Social Sustainability

• As a society, we make social investments and we have a "stock" of social and human resources. Economic development can either contribute to or deplete those social resources. Many would argue that the form of economic development championed by Thatcher and Reagan has been socially unsustainable, depleting human and social capital and resources in addition to the damage it has wrought to the natural environment.


• The concept of socially sustainable development including socially sustainable urban development 1992 has received less attention than the concept of environmentally sustainable development. What would constitute socially sustainable development?


• I would argue that it is development that it:
  - meets basic needs for food, shelter, education, work, income and safe living and working conditions;
  - is equitable, ensuring that the benefits of development are distributed fairly across society;
  - enhances, or at least does not impair, the physical, mental and social well-being of the population;
  - promotes education, creativity and the development of human potential for the whole population;
  - preserves our cultural and biological heritage, thus strengthening our sense of connectedness to our history and environment;
  - promotes conviviality, with people living together harmoniously and in mutual support of each other;
  - is democratic, promoting citizen participation and involvement, and is livable, linking "the form of the city's public places and city dwellers' social, emotional and physical well-being"


• The systems and processes that we put in place to achieve these ends can be thought of as the "soft infrastructure" of the community, a term used by Len Duhl, Professor of Public Health and Professor of Urban Planning at the University of California at Berkeley, to describe those elements of the community that contribute to social well-being. This "soft" infrastructure includes formal human services (health, education, social services, recreation and culture, etc.) as well as the community's informal structure the web of voluntary organizations and social relationships that comprise community. Urban planning needs to integrate these elements into all its work, giving as much weight to the soft infrastructure as to the hard infrastructure if we are going to create communities that work
  

::~ Urban Planning & Social Sustainability ~::

• The list of items that constitute the basis of a socially sustainable community suggests an "agenda" for urban planning. In planning the built environment, urban planners need to address issues of basic needs such as urban food production and availability; equitable access to work and education; urban design that enhances social interaction and participation; methods of reducing living costs, especially for low income groups, and other unaccustomed topics. The physical design of communities to promote social sustainability will be the subject of my next column.