However, in the one hand cooperative strategies difficult the possibility of expanding sustainable practices to traditional real estate developers (Crabtree, 2005) which are in charge of generating most of the built environment of our cities; while in the other hand transferring the price of sustainable designs to residents limits the possibility of incorporating these principles in affordable housing. In this matter the involvement of governmental support could be basic to balance the short-term economic disadvantage of these projects, understanding that by encouraging these types of constructions, benefits beyond simple economic efficiency can be achieved (Davis, 2009). In this context, creating more “enabling and facilitating” financial programs and regulatory frameworks (Chapman, 1996) could promote the implementation of sustainability from the grassroots. Simultaneously developing economic assessments of sustainable neighbourhoods which include social and environmental externalities could also promote a policy change. Regarding the methodology, both tools developed for the data collection (Table 3 and Figure 5) had proven to be successful in the characterisation and analysis of the selected case studies. In particular the ‘outcomes’ associated to the community-based planning model, defined in Figure 5, have shown being extremely precise on predicting the successful implementation of sustainable projects. It could be interesting to explore the use of these tools in other case studies in order to identify their limitations. The recognition of the ‘strategic objectives’ presented in the findings, could also be exposed to further theoretical analysis and empirical research in order to develop a stronger critical review regarding the problems associated to their implementation.
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