Our unparalleled quality of life in America proves that the land development industry has been incredibly successful over the last century.
Last month’s issue outlined our industry outlook for 2004 and included a number of macroeconomic, political, and social trends that are impacting our industry. This month, we’ll start with the big picture outlined in the two January articles and move toward a micro-perspective by exploring a number of issues that daily impact each of us, our project teams, and our organizations. Our unparalleled quality of life in America proves that the land development industry has been incredibly successful over the last century. We have planned, designed, and built the best roads, office parks, subdivisions, golf courses, playgrounds, hospitals, and multi-use sites that the world has ever seen; yet the needs of our society continue to change. Government agencies and local citizens are becoming more sophisticated in their expectations for land development, and are imposing greater requirements for the industry today than they did just ten years ago. This trend shows no signs of abating any time soon. The impacts of land development on our environmental, social, and economic quality of life are now common issues about which everyone is concerned. However, there remains a wide divergence of opinions and partially informed demands being placed on our industry by the myriad of political perspectives, governing bodies, organizations, and individuals throughout the country. Collectively, it is becoming more important to intelligently meet or confront these ideas and issues as the land development industry continues to reshape and reform. At the minimum, the industry needs to stay ahead of, or in some cases keep up with, the changing requirements of an ever-demanding public. A number of multifaceted and interrelated dynamics are changing the nature of our industry and how each of us fit in it. The following issues are particularly poignant and serve to define numerous issues that land development professionals face every day. 1. Social trends and evolving demands are changing the specialized knowledge required for success in all disciplines in the industry. 2. More team members and different groups hold stakes in our projects than ever before, increasing the importance of a variety of business management and political skills. 3. Technology has permeated virtually every seam of the industry. Social trends and evolving demands are changing the specialized knowledge required for success in all disciplines. As our land and land resources continue to become more limited, traditional approaches to land planning and development have too often dismissed long-term environmental problems and social concerns. Many areas suffer from congestion, sprawl, pollution and/or resource over-consumption. In some places, people cannot walk and play safely, neighborhoods lack cohesion, buildings are out of scale with their surroundings, human encounters are marked by fear, and the natural environment is overused and polluted. Resource economists and scientists fear that we may be consuming and destroying the living and non-living natural foundation upon which our lives depend. In the EPA’s recently published 2003 Draft Report on the Environment, former Administrator, Christine Todd Whitman said, “The increasing volume of waste, along with the growth of sprawl, continues to pose a challenge to our efforts to protect the land.” The practice of sustainable land development, while certainly not a new concept, has not yet infiltrated our industry completely; but it will. While many land development professionals believe that apocalyptic predictions about our environment may be unfounded, any rational person must acknowledge the tremendous risks involved in what we do with our land. If we don’t yet have a crisis, we most assuredly operate in a different environment than in the past. It is the moral duty of those of us who hold professional positions that influence how land development projects impact our environment – as all of us in the land development industry do – to do everything within our individual and collective power not to let our condition get out of hand. This requires all professionals in all disciplines to educate themselves about sustainability, smart growth, brownfield development, etc. More team members and different groups hold stakes in our projects than ever before. It hasn’t been very long since there were typically just a few participants in most land development projects, and only a handful of regulations specified design standards. Things have definitely changed. Land development has become a very complex industry and professionals are required to possess a more comprehensive understanding of the industry than ever before. Land development professionals must increasingly possess a broad knowledge of the principles used throughout the industry so as to more effectively contribute to the overall process. The land development design and approval process involves more participants and the process itself varies more among disciplines and organizations than ever before. The process has grown from involving only a few people to involving a diverse group of land development professionals with varying levels of knowledge of important issues, working in both the public and private sectors. Typical members of today’s land development project teams could consist of any/many of the following: 1. Developers 2. Financial Institutions 3. Attorneys (Land Use and Other) 4. Urban Planners 5. Market Analysts/Researchers/Sociologists 6. Economists 7. Archeologists 8. Real Estate Brokers 9. Other Real Estate Specialists 10. Public Citizens 11. Civic Associations 12. City Councils/Planning Commissions/Zoning Boards 13. Other Regulatory Boards and Agencies 14. Land Surveyors 15. Civil Engineers 16. Transportation Planners 17. Environmental Specialists 18. Geotechnical Engineers 19. Geologists 20. Structural Engineers 21. Architects 22. Landscape Architects 23. Recreational Specialists 24. Cultural and Education Specialists 25. Other Engineers 26. Project Draftspeople 27. Product and Service Providers 28. Operational Consultants 29. Construction Professionals from Numerous Disciplines 30. Others As more and more stakeholders become increasingly involved in land development projects, control over various aspects of projects becomes an increasingly volatile political issue. The lines dividing politics and sound policy easily blur and shift from municipality to municipality. Successfully navigating these waters requires a different set of knowledge, skills, and abilities than the specialized knowledge emphasized in today’s environment. Professionals in all land development disciplines must have a better grasp than ever before of the entire gamut of issues and processes, as well as the complex leadership, teamwork, and communication skills necessary to find and implements solutions. Technology has permeated virtually every seam of the industry. Working in the industry without the benefit of automated computing power – while a fond memory to many – is hard to fathom today. Technology has brought the promise of dramatic improvements to the productivity and effectiveness of land development projects. Unfortunately for most however, the promise of increased productivity has gone largely unfulfilled. Generally speaking, land development technology implementations have not made organizations substantially more productive than before the advent of technology. The reasons for this are many, but mainly center on the fact that, while technology has solved many problems and made us more productive in specific areas, it has created new ones that didn’t previously exist. The industry in general has not yet effectively made the changes necessary to solve these new problems. Increases in productivity are offset by the introduction of new bottlenecks, communication barriers, and errors without making important changes to key processes and structures throughout the project development process. The pace at which these and other significant changes to our industry places stress on most organizations as we work to effectively keep pace and continue to address the new problems that the changing state of our industry presents. The state of our industry today requires that we continue to develop both specialized and generalized new knowledge in a variety of areas to help enhance our positions in the industry and deliver on the promise of our professions – improving our society’s environmental, social and economic quality of life tomorrow and for future generations to come. Next month, we will outline a future course for individuals, project teams, and organizations in the industry that will help to address the issues and challenges each of us face every day. SLDT |
Sustainable Land Development Today 
