I've been reading "A Pattern Language" by Christopher Alexander (in collaboration with Sarah Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein) to get a sense of what, theoretically, should be included in a sustainable neighbourhood, and how on could create a 'mental framework' for a neighbourhood.

At the same time I'm reading about PVA arrays and black water mining, but first I want to get my head around ideas like: How big should the neighbourhood be? What building heights are better? What is the ideal density, or ideal combination of densities? And so on...

"A Pattern Language" is almost 30 years old, but, perhaps surprisingly, is still an extremely useful and relevant text. The book provides 253 'patterns' for developing neighbourhoods, towns and cities. It's a little like a repertory cookbook; and each patterns is like a recipe which can be used to guide design decisions from the grand scale of laying out a city, all the way down to the best arrangement of chairs in your kitchen.

The other thing that is interesting about Alexander, and which makes him a useful reference for people interesting in improving 'their own backyard', is that he believes in bottom up change which responds to specific local conditions.

“We do not believe that these large patterns, which give so much structure to a town or of a neighborhood, can be created by centralised authority, or by laws, or by master plans. We believe instead that they can emerge gradually and organically almost of their own accord, if every act of building, large or small, takes on the responsibility for gradually shaping it’s small corner of the world to make these larger patterns appear there.”