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Want to grow a “green” city? Look to Europe for examples. That’s the take-home lesson in a keynote lecture that Carl Smith, assistant professor of landscape architecture, will present to a joint meeting of the Arkansas chapters of the American Society of Landscape Architects and the American Planning Association. The talk, titled “New Urbanism: Same Old Landscape Story,” will take place at 3:15 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 23 at the Mount Sequoyah Conference and Retreat Center, located at 150 NW Skyline Dr. in Fayetteville, Ark.

Smith’s talk will look at the sustainability of green space in urban villages in England, with a focus on transferable lessons for a town like Fayetteville that's seeking to implement New Urbanist principles. Among the issues in creating sustainable, dense development is less space for private yards and gardens.

“In the USA, like the UK, private garden space is considered to be very important - so this could be a problem,” Smith said. “Mainland European models of high density development (particularly from Germany and Scandinavia) often combine units with very small or no private space with very high quality communal space, which in some respects make up for the loss of private gardens . . . It will be interesting to see if it could work in northwest Arkansas.”

A native of Sheffield, England, Carl Smith earned a Bachelor of Science with honors in Environmental Science from the University of Lancaster and a Master’s degree in landscape design and a doctorate in sustainable housing design from the University of Sheffield. Smith also holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Urban Design from the University of Newcastle. He is first author of the recent book Residential Landscape Sustainability: A Checklist Tool (Blackwell Publishing, 2008).