Applying LEED to a Larger Scale?

“Much of the work undertaken by sustainable architects has been relatively limited in scope. LEED certification, for example, deals primarily with the architectural object, and not with the larger infrastructure of the territory of our cities and towns.”

– Mohsen Mostafavi, Ecological Urbanism

One idea that captured my interest in Mostafavi’s Ecological Urbanism was the challenge of finding alternative design approaches to combat the issues of rapid urbanization and dwindling global resources. Buildings that are LEED certified have to meet certain standards of sustainability and resource efficiency, but how can we apply this type of discipline to a larger scale? Sustainable cities claim to be sustainable because they are considered to be energy efficient, but I agree with Mostafavi that they should be much more. Our planet is fragile and needs to be treated as such, but most people do not find the cost of sustainability to be worth the effort. I’m sure in a few hundred years (or maybe less) when our world is collapsing around us, we will wish that we had started taking action much earlier. The disconnect between ecology and politics will ultimately be our downfall, and instead we need to turn our attention toward the ethicopolitical interactions we have with our fragile environment.