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There has been a tendency in sustainability science to be passive. The purpose of this paper is to introduce an alternative positive framework for a more active and direct approach to sustainable design and assessment that de-couples environmental impacts and economic growth.

This paper deconstructs some systemic gaps that are critical to sustainability in built environment management processes and tools, and reframes negative “sustainable” decision making and assessment frameworks into their positive counterparts. In particular, it addresses the omission of ecology, design and ethics in development assessment.

Development can be designed to provide ecological gains and surplus “eco-services,” but assessment tools and processes favor business-as-usual. Despite the tenacity of the dominant paradigm (DP) in sustainable development institutionalized by the Brundtland Report over 25 years ago, these omissions are easily corrected.

The limitation is that the author was unable to find exceptions to the omissions cited here in the extensive literature on urban planning and building assessment tools. However, exceptions prove the rule. The implication is that it is not too late for eco-positive retrofitting of cities to increase natural and social capital. The solutions are just as applicable in places like China and India as the USA, as they pay for themselves.

Positive development (PD) is a fundamental paradigm shift that reverses the negative models, methods and metrics of the DP of sustainable development. This paper provides an example of how existing “negative” concepts and practices can be converted into positive ones through a PD prism. Through a new form of bio-physical design, development can be a sustainability solution.

Positive Development and Biophilic Urbanism appear to be grounded in a different human-nature relationship. Biophilic Urbanism builds on the theory that humans have an innate need to feel connected with nature, and explores ways to amplify its psychological and physiological benefits. Positive Development contends that development must proactively increase nature in absolute terms (beyond pre-industrial conditions). Hence it proposes a radical reconstruction of development design and decision making. Are these positions compatible?

A literature review revealed many similarities and differences between the two theories, and the views and visions among individual proponents of sustainability paradigms vary. Therefore, the comparison focused on the respective role of nature, a foundational element in each theory.

Biophilic urbanism stresses the individual’s experience of nature and its importance to human life quality. Positive Development stresses the preservation of species and ecosystems through the re-design of institutional systems and physical structures that increase the ecological base and public estate. Both viewpoints are essential to the whole system transformation that sustainability requires. However, if urban development does not increase urban nature and wilderness well beyond past/ongoing depletion and damage, the natural life support system will collapse.

These paradigms are too complex to be represented in a brief commentary, so the discussion focuses on a crucial difference. Since many papers in this special issue discuss Biophilic Urbanism references, the emphasis here is on the lesser known theory.

These paradigms evolved independently and, as far as is known, this is the first time their essential messages are compared.

Proposals for changing city-nature relationships are currently dominated by geographical approaches about urban form. They arguably lack a sufficient appreciation of design issues and opportunities. The knowledge and skill sets of urban designers and architects could improve the level of debate. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This discussion evaluates two opposing radical proposals for urban growth. These and most other proposals for future human settlements can be located on a densification-dispersal axis. They are reviewed in terms of their ability to address the fundamental social and ecological prerequisites of sustainability.

Neither model of urban form is sustainable without a new kind of built environment design that can address rapidly depleting ecological carrying capacity and social equity. Current models of urban growth in green urbanism and design fields would not adequately protect or increase the remaining natural life support system, which should be the foundation for any sustainability plan. These problems need to be resolved by design which can entertain a much broader range of sustainability criteria than formulas.

Given the broad subject area, there is a diversity of opinion and issues that cannot be adequately represented in a short paper. Therefore, the spotlight is placed on the far ends of this (dispersal-densification) dualism.

This densification-dispersal axis can be transcended by moving from current approaches that close off future options to ones that can expand future options by increasing the public estate and ecological base: the basic prerequisites of sustainability. This is arguably possible, but only with a new design paradigm.