Achieving Sustainable Communities

• Author: A.E. Luloff, Jeffrey C. Bridger, and Mark A. Brennan
• Pages: 393-416

Chapter 23

Achieving Sustainable Communities1

by A.E. Luloff, Jeffrey C. Bridger,

and Mark A. Brennan

I. Introduction

Environmentalists have long warned that our current patterns of economic

growth and resource consumption so severely threaten the earth’s carrying

capacity that ecological collapse is likely, if not inevitable. Traditionally,

there have been two arguments against this view. First, there are those who

deny that we are at a crisis point and claim that the alarmist rhetoric used by

the environmental movement is not based on firm scientific facts. The sec-

ond criticism, decidedly economic in tone, holds that high costs of environ-

mental protection place too heavy a burden on business and industry and sti-

fle economic growth.

While both positions still find their way into policy debates, they have

been undermined in recent years by a number of developments, not the least

of which include well-publicized environmental disasters and successful po-

litical mobilization by environmental groups. There is now widespread rec-

ognition that human actions threaten the long-term health of the biosphere.

This shift in attitudes—among both the public and policymakers—has

opened the way for new approaches to meeting the pressing resource needs

of a rapidly growing population while minimizing environmental damage.

During the 1980s, the concept of sustainable development emerged as a

popular solution to this thorny problem. Rather than pitting economic

growth against environmental protection in a zero sum game, proponents of

sustainability have shifted the terms of debate by focusing on “development

that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of fu-

393

1. Portions of this chapter borrow extensively from Jeffrey C. Bridger & A.E.

Luloff, Toward an Interactional Approach to Sustainable Community Devel-

opment,15J. Rural Stud. 377 (1999) and Jeffrey C. Bridger & A.E. Luloff,

Building the Sustainable Community: Is Social Capital the Answer?,71Soc.

Inquiry 458 (2001).

ture generations to meet their own needs.”2The vagueness of this definition

contributed to its growing popularity with international development agen-

cies, government policymakers, academics, and environmental activists. As

Sharachchandra Lele and David Korten have observed, sustainability has

become a standard component of most development rhetoric.3Even when

economic growth is the primary goal, at least a passing nod is given to the is-

sue of environmental sustainability.4

The concept of sustainable development (also, sustainable community

development) emerged as an issue in the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio.5There,

proposals to advance interests such as biodiversity conservation and control

of greenhouse emissions were met with skepticism by many nations of the

south. They believed that their economic development would be under-

mined if such proposals were implemented. The concept of sustainable de-

velopment was incorporated into the treaties that emerged from the Earth

Summit to reconcile tensions between desires for economic development

and environmental protection. Thus, while Article VIII of the Convention on

Biological Diversity calls for the creation of bioreserves, regulation of re-

sources to preserve biodiversity, and promotion of protection of ecosystems

and habitats, it also calls for sustainable development around preserves by

requiring each participant to:

Promote environmentally sound and sustainable development in areas adja-

cent to protected areas with a view to furthering protection of these areas.6

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Biodiversity Conservation Handbook

2. World Commission on Environment & Development (WCED), Our

Common Future 43 (Oxford Univ. Press 1987) [hereinafter WCED].

3. Sharachchandra M. Lele, Sustainable Development: A Critical Review,19

World Dev. 607 (1991); David C. Korten, Sustainable Development,9

World Pol’y J. 157 (1992).

4. Korten, supra note 3. This point is exemplified by an Executive Order issued

by Gov. Edward G. Rendell (D-Pa.) establishing an Economic Development

Committee of the Cabinet. Pa. Exec. Order No. 2004-9 (June 15, 2004). That

order recognized that a successful economic development must be sustainable,

contributing lasting economic benefits, increased social well-being, a healthy

environment, and an improved quality of life for Pennsylvania’s people and

communities, and included provisions incorporating consideration of environ-

mental and social goals.

5. United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), Rio

de Janeiro, Brazil, June 3-14, 1992.

6. Convention on Biological Diversity of the United Nations Conference on the

Environment and Development, art. VIII, opened for signature June 5, 1992,

U.N. Doc. DPI/1307, reprinted in 31 I.L.M. 818 (1992), available at

http://www.biodiv.org/convention/articles.asp (last visited May 25, 2005).

For discussion of the convention, see supra Chapters 3 and 4.