Sustainable community
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The term "sustainable communities" has various definitions, but in essence refers to communities planned, built, or modified to promote
Different organizations have various understandings of sustainable communities; the term's definition is contested and still under construction. For example, Burlington, Vermont's Principles of Sustainable Community Development [1] stress the importance of local control of natural resources and a thriving non-profit sector to a sustainable community. The
Etymologically, the term "sustainable community" grew out of the related discourses of "sustainability" and "sustainable development" that gained widespread use among local, national, and international politicians and policymakers in NGOs starting in the late 1980s.[5] The term originally referred to environmental concerns and was later applied to cities.[6]
Examples of Sustainable Community initiatives
The best example of a real Sustainable Community is Saint Michael's Sustainable Community in Costa Rica. The community produces far more food and water than it needs. It uses regenerative agriculture as a base to live in harmony with nature.
Sustainable community initiatives have emerged in neighborhoods, cities, counties,
Nonprofit organizations help to cultivate local talents and skills,
Some government groups will create partnerships where departments will work together using
and transportation choices.International initiatives
United Kingdom
The
National initiatives
The Partnership for Sustainable Communities is an interagency partnership between the
- Provide more transportation choices
- Promote equitable, affordable housing
- Enhance economic competitiveness
- Support existing communities
- Coordinate policies and leverage investment
- Value communities and neighborhoods
Along with working collaboratively, these government agencies also have their own initiatives. The Department of Housing and Development has an Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities which features a Sustainable Housing Initiative, aiming at “supporting the construction and rehabilitation of green affordable housing”[10] and does this through programs that retrofit or construct energy efficient homes. They also work to standardize energy efficiency standards across federal agencies, as well as expand the availability of financing for home energy improvements and multifamily housing.
The Environmental Protection Agency has a Smart Growth Program which conducts research, publishes reports, showcases outstanding communities, and works with communities through grants and technical assistance.[11] They also have a Green Communities Program which provides communities with a tool kit of information to help them reach sustainable goals. The tool kit is arranged in a five-step program which allows communities to:[12]
- Develop community assessments of their current conditions
- Formulate trend analyses that answers the question “Where are we going?” in the face of no intervention
- Create vision statements of where the community sees itself in the future
- Establish action plans about what programs and initiatives will help the community reach its goals
- Access tools to implement action plans
The Department of Transportation has a Livability Initiative which issues “grants to eligible recipients for planning, vehicle purchases, facility construction, operations, and other purposes”,[13] with numerous goals, including the improvement of surface transportation, providing public transit on Indian reservations, providing access to disadvantaged communities, etc.
Case Studies from the Partnership for Sustainable Communities
The Euclid Corridor in Cleveland
Once a thriving place of business and home to the wealthy and elite, Euclid Avenue in Cleveland had seen a decline in commerce following the Great Depression. During this economic downturn, Cleveland became a shrinking city as many of its residents moved and homes were turned into boarding houses or abandoned altogether.. After decades of work by city leaders and residents to revitalize this part of the city, the bus line HealthLine debuted in 2008. This bus line increased ridership and helped The Euclid Corridor begin to see the redevelopment of abandoned properties as well as investment in development of commerce, to the tune of $4.3 billion. This created thousands of square feet of retail space and thousands of jobs. The success of the revitalization of the Euclid Corridor is due in large part to engaged community leaders, community members, and NGO's like MidTown Cleveland who worked on ensuring that there was a variety of housing investments. EPA assisted with the redevelopment of abandoned space through their brownfield assessment grants and HUD provided mortgage insurance on properties to aid in the development of Euclid Avenue.[14]
Greenville, South Carolina's Westside
