Paradoxes of sustainable development

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore two of the paradoxes arising from different views about resource limits and sustainable development.Design methodology approach - The paper identifies the implications for property rights and public participation in environmental decisions. The first paradox concerns the adoption of policies of exclusion and inclusion through property rights and collective action; the second looks at the new role of the city where concentration of activities, once the cause of environmental degradation is now seen as the route to sustainable development.Findings - Although private property is capable of securing exclusion and resource protection - it is neither necessary nor sufficient for sustainable development. Cooperation and appropriate institutions are essential; in other words a system of stable and binding rules that under some circumstances can be more effective when they are social and local than when they are national and legal. Urban renaissance principles of mixed uses and compact cities obscure traditional density relationships and point to the need for new forms of measurement to replace outdated residential density measures.Originality value - The paper addresses issues relevant to institutional design including private and collective property rights, and discusses appropriate measures for residential densities in relation to sustainable development policies.