Cranberry Township, my new home town, is often held up as a poster child for wasteful suburban sprawl. The concern is real, but the times are changing. Cranberry is going green.

As a member of Cranberry's Planning Advisory Commission, I've emphasized sustainability as a bedrock principle of long-range planning. This includes three major components: environmental stewardship, economic health and social equity. We intend to show that even auto-friendly suburbs -- where most Americans have chosen to live -- not only urban areas, can achieve real sustainability.

Over a few short years, sustainability has gone from being a fad to becoming a standard. Problem is, there aren't a lot of good models for suburbs to follow.

So Cranberry enlisted the help of Sustainable Pittsburgh, Western Pennsylvania's leading advocate for sustainability reform, in its planning process.

The resulting plan, which spans a 25-year horizon, was adopted by the township Board of Supervisors back in April. Implementation of its 200-plus action steps is now well under way. And just last month, the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Planning Association gave it their highest award. Here are some of its highlights:

In formulating Cranberry's plan, different levels of development intensity were modeled to test their impacts on traffic, staffing requirements, sewage-treatment capacity, municipal finances, police-force size and more. We found that greater density works better -- but only up to a point. Once it hits that tipping point, costs soar beyond available revenues in a completely unsustainable way. Accordingly, the plan provides for a moderate increase in development density in many parts of the township.

Getting around in Cranberry today is overwhelmingly automobile-based. But the township's network of roads is not just for people; it also is the backbone of Cranberry's manufacturing and freight-transport industries. So while the plan emphasizes working with mass-transit providers, its primary focus is on three more immediate goals: creating a more walkable community, extending parallel roads to ease traffic movement and coordinating efforts with neighboring jurisdictions to improve traffic flow.

For decades, the prevailing pattern of suburban residential development has led to clusters of large-lot, single-family homes within narrow price bands. The result has been homogeneous neighborhoods, which often seem more like dormitories than communities.

A more diverse populace requires more diverse housing. That's why the plan calls for greater housing options and has resulted in a wholesale revision of Cranberry's zoning and land-development ordinances.

New rules enable a mixture of housing types within the same plan, permit the co-mingling of certain types of businesses with homes in designated neighborhoods, facilitate the construction of multi-unit housing, reduce minimum lot sizes and setbacks, and encourage the development of housing for the elderly, for singles and for empty-nesters over a wide range of incomes.

Cranberry's economy is currently in high-growth mode. Research suggests that most communities eventually face fiscal crises as growth slows, but it's not inevitable.

Cranberry's plan calls for actively focusing on redevelopment initiatives in partnership with the area's Chamber of Commerce, entrepreneurs and regional business leaders. Flexible regulations and tax incentives, as well as regulatory inducements affecting building densities, intensity of use and mixed utilization are being crafted to encourage adaptive reuse of existing structures in areas targeted for redevelopment.

Preserving the essential suburban character of Cranberry within a framework of ongoing development and redevelopment is a fundamental goal of the township's long-range plan. Today, as a result of parkland acquisition, farmland preservation programs and open-space requirements now codified by ordinance, more than 2,000 acres of Cranberry's open space is protected. Greenway corridors linking many of its neighborhoods and open spaces are under review, and a study of Cranberry's carbon footprint, aimed at improved environmental practices, is now under way.

Volunteerism not only is a sign of a vibrant community, it also is the foundation of essential public services. Strengthening nonprofit organizations operating in Cranberry and connecting prospective volunteers with appropriate opportunities to become engaged is the central mission of a newly revitalized Cranberry Township Community Chest, which is working closely with the township government to improve the recruitment, promotion and finances of these diverse organizations.

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Cranberry's steps toward environmental and economic sustainability are just beginning; involvement by homeowners, businesses and surrounding communities will be needed for it to succeed.

When that happens, it will maintain Cranberry's vital real estate market and business development for years to come. It will allow the next generation to thrive so that our community can continue to prosper and end up better than we found it. And it will help blaze a trail for other suburban communities throughout the region to find their own sustainable futures.

Cartoonist Rob Rogers does "Rob's Rough," an early look at his work and his creative process, exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.