Sustainable Communities

On February the 5th 2003 the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, presented the Sustainable Communities Plan (Sustainable Communities: Building for the future). It was designed as a long-term program for “Delivering sustainable communities in both urban and rural areas. It aims to tackle housing supply issues in the South East, low demand in other parts of the country, and the quality of our public spaces.”

The Definition of a sustainable community is: “A community which uses its resources to meet current needs while ensuring that adequate resources are available for future generations. Such a community seeks improved public health and better quality of life for all its residents by limiting waste, preventing pollution, maximizing conservation and promoting efficiency, and developing local resources to enhance the local economy.” The Sustainable Communities Plan (SCP) aims to deal with housing issues, both high demand in the South East and low demand in other areas, and will also aim to improve the quality of public spaces.

I currently live in a small hamlet in South Norfolk, about 6 miles away from the nearest town. My 'Super Output Area' is 014A (South Norfolk).

Facts and Figures:

• Population of 1,173 (Of which 590 are Male, and 583 are Female).
• Population Density (people per hectare) is 0.52.
• Percentage of economically active, full-time employees 34.47%.
• 481 Households.
• 79.38% view themselves as Christian, with 0 Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim or Sikh. The remaining percentage (20.61) are either not religious or there is no data.
• The super output area is 22,451.49 square meters. 94.3% of which is green space, and 2.5% is viewed as domestic gardens.

Although these figures may be true for my SOA, it does not mean they are true for the community I see myself living in. The SOA is a very large area, at nearly 22,500 square meters, and on the map my hamlet is not even one twentieth of the section. This means the data may not be true for my immediate surroundings, and could be effected by a larger village or an edge of a town. I don't live near a pub, shop, post office or school. The nearest pub is 4 miles away on a main road, opposite the nearest primary school. The nearest Post office and shop is 6 miles away in the nearest town. The only amenities are a village hall, and a church, both of which are kept locked.

Going back to the definition of a sustainable community, the main points of the definition were "limiting waste, preventing pollution, maximizing conservation and promoting efficiency, and developing local resources to enhance the local economy." This is a bit of a problem, because each time a resident needs to visit the post office, or needs a loaf of bread, they must drive to the nearest town, as public transport is very rare and unreliable. This is not preventing pollution or promoting efficiency. Not only do we not have a local shop, the nearest town has 3 major supermarkets within 200m of each other, driving away local businesses and smaller shops. This is not helping to enhance the local economy. A farm shop selling locally produced fruit, vegetables, cheeses, meats and gifts had to close recently because residents bought all their shopping in one go at the supermarket, rather than getting locally produced items, sometimes working out as a cheaper option. Buying imported fruit and veg, rather than local, is not developing local resources.

House prices are relatively high which leads to more elderly people buying a house to retire to, or second home owners able to afford a 'weekend house'. If there was a local shop the residents would use it and promote local services, and hence be a more sustainable community.

As Julia Goldsworthy mentions in the video, if a village is full of second homes "the community dies, the school closes, the post office closes and there's nothing that can be done about it." For a sustainable community to be successful it has to be just that; a community.

Marshall McCluhan once said: "There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew." We ALL have to involve ourselves or have an input for something to happen, which is also true at a more local level, for a sustainable community. For the community to be sustainable, the whole community must be a part of it. If the majority of the houses are second homes, or belong to people that are unable to participate, the community will not be as sustainable as it could be. If only a few houses reduce their waste output then it doesn't make much of a difference, but if all of the houses reduce it then the difference is noticeable.

Education for Sustainable Development

‘Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable – to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’

Our Common Future (The Brundtland Report) – Report of the 1987 World Commission on Environment and Development

The United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005–2014) was initiated at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, where everybody present agreed that sustainable development was nothing more than an interesting idea without education.

Education is a crucial tool for achieving sustainability. Most people would agree that the current economic trends are not sustainable and public awareness, education, and training are key to moving society nearer to being sustainable. Beyond this there is very little agreement. Is the meaning of sustainable development within reach? What do sustainable societies look like? How will they function? Why has the government not developed sustainability in schools? The amount of disagreement has handicapped efforts to move education of sustainable development forward.

‘Education for sustainable development is a life-wide and life-long learning endeavour which challenges individuals, institutions and societies to view tomorrow as a day that belongs to all of us, or it will not belong to anyone.’ (UNESCO, 2004:9)

An important distinction must be made. There is a difference between education about sustainable development and education for sustainable development. Education about… provides an awareness, whereas education for… is the use of education as a tool to achieve sustainability. The second is the type of education the government wish to use.

Sustainable development is difficult to define. What makes it harder is the fact that it is also continually evolving. One of the first descriptions of sustainable development was created for the Brundtland Commission and states:

"Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987, p 43).

The general thought is that sustainable development has three components: environment, society, and economy. The well-being of these three areas are linked, not separate.

It’s interesting that while we have such a problem defining sustainability, we can easily identify un-sustainability. We can make lists of unsustainable activities; inefficient use of energy, lack of water conservation, overuse of transportation, high amounts of consumerism… But we should not condemn ourselves over our inability to define sustainability; we should work around the problem.

Haigh (2005) stated that Geography was the best subject to teach a module in sustainable development. To a certain extent it is a good idea, as it involves major aspects of geography such as three main ones; environment, society and economy. These three aspects all draw upon traditional geographical techniques. However, sustainable development is such a large subject it draws on other subjects other than just geography and, in my opinion, needs to be a subject of its own, as citizenship now is.

References and Extra Reading:

• Haigh, M., (2005), Geography and the 'European Year of Citizenship through Education. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 29, 173-182.
• Some Definitions of Sustainable Development
• Sustainable Development in Government
• A quite simple Encyclopedia of Sustainability
  
  
  

  
  

As an extra, am I the only one who noticed Greg's "deliberate" mistake on the blogpromt?
"The decade 2105-2104 is the..." Surely not!

The Recession - Is it all bad?

We all know the economy is in trouble. It is getting ugly and it probably will get a lot worse.

I, along with a lot of people I know, have always been quite sensible with money; being a student compounds this and I only buy things I know I can afford. For example, when I'm at home I drive a Nissan Micra; not the best of cars, but certainly not the worst, and it's perfect for what I use it for. It is used as a "run around" in towns and cities, I don't normally need to drive on a motorway, or at high speeds. It is economical, averaging out at over 40mpg, and the maintenance bills are relatively low. By doing this I am not spending excessive amounts on my car. It seems other people have started thinking the same way now, with new car sales seeing the biggest drop since 1991.

But is the impact of the recession as bad as people are making out? There is one positive effect appearing from the doom and gloom - people are being forced to think about the sustainability of their actions.

People are realising that they can positively contribute to the world around them, as well as make a living, rather than buy into a life full of status symbols, at great cost, that mean nothing to anyone but themselves, it can indirectly benefit everybody else.

Fuel prices still remain high, so people are being more economical with their driving, by driving more cautiously and driving less, therefore reducing the amount of congestion, pollution etc. People are down grading their "Chelsea tractors" for smaller economical cars, scooters and bikes,or using public transport or walking/biking (a positive effect, as people will be getting healthy).

Another positive effect is that people are thinking about turning down heating or using less electricity, gas or other fuels, to save money, all contributing to sustainability. All new houses have a code which the developers must follow to make the houses as sustainable as possible within reason. Hopefully many of these will be available to first time buyers, as the housing market may become more accessible due to the recession.

Maybe facing the reality of the recession will make people reassess their priorities. And surely the fact that people are thinking more about their actions and consequences means something positive has come out of this crunch.