“ the totality of The Sea Ranch offers an example of an environmentally sensitive development and place that is also sublimely beautiful…”
I find this quote by Sarah Williams Goldhagen in the New Republic to be very provocative and am wondering how she objectively supports such a strong claim. Her article mentions nothing about sustainability – For example, the embedded water / energy use, lack of transportation services, loss of valuable agricultural land and lack of affordability / equity espoused by the development. It would seam to me that at best The Sea Ranch was an experiment in design with environmental aspirations. It may have aesthetic merit but many environmental factors went unheeded and in the ethos of ‘sustainable design’ the simple act of putting 2,000 homes on a greenfield site within feet of a pristine coast would render the aspirations unsuccessful.