Following a shift from the cotton production that once thrived in the west end of Greenville, South Carolina, this part of the city began to see a flight of its residents and with it the abandonment and decay of its buildings and facilities, higher crime rates, and more low-income households. In 2010, HUD and DOT awarded the city $1.8 million to support a three-year planning initiative which sought to improve affordable housing, transportation, and increase economic development. The HUD provided a loan to encourage economic growth, specifically through the conversion of an old cotton warehouse into an area of retail shops, offices, and restaurants known as West End Market. The success of West End Market led to 230 building permits being issued around the area in a three-year period, resulting in a successful arts district that created jobs as well as drew tourists and locals. EPA assisted with the redevelopment of abandoned space through $200,000 in brownfield assessment grants which allowed for the city to facilitate clean up, or initiate redevelopment. The city also worked with the Federal Highway Administration in demolishing an unnecessary bridge which allowed for the development of a recreational area with a cross bridge, waterfalls, and walking paths, known as Falls Park on the Reedy. In 2005, a mixed-use development was constructed across from Falls Park with a hotel, apartments, restaurants, and retail and office spaces to help further spark economic growth in the area.[15]
Seattle's South Lake Union Neighborhood
With investments in transportation, affordable housing, and green space, Seattle's South Lake Union has transformed from a place of freeway traffic, abandoned warehouses, and parking lots to an economically flourishing neighborhood. An integral part to this transformation was the creation of a street car service, partially funded by the Federal Transit Administration. The streetcar encouraged both Amazon.com and Microsoft to locate campuses in the South Lake Union neighborhood, bringing with it jobs and investment in residential space. The City of Seattle is proposing a zoning change to promote affordable housing and attract market rate development. HUD provided grants to fund building and support services for the chronically homeless, adults and veterans recovering from addiction, and homeless with mental health issues and substance abuse problems. HUD also supplied $5.7 million towards the construction of a senior housing facility. To address the problems with the neighborhoods freeways and lack of sidewalks and crosswalks, a $30 million grant was issued by the DOT to help build crosswalks over 12 intersections, widen sidewalks, add bicycle lanes, as well as beautify the space through the addition of landscaping and trees.[16]
State initiatives
Maryland
The state of Maryland passed a Sustainable Communities Act in 2010 with the goal of revitalizing and promoting reinvestment in Maryland's older communities as well working to promote “equitable, affordable housing by expanding energy-efficient housing choices for people of all ages, incomes, races, and ethnicity to increase mobility and lower the combined cost of housing and transportation”.[17] The law also created the Sustainable Communities Tax Credit Program which promotes private investment in the restoration and development of historic sites.[18] Thanks in part to the Sustainable Communities Tax Credit Program, the neighborhood of Remington, Baltimore was able to refurbish an old tin factory into a space for offices and residences, which led to the development of other properties as well as homes, which increased use and population for the neighborhood.[19]
In 2013 the Maryland General Assembly passed the Sustainable Communities Tax Increment Financing Designation and Financing Law. This law allows for Maryland counties and municipalities to use funds generated from increased property tax values to fund improvement projects in sustainable communities. Sample projects include expanding sidewalks, the development of tree planting on streets and parks, as well as improvements to water and sewer infrastructure to help encourage economic growth and improve quality of life.[20]
California
The state of California passed the
City government initiatives
Cities are defined as
When looking at and comparing sustainable cities certain indicators may be used:
- Does the city have any physical environment? [4]
- Does the city have environmentally-sensitive areas and maintain them? [4]
- Does the city follow any legal sustainable? [23]
- How involved in the environmental and social justice movement are programs within the city? [24]
- Is the
- Are there pollution remediation programs in the city? [4]
- How just community? [24]
The 34 elements inside “Taking Sustainable Cities Seriously" can also be used to determine whether a city is considered sustainable or not.[25]
City examples
The city of
The city of
After noting the city's sustainability level it is important to note what kinds of communities are targeted and how they are affected through these programs and what kinds of strategies are being used to try to create and transform sustainable communities.
