A browner shade of green

The paper advances a quite peculiar view of sustainability, assuming that new concepts for urban environmental sustainability will consistently call for a standstill in the exurban centrifugal sprawl of urban growth; and that subjective environmental components will most surely play a decisively crucial role for gaining objective benefits towards an increased sustainability. Within the terms of the assumption, the paper deals with urban planning strategies for halting sprawl, such as the reuse of abandoned inner-city brownfield areas; the creation of urban places imbued with symbolic environmental meaning for people's perception, such as the reuse of strategic cultural heritage elements; and a tactic combination of both actions, encouraging the creation of places in brownfield sites. In sum, with new directions to achieve sustainable patterns of development through planning, envisaging for a compact city enriched with a network of places that contribute to enhance the urban quality of life.