Residential landscapes are crucial to achieving sustainable housing. However, there are concerns that higher housing densities will lead to unsustainable loss of gardens, greenspace and tree cover. This paper explores the effect of housing density on these variables, and finds that only garden provision is negatively correlated. Total greenspace cover need not decrease with densification if flats are combined with communal spaces. However, the quality of these spaces and their sustainable credentials were seen to be highly variable. Tree cover provided by developers is not related to density—they appear to be reluctant to plant trees across the density range.

Northwest Arkansas has a burgeoning population, and its suburbs need to become denser to accommodate in-migration sustainably. A sample of the region's public responded to housing development at 10 units per acre, as demonstrated by a physical model. Only around a quarter reacted favourably but, at the same time, the respondents were uniformly supportive of regional sustainability objectives that require greater suburban density. Recognition of the link between greater suburban density and regional sustainability tended to be associated with support for compaction, and acceptance of the spatial characteristics of denser suburbs was strongly associated with support for its implementation. Public support for denser suburbs in this region, and burgeoning areas elsewhere, could be improved if the link to regional sustainability is clarified and exemplars are used to demonstrate liveable, high quality precedents.

Landscapes settled by indigenous communities represent nuanced inter-relationships between culture and environment, where balance is achieved through Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS). Through IKS, native peoples worldwide live, farm, and consume resources in a manner that is responsive to natural systems and, as such, their lands present less deforestation and more sustainable production per capita than is exhibited by non-indigenous practices. In Bolivia, the Origin Farmer Indigenous Territory (TIOC) communities of Yaminahua-Machineri and Takana-Cavineño, located in the North Amazon, are facing external threats of non-indigenous anthropogenic land use change, such as road-building and industrial-scale resource extraction. In order to understand the potential environmental and cultural loss to these territories, the present work seeks to determine the present, base-line conservation state within these Bolivian communities, and forecast land use change and its consequences until the year 2030. This was undertaken using a three-stage protocol: (a) the TIOC communities’ current forest-based livelihoods, characteristics and management were determined using on-site observation techniques and extensive literature review; (b) the historical land use change (LUC) from natural vegetation to anthropogenic use was estimated using multitemporal satellite imagery; and, finally, (c) geographically explicit non-indigenous anthropogenic land-use change threat was extrapolated until 2030 using the GEOMOD modeler from the TerraSet software. Preliminary results show that both TIOCs case-sites are fairly conserved due to their forest dependence. However, deforestation and degradation could be evidenced, particularly within TIOC areas not officially recognized by the central government, due to pressures from surrounding, new non-indigenous settlements, road infrastructure, connection to markets, and the threat of the oil exploitation. Projected LUC suggest serious threats to the unrecognized TIOC areas if community governance is not reinforced, and if extractivist and non-indigenous development patterns continue to be promoted by state and central government.

Transit infrastructure is a critical determinant of the layout and sustainability performance of residential landscapes and neighborhoods. Though the spatial aspects of transit design and their associated impact on health, congestion, air pollution, accident rates, and emissions of greenhouse gases are well understood, the experiential-qualitative aspects of mobility have often been ignored in the travel and transport literature. This paper presents the place-understandings of pedestrians and cyclists concerning neighborhood safety in Dushanbe, the capital city of Tajikistan. Community perspectives were captured through drawing and storytelling workshops as a method of public engagement through creative experience. While reporting on the veracity of this collaborative, creative, and place-based methodology, the paper presents workshop outcomes that describe problematic non-auto neighborhood transit experiences that, if unchecked, could constitute a significant challenge to the sustainable post-Soviet transformation of Dushanbe’s residential neighborhoods.