and green building program, Scottsdale
has consistently created planning policies, ordinances, and design guidelines that protect
and enhance the character of the Sonoran Desert environment. With the city's recent adop-
tion of the International Green Construction Code, Scottsdale is continuing to move to
ever-higher levels of ecological understanding for sustainable urban desert communities
in the southwest.
In Chapter 29, “Sustainable Energy Alternatives for the Southwest,” David Berry
describes the emerging transformation of the electric supply and demand system in
the desert of the Southwest from one dominated by central station fossil-fueled power
plants to a cleaner energy future that relies much more on renewable energy and energy
efficiency. The current power generation infrastructure will be difficult to sustain and
replicate in the future, from both an environmental and economic perspective. Berry dis-
cusses energy efficiency as the first resource alternative followed by renewable energy
technologies that can help utilities manage their risks. Urban areas have great potential
to integrate distributed renewable energy facilities with energy-efficient site and build-
ing design. The abundant supply of solar resources can not only increase the use of clean
energy resources to meet regional retail demand but is also a valuable economic resource
for exporting in the form of electricity to other regions.
It is often said that suburbia is the antithesis to true sustainable urban communities.
In Chapter 30, “Search for a Lean Alternative,” urban visionary Paolo Soleri discusses
his arcology concept as the lean alternative to suburbia and hyperconsumption. The con-
struction of Arcosanti began in 1970 and continues today as the first arcology and urban
laboratory in the high desert of Arizona. Arcosanti represents a viable and positive solu-
tion to population growth, urban living, resource efficiency, transportation, net energy
utilization, food production, preservation of natural habitats, affordable housing, global
warming, and ultimate recycling. In the Arcosanti arcology, many systems work together,
with efficient circulation of people and resources, multi-use buildings, and passive solar
orientation for lighting, heating, and cooling. Soleri presents his latest development, the
lean linear arterial city, as an elongation of the arcology principle. This lean linear arcology
is a dense and continuous urban ribbon consisting of interlinked city modules designed
to take advantage of regional wind patterns and solar radiation that is so prevalent in the
deserts of the southwest.
In Chapter 31, “Creating Sustainable Futures for Southwestern Cities: The ProtoCity™
Approach in the Ciudad Juarez, Mexico/El Paso, Texas Metroplex,” Pliny Fisk III intro-
duces a model for evolving into the “green city of the future,” where decisions related to
the built environment are informed by a full life cycle of resources in which waste and
by-products are utilized as resources. Key to understanding and regenerating an “ecology
of place” is to establish a framework in which to understand the conditions under which
a city/region is evolving. Using lessons from the early development of Austin's Green
Building Program, the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems has addressed the
more complex conditions confronted by the border metroplex of El Paso, Texas, and Juarez,
Mexico. The authors identify the Development Ladder (conceptual tool) to address a city/
region's state of development and the ProtoScope (operational tool) as a systemic represen-
tation of how a city/region could potentially function and evolve from experiences with
other cultures in the world. Information, currency, energy, and material flows determine a
city/region's position along the Development Ladder while a ProtoMetric identifies the bio-
physical characteristics of a place, involving ecology, hydrology, climate, and geology/soils.