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Sustainable CommunitiesThe phrase ‘sustainable communities’ has many meanings. Some people want to design and even build their own community; others want to change where they are. This site looks mostly at the latter. The phrase ‘sustainable communities’ was used through much of the 1990s by organisations working on and around Local Agenda 21. But in February 2003 the Deputy Prime Minister (of the UK) launched their ‘Communities Plan known as “Sustainable Communities: Building for the future”. Since then the phrase has been used almost entirely by planners and regeneration agencies. For more details see www.odpm.gov.uk. The Government Plan sets out “a long-term programme of action for delivering sustainable communities in both urban and rural areas”. It focuses mostly on housing supply issues in the South East and on low demand in other parts of the country, and the quality of public spaces. It is a £22 billion programme of action that aims to “co-ordinate the efforts of all levels of Government and stakeholders in bringing about development that meets the economic, social and environmental needs of future generations as well as succeeding now”. The reason why so many people are concerned about it is that the delivery of this plan appears to be regeneration as usual. Some of the work is good, some of it is poor quality and unsustainable: there seems to be very little decent evaluation. It is fair to ask:
In addition, in January 2005 a report from the Environmental Audit Committee of the House of Commons criticised the plan in detail, saying that the Government is failing to incorporate its own rhetoric on sustainable development into housing policy, leaving the environment as a “bolt-on” extra. The phrase is in danger of becoming nothing more than a ‘buzz-phrase and in doing so may turn people off sustainable development. This is unfortunate since if sustainable development is going to work in the UK, then far more work has to be done with local communities. There is good work being done to integrate local and national action on poverty, justice, racism and health with an environmental agenda that accepts that we need to challenge western over-consumption to have any chance of building a genuinely sustainable future, but describing this as ‘sustainable communities’ in the UK won’t work too well at present. The best link in to the more positive side of grass roots work on sustainable communities is through the e-zine Chebang. As well as being a newsletter this links to to a site of ‘sustainability for citizens and communities’. The Feb. 2005 edition includes an article highlighting the criticism of the Sustainable Communities Plan by the EAC. There’s plenty of good work elsewhere. In the USA there is a good Sustainable Communities Network website which “connects citizens with the resources they need to implement innovative processes and programs”. On the community side, much good work is done by The Community Development Foundation (CDF), a national body with over thirty years experience of work on supporting, developing and strengthening communities, and on advising government on policy issues. Publications I have worked on for CDF include:
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