Non-Profit and NGO sector
The Institute for Sustainable Communities created by former Vermont Governor, Madeleine M. Kunin, leads community based projects around the globe that address environmental, economic, and social issues.[28] Many of these groups help to cultivate local talents and skills, empowering people to become more powerful and involved in their own communities. Many also offer plans and guidance on improving the sustainability of various practices, such as land use and community design, green transportation, energy efficiency, waste reduction, and climate friendly purchasing.[29]
The Global Integrity Project is focused on bringing together top scientists and thinkers from around the world in order to analyze the problems of inequality among humankind. These thinkers examine economic and ethical issues faced in protecting and enhancing our environments and make recommendations on restoration techniques that aid in promoting social justice. They also call for a major and imperative paradigm shift in order to ensure good quality of life for many future generations.[30]
Sustainable Seattle is a non-profit organization which has created regional indicators for sustainability through grassroots activism and has become a world leader in these sustainability indicators. Sustainable Seattle has printed newsletters on a wide range of sustainable community topics, from building to recycling and more, and they are believed to be the first “sustainable community” organization, founded in 1991. There are now hundreds of “sustainable community” organizations across the USA [31]
Social movement initiatives
The Take Back Your Time Movement, led by John de Graaf, focuses on the concept of working fewer hours and devoting more time to living a healthy lifestyle. The movement suggests that allowing shorter work days and longer vacations would in turn help better distribute work, while also reducing stress and making for healthier living. Additionally, people would have more free time to make more rewarding and sustainable choices for themselves.[32]
The Voluntary Simplicity Movement or
The
Movements such as ecovillages are gathering momentum, spreading sustainable community ideas around the world, teaching through example and also offering classes and training on sustainable living, permaculture, and local economics. Ecovillages seek to integrate themselves harmlessly into the ecosystem surrounding them, so as to live and interact in a way that is sustainable and supportive of the natural world [34]
Challenges and critiques
Sustainable communities, both as individual projects and as a whole, have faced challenges impeding their development and have been met with criticism.
Sustainable communities projects have struggled to take hold for:
- poor economic conditions and inaccessible housing markets: in the UK's Sustainable Communities Plan, the economic downturn of 2008 has led to a general shortage of housing and affordable housing in particular, which run contrary to the plan's premises of livable communities.[6]
Projects have been critiqued for:
- lacking a well-developed environmental justice framework: urban and environmental policy planner Julian Agyeman has written about the "narrow focus" of civic environmentalism that does not take "social justice" into account, and the need for sustainable communities to be democratic and collaborate with the environmental justice movement.[5]
- promoting a securitization agenda: British geographer Mike Raco argues that the UK's Sustainable Communities Plan employs the discourse of sustainability as "a series of potentially repressive and counter-productive policy measures.".[35]
- accommodating to neoliberal economic systems instead of confronting them: while some rationales for sustainable communities conflict with market-driven agendas, economic growth characterizes the means and ends of some initiatives. Additionally, sustainable communities reject the notion that development itself is fundamentally socially divisive or environmentally destructive.[36]
Education
While there are a variety of graduate degrees at universities that touch on sustainability as it related to urban planning and environmental resources, only a few degree program programs exist that train students in the theory and practice of sustainable communities. The most notable examples are:
- Binghamton University offers a Masters of Arts (MA) and Masters of Science (MS) in Sustainable Communities.
- Northern Arizona University offers a Masters of Arts (MA) in Sustainable Communities.
- DNS The necessary teacher training college offers a teacher training that focuses on the capacity to create a collective.
References
- ^ a b "Appendix A: Definitions and Principles of Sustainable Communities" Sustainable Communities Task Force Report. Fall 1997. http://clinton2.nara.gov/PCSD/Publications/suscomm/suscoa.html
- S2CID 144963064.
- ^ a b "What is a Sustainable Community?" The National Archives. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20120919132719/http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1139866
- ^ a b c d e f g Portney, Kent E. Taking Sustainable Cities Seriously: A Comparative Analysis of Twenty-Three U.S. Cities (PDF).
- ^ ISBN 9780814707111
- ^ S2CID 153419157.
- ^ Innes, Judith; Booher, David (2000). "Indicators for Sustainable Communities: A Strategy Building on Complexity Theory and Distributed Intelligence". 1 (3): 173–186.
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(help) - ^ S2CID 153538503.
