Integrating Smart Growth Icons with Sustainable and Real Estate Strategies

Abstract

Smart growth has always been a topic of revolution, it is a topic of high importance because population will continue to grow and more living space will be needed, there-fore there is the need of finding a way of creating resilient and sustainable cities by encouraging synergy within urban planning, by planning urban mixed-use developments. Growing cities do not offer too much space for new construction in already dense districts and are often facing urban sprawl, however the sustainable-mixed use developments take place by constructing a total new site or by revitalizing an existent neighborhood. Therefore are smart grow icons the real solution for growing cities such as Berlin and Mexico City? This research is merely to analyze the benefits of planning sustainable mixed-use developments, and understand their impact in the real estate market, the risk that the real estate industry takes, and which are the guidelines or principles to determine their feasibility in the market, how is it possible to close the gap between sustainable mixed-use and real estate revenue?. The results are strongly based in the critical analysis of literature review and the study of international case studies displayed in the different smart growth necessities aiming to determine the feasibility of adopting mixed-use developments and how to incorporate sustainable approaches while encouraging the investors and real estate developers to meet the financial expectations. Therefore this research is aimed to inform the investors and developers with strategies of integrating sustainability with real estate with the focus on mixed-use planning developments. Keywords: Smart growth, Mixed-use developments, sustainability, real estate, livable communities