Green Urbanization an Oxymoron?

In an age of rapid urbanization and population growth, we must ask how the environmental impact of these two world factors can be curved through technological innovations. One article I found on the subject talks about making green building a corporate responsibility in New Jersey. You can read the article "DEP Environmental Stewardship Program Grows to More than 500 Participants," from the Environmental News Network at this site: http://www.enn.com/business/article/42395.
The article talks about a program in New Jersey to tackle sustainable building through "environmental stewardship." This term itself gives me hope because it shows that some architects and city-planners have recognized the need to make sustainability a large part of their work. Green building means installing solar panels to use for electricity, water conservation, material-use reduction programs, and other processes listed under the DEP's 21 categories of the stewardship program. As part of the initiative, the DEP (Department of Environmental Protection) sends inspectors to building sites with a series of questions for the contractors and methods of assessing the extent of the building's environmental consciousness and sustainability.
I think actions like this are definitely effective because they set standards and regulations to places where it matters, like urbanization and building construction--two human actions that directly hurt the environment. However, there are always ways around regulations and therefore we must ask questions about how exactly the DEP's requirements are regulated and carried out. Also, some would say that trying to make urbanization more eco-friendly and green-focused is irrelevant because we should focus more on limiting growth in cities and limiting human actions that directly hurt the environment. So is green urbanization an oxymoron? I think it's a step in the right direction. It's accepting that cities have to expand in order to meet growing population needs, but changing the way in which they expand and trying to make it less environmentally detrimental. Yes we absolutely do need to focus on the roots of the problem, but this one innovation certainly gives me hope.