- ^ a b "About Us" Partnership for Sustainable Communities. Retrieved 10 March 2014 http://www.sustainablecommunities.gov/aboutUs.html
- ^ "Sustainable Housing Initiative" U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development. Retrieved 10 March 2014. http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/sustainable_housing_communities/sustainable_housing_initiative
- ^ "Smart Growth" U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Retrieved 9 March 2014. http://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/index.htm
- ^ "Basic Information" Green Communities, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Retrieved 9 March 2014. http://www.epa.gov/greenkit/basicinformation.htm
- ^ "Grants and Programs" U.S. Department of Transportation. Retrieved 10 March 2014. http://www.dot.gov/livability/grants-programs
- ^ "Transit as Transformation - The Euclid Corridor in Cleveland" Partnership for Sustainable Communities. June 2012. Retrieved 10 March 2014" http://www.sustainablecommunities.gov/pdf/studies/cleveland-euclid-corridor.pdf
- ^ "Revitalizing Greenville's Westside" Partnership for Sustainable Communities. December 2012. Retrieved 10 March 2014 http://www.sustainablecommunities.gov/pdf/studies/greenville_sc.pdf
- ^ "Seattle's South Lake Union Neighborhood" Partnership for Sustainable Communities. December 2012. Retrieved 10 March 2014. http://www.sustainablecommunities.gov/pdf/studies/seattle-south-lake-union.pdf
- ^ "Sustainable Communities" Maryland Department of Planning. Retrieved 11 March 2014. [1]
- ^ "Maryland Sustainable Communities Tax Credit Program" Maryland Department of Planning, Maryland Historical Trust. Retrieved 2 May 2014. http://mht.maryland.gov/taxCredits.shtml
- ^ "Remington Neighborhood Revitalization" Maryland Department of Planning. Retrieved 2 May 2014. http://planning.maryland.gov/OurWork/spotlightComm_Remington.shtml
- ^ "Sustainable Communities" Maryland Department of Planning. Retrieved 2 May 2014. http://planning.maryland.gov/yourpart/sustainablecommunities.shtml
- ^ "Sustainable Communities" California Environmental Protection Agency - Air Resources Board. Retrieved 8 March 2014. http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/sb375/sb375.htm
- ^ a b c Eaken, Amanda. Horner, Justin. Ohland, Gloria "A Bold Plan for Sustainable California Communities: A Report on the Implementation of Senate Bill 375" Natural Resources Defense Council. September 2012. Retrieved 2 May 2014. http://www.nrdc.org/globalwarming/sb375/implementation-report/files/implementation-report.pdf
- ^ Agyeman, Julian. Sustainable Communities and the Challenge of Environmental Justice. p. 20.
- ^ a b c Agyeman, Julian. Sustainable Communities and the Challenge of Environmental Justice.
- ^ Portney, Kent E. Taking Sustainable Cities Seriously: A Comparative Analysis of Twenty-Three U.S. Cities (PDF). p. 34.
- ^ Agyeman, Julian. Sustainable Communities and the Challenge of Environmental Justice. p. 21.
- ^ Kornberg and Clarke, Allan and Harold. Citizens and Community: Political Support in a Representative Democracy. p. 60.
- ^ "What is a Sustainable Community?" Institute for Sustainable Communities. Retrieved 10 March 2014. http://www.iscvt.org/what_we_do/sustainable_community/
- ^ "About Sustainable Communities" Sustainable Communities Online. Retrieved 11 March 2014. http://www.sustainable.org/about
- ^ Pimentel, David. Ecological Integrity: Integrating Environment, Conservation, and Health.
- ^ "Who we are" Sustainable Seattle. Retrieved 5 May 2014. http://www.sustainableseattle.org
- ^ Assadourian, Erik. "The Power of Social Movements" Worldwatch Institute. Retrieved 10 March 2014. http://blogs.worldwatch.org/transformingcultures/contents/social-movements
- ^ "About Us: Description" Degrowth.org Retrieved 9 March 2014. http://www.degrowth.org/
- ^ "About Us" Ecovillage Farm Learning Center. Retrieved 10 March 2014. http://ecovillagefarm.org/
- S2CID 156269868.
- .
External links
- Media related to Sustainable communities at Wikimedia Commons