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A huge percentage of the modern human population worldwide lives in the urban areas and the cities, highlighting the need for sustainable practices in these living environments. A sustainable living environment is an environment that has been made and designed with environmental concerns and factors in mind. The main aim of sustainable cities is to change the way in which the cities are currently operated for the sake of a better and more sustainable future generation. This happens by ensuring that no unnecessary strain is put on current resources which will make the resources depleted before the generation of tomorrow gets the chance to benefit from it.

Global Sustainability in itself is a very complicated topic but generally involves practices specifically designed to be sustainable in the long run. This means that the community can go on using these practices day in day out without the prospect of affecting the environment in any way, and probably benefit the environment in one way or another. On a more specific level, global sustainability entails a wide array of changes but all whose main intention is to reduce the environmental impact of the city in general. Such changes may be on an individual lifestyle level for every citizen and a city-wide change in policy.

A perfect example of a sustainability strategy in the city is to reduce the reliance on the environment. While this will create an environmentally sustainable society, it will also be beneficial economically, making cities empowered and secured in case of civil or natural emergencies. Reducing the reliance on the surrounding environment may include such things as reducing the needs of water, water recycling, growing foods in the city, as well as generating energy in the cities. Such cities will become self-sufficient hence reduce strain on remote communities.

Sustainable cities should equally focus on what they are putting out into the neighboring environment. As such, a good sustainable strategy should be to not only reduce pollution but also reduce waste. This is particularly critical in cities which have limited processing capacities for such things as waste. Unless a city takes responsibilities for waste, the result would be to push the wastes onto the surrounding environments and communities which are not advisable at all.

Examples of practical things that all sustainable cities can implement include rooftop gardens, green roofs, bike lanes, solar panels, water recycling, better public transit, energy efficient heating and cooling systems for big buildings in the cities, centralized recycling amenities, implementing changes to the workweek with the aim of reducing congestion, reusing building materials, using permeable pavements along the ways, putting tougher air quality controls, utilizing wind energy, and encouraging community service programs.

While these changes may not really bring a noticeable immediate effect as they may take decades if not years to implement, however, with time, they can have a collective benefit. For instance, simply installing green roofs in sustainable cities can totally reduce the escalating temperatures commonly associated with many urban areas and cities today.