Sustainable community development: Integrating social and environmental sustainability for sustainable housing and communities
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Abstract
The concepts of sustainable development (SD) and sustainable communities (SC) are firmly on policy agendas. Conceptual clarity is essential for the selection of high-quality indicators to monitor progress in these important areas. However, there are mixed views about the nature of social sustainability (SS) and definitions of SC are limited. This paper addresses these deficiencies by presenting a new conceptualization of SS central to which is addressing basic human needs so that the criterion of sufficiency is met. Ensuring ‘sufficiency’ is crucial to ensure the provision of welfare within planetary boundaries, thereby firmly integrating the social and environmental in conceptualising and operationalising SS. The paper also presents a new definition and conceptualisation of SC in which social and environmental integration is critical. The paper proceeds with an illustration of how regeneration programmes targeting housing deprivation could simultaneously address many social and environmental problems and progress the implementation of the UNSDGs. 150