The general objectives of this project, and of the succeeding stages for which it forms a logical first step, are to expand the criteria governing the design (in the largest sense) of urban regions, adding explicit concerns for resource conservation and resilience. Typically overlooked, these criteria aim respectively at ameliorating the impact of urban development on the environment through more efficient and interlinked use of scarce energy and material resources in urban regions, and at minimizing the net costs to the concerned society of the inevitable system or subsystem failures