Before the “Triple Bottom Line”

Abstract

Those who aspire to practice “sustainable development” often bemoan the difficultly of achieving the ideal balance of the three E’s made famous in the Brundtland Report: economy, ecology, and equity. Further, developments produced in the name of “sustainability” are commonly critiqued for their lack of regional climatic and cultural sensitivity. But Avion Village, a 600-unit affordable housing project built by the US Defense Department’s Mutual Ownership Housing Pilot Program in 1941—designed for innovative efficiency by Richard Neutra, made regionally appropriate by David Williams, and sold to residents as “mutually owned” by Colonel Lawrence Westbrook— illustrated the possibilities of triple bottom line development well before the language of sustainability emerged.