Why Sustainable?
The concept of sustainability is based on the premise that people and their communities are made up of social, economic, and environmental systems that are in constant interaction and that must be kept in harmony or balance if the community is to continue to function to the benefit of its inhabitants - now and in the future. A healthy, balanced region (or nation, or community, depending on the strength of one's magnifying glass) is one that can endure into the future, providing a decent way of life for all its members - it is a sustainable society. Sustainability is an ideal toward which to strive and against which to weigh proposed actions, plans, expenditures, and decisions. It is a way of looking at a community or a region in the broadest possible context, in both time and space.
Although it adopts a broad perspective, in practice the pursuit of sustainability is fundamentally a local endeavor because every community has different social, economic, and environmental needs and concerns. And in each community the quality, quantity, importance, and balance of those concerns is unique (and constantly changing). For that reason - and because the best mitigation efforts also tend to be locally based - we tend to speak of sustainability mostly in terms of local actions and decisions.
There are five principles of sustainability that can help a community (or region) ensure that its social, economic, and environmental systems are well integrated and will endure. We should remember that, although the list of principles is useful, each of them has the potential to overlap and inter-relate with some or all of the others. A community or region that wants to pursue sustainability will try to:
- Maintain and if possible, enhance its residents' quality of life;
- Enhance local economic vitality;
- Promote social and intergenerational equity;
- Maintain and if possible, enhance the quality of the environment;
- Use a consensus-building, participatory process when making decisions.
Sustainable Development in the Pioneer Valley
The development and promotion of a contemporary economic development strategy, specifically tailored to the Pioneer Valley's needs and characteristics, which works to ensure that:
- the region's natural environment continues to be healthy, vibrant and safe;
- the region's economy as well as its workforce remains strong, diverse and globally competitive;
and
- all the region's citizens regardless of race, age, income or education have ample opportunities to share in the substantial benefits derived from a quality environment and prosperous economy.
Principles of Sustainability and Some Options for Applying Them
- Maintain and enhance quality of life
- Make housing available/affordable/better
- Provide education opportunities
- Ensure mobility
- Provide health and other services
- Provide employment opportunities
- Provide for recreation
- Maintain safe/healthy environs
- Have opportunities for civic engagement
- Enhance Economic Vitality
- Support area redevelopment and revitalization
- Attract/retain businesses
- Attract/retain work force
- Rebuild for economic functionality
- Develop/redevelop recreational, historic, tourist attractions
- Ensure social and intergenerational equity
- Preserve/conserve natural, cultural and historic resources
- Adopt a longer-term focus for all planning
- Avoid/remedy disproportionate impacts on groups
- Consider future generations' quality of life
- Value diversity
- Preserve social connections in and among groups
- Enhance environmental quality
- Preserve/conserve/restore natural resources
- Protect open space
- Manage stormwater
- Prevent/remediate pollution
- Use a participatory process
Some Tools for Community Sustainability
- Local redevelopment authority
- Economic incentive
- Loans for businesses
- Housing authority
- Insurance
- Capital improvements
- Low interest subsidy loans
- Revolving loan funds
- Public investment
- Redistricting
- Subdivision regulations
- Building codes
- Special ordinances
- Tax incentives
- Transfer of development rights
- Easements
- Land purchase
- Voluntary agreements
- Planning
- Habitat protection
- Riparian buffers
- Filter strips and vegetative buffers
- Soil conservation and management
- Ecosystem restoration
- Zoning and rezoning
- Public education and awareness campaigns and events
- Special protection of critical facilities, utilities, and networks
- Preserve and create public spaces
- Limit public investment in hazardous areas
- Relocation out of hazardous areas
- Preservation of natural floodplain, coastal, wetland, and other functions
- Private-public partnerships and networks
- Ombudspersons
- Targeted workshops
- Community festivals and other activities
(much of this text was re-printed with permission from an article by Jacquelyn L. Monday in the Natural Hazards Informer, January 2002)