‘This is a wonderful book that should be on the desk of every architect and planner. It shows how

Common terminology
Language is critical to social change. Language enforces the status quo automatically by confining 
creative thinking and positive action to established concepts. An extensive set of new terms has 
therefore been suggested in the belief that paradigm shifts are facilitated by – or even require – a new 
language [Glossary]. Of course, any new term will always be co-opted over time, just as the term 
‘sustainability’ itself is often used to dress up business-as-usual. Terms and concepts will also get 
absorbed and watered down by dominant paradigm forces. For example, we saw that sustainability 
in the built environment fields came to mean social sustainability, as 
ecological
sustainability was 
implicitly assumed to be impossible. Hence the ecology continues to be traded off for relatively short-
term social gains. New and/or explicitly defined terms help to ensure that concepts are understood 
by all and there is just one working definition among participants.

---

254
Positive Development
Problem definition and identification [Chapter 1]
We have seen how problem descriptions and method of analysis can constrain the range of solutions 
to preconceived goals. If our problem definitions were correct, our problems would have been 
solved long ago. It is therefore a useful exercise to see how participants define the key issues. For 
example, the ‘problem’ is often defined as, say, to build a five-star building, reduce waste to landfill 
or develop indicators for green field development. But these problem definitions already presuppose 
the mitigation of the outcomes of conventional practices – not re-design. Such narrow conceptions 
of the problem circumscribe thinking to marginal changes 
within
the building, waste stream or 
suburb. Such solutions could therefore have ill-considered side-effects. Rather than beginning with 
a development proposal and making it better, the SmartMode process starts ‘outside the box’ with 
the contextual issues. It looks for opportunities to reverse inequities, imbalances or waste caused by 
existing systems of development and design. We can start with a general problem (identified, say, by 
RT analysis, as below) and design a public initiative to address it that generates positive ripple effects 
in the surrounding area.
After achieving a shared understanding of Positive Development and an agreement on basic 
problem definitions, decision rules, project and purposes, a ‘constitution’ of fundamental rights and 
responsibilities should be developed and/or adopted, as below.