Social Sustainability

Sustainability issues are being expressed in scientific, environment, economic, and business terms, as well as in ethical terms of stewardship, but implementing change is a social challenge that entails, among other things, national and international law, urban planning and transport, local and individual lifestyles, and ethical consumerisms. The relationship between human rights and human development, corporate power and environmental justice, global poverty and citizen action suggests that responsible global citizenship is an inescapable element of what may at first glance seem to be simply matter of personal consumer and moral choice (Blewitt 2008).

According to the Western Australia Council of Social Services (WACOSS) (Sen 2013):

Social sustainability occurs when the formal and informal processes; systems; structures; and relationships actively support the capacity of current and future generations to create healthy and livable communities. Socially sustainable communities are equitable, diverse, connected and democratic and provide a good quality of life.

It has the following dimensions (Anand and Sen 1996):

• Equity – the community provides equitable opportunities and outcomes for all its members, particularly the poorest and most vulnerable members of the community
• Diversity – the community promotes and encourages diversity
• Interconnected/social cohesions – the community provides processes, systems, and structures that promote connectedness within and outside the community at the formal, informal, and institutional level
• Quality of life – the community ensures that basic needs are met and fosters a good quality of life for all members at the individual, group, and community level (e.g. health, housing, education, employment, safety)
• Democracy and governance – the community provides democratic processes and open and accountable governance structures.
• Maturity – the individual accepts the responsibility of consistent growth and improvement through broader social attributes (e.g. communication styles, behavioral patterns, indirect education, and philosophical explorations)

Figure 10.4 portrays the major pathways in building sustainable development in an emerging green economy in which the social sustainability is one of the essential components, along with the economical, ethical, environmental, efficient, and equitable 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, has received less attention than the concept of environmentally sustainable development (CPHA 1992). What would constitute socially sustainable development?

Some 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.