Sustainable Futures

Environmental sustainability is now well recognized, though social sustainability – finding ways to make places work for people, that are inclusive and cohesive, and adaptable in the face of changing circumstances – is a new challenge.

There is strong evidence about the relationship between the quality of our local social relationships – the people we pass time with on the street, whether we can call on neighbors for help when we are ill – and how happy we are with where we live. The work that is needed to support this is the small scale, efforts of community development workers and local neighbourhood groups. However, this work is vulnerable to cuts in public spending, though corner cutting can have a stark long-term negative impact; the financial and social costs of neighbourhood failure are high and include raised levels of crime, unemployment and mental health problems...