Communities should seek balance in their economic, physical, and human development. Balanced social development requires diversifying the job base rather than becoming dependent on any one major employer or market, public or private. Supporting new start-up businesses as well as preserving existing enterprises is part of the strategic planning necessary for a balanced local economy. Balanced physical development means planning mixed-use projects that integrate the social and commercial centres of a neighbourhood. It means balancing the car with effective transit systems and opportunities for the pedestrian.
Balanced neighbourhoods bring together the social and commercial centres of the community.
The fundamental concept is to invest in neighbourhoods and people rather than programmes and institutions. Connections between regions, districts and neighborhoods should be strengthened. Balanced neighbourhoods bring together the social and commercial centres of the community. At the turn of the century, smoke-stack industries dominated many urban economies and led to the segregation of land uses so common today. After World War II, the national investment in auto technologies and freeways accelerated this trend toward isolated, single use developments, producing regional sprawl at the same time that it diminished the economic vitality of the inner cities.