What It Takes Create A Sustainable Community?

Most importantly, he asserts that awareness and recognition are key factors to motivate change. At the individual level, this can be achieved through self-study of resources available online or through television programs, radio broadcasts, articles, or books. This might include researching things like food production or sustainable agricultural practices. At the community level, this can be achieved through urban gardening projects or famer’s markets, and a greater demand for low-tech solutions, such as public transit, biking routes or community walks. Additionally, with regards to the market system, we can demand things like food and clothing labels that provide more information about our consumptive choices and the people and places they affect. Economic equality is something Worthy also considers paramount in creating collective ecological change, namely because many potential solutions are not available to developing countries or impoverished individuals. Therefore, this book is largely directed at modern, ‘western’ societies, in the hopes that they can spearhead a movement which might positively reverberate on a global scale. As citizens of Kelowna and Canada, we compose a portion of this intended audience, and therefore we compose a part of the impending solutions described here. Worthy also cites the importance of public education, and informing students of the relationship between ecology, human activity, industry, and local environments. This is relevant for us as Geography 213 students, and more broadly as part of a student community, because we can participate directly in acquiring a greater understanding of the environment and serve to instill positive change. These things will all help contribute to a greater understanding of the environment and how we relate to the environment on a local and global scale. All in all,

Urban sustainability is the idea that an urban area can be organised without excessive reliance on the surrounding countryside and be able to power itself with renewable sources of energy. The aim of this is to create the smallest possible environmental footprint and to produce the lowest quantity of pollution possible, to efficiently use land, compost used materials, recycle it or convert waste-to-energy, and to make the urban area overall contribution to climate change minimal. Therefore allowing the next generations and future generations to have the required resources without compromising them. However sustainably needs to focus also on other issues such as crime and economic factors.

The Sustainable Communities Index is a system of indicators for livable, equitable and prosperous cities. It is

Overcrowding is where too many people are in the same area. This can cause diseases like colds to spread because of cross infection.

“Many current discussions about sustainability focus on the ways in which human activity...can be maintained in the future without exhausting all of our current resources… there has been a close correlation between the growth of human society and environmental degradation - as communities grow, the environment often declines” (603).

Overrapid urbanization brought undesirable byproducts such as slums, feeble street lighting, bad policing, and poor garbage disposal

(2) In fact, the environment may be to blame. Rapid urbanization and the development of suburbs may have developed a huge environmental impact on a global problem.

Another drawback lined to overcrowded cities is the smog that looms over the skies of cities such as Los Angeles, Denver, and Dallas. High population densities and over use of natural resources are responsible for this serious pollution. Pollution

The concept of Social Sustainability encompasses such topics as: social equity, livability, health equity, community development, social capital, social support, human rights, labor rights, social responsibility, social justice, cultural competence, community resilience, diplomacy, cooperation and human adaptation(Ghahramanpouri, Lamit& Sedaghatnia, 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(Spangenberg, & Omann, 2006).

The problem arises if urbanization is needed for people to have in their life. As people begin to evolve and technology becomes more advanced, the need for space is crucial, and urbanization for people becomes the best alternative for modern life to be stable. Focusing on the benefits only, people become blind from the impact other individuals who are in between urbanization struggle with. The people that are in between the construction of urbanization have no other choice but to accept it and move. Urbanization has become a problem in the life of low-income families, but people have to follow modern life in order to survive emotionally and financially. The benefits from urbanization are high for the economically stable families and those who

Rapid population growth and urbanization are the root of overpopulation which leads to lack in resources and disease. Urbanization is when too much of a population grows in an urban/city environment causing too many people in sharing in one small area. Thus, violence, crime and disorder accor.

The era of urbanization that started in 1920, and turned the nation into a suburban nation. This traditional urbanism has come to an end whit tendency to live in the city center in a walk able city, and that means more parks and public squares, better air quality and less noise, removing excessive car use and less parking. The downtown of the cities continued to grow population and with an economic base that is increasingly seen as a specialized process. The cities today are presented as huge masses of physical concrete, the air is no longer safe to respire and sometimes the air is so polluted that breathing is equivalent to smoking, the number of travelers who spend hours sitting in congested streets and highways increases frustration levels as much as pollution, long and

A sustainable city is when harmony is reached between the environment, economy and society. Environmentally, sustainable cities are ecologically friendly by using alternative sources of energy such as solar or wind power. Economically, governments should share a similar decision-making process with institutions and with the public by having a common belief in what should be done by improving sustainability. Sorensen, Marcotullio, and Grant (2004), find that a good decision making process consists of planning and control at the municipal and national political levels which would allow local level functions to become reinforced. Socially, sustainable cities are classless, meaning that there are no social divisions which serve as limits; leading to a more equal society. One of the many ideas would be using mixed housing to remove the class divisions between people. Also, city streets would be walkable, with businesses and services located at close proximity to promote a healthier lifestyle and serve as an alternative to using cars for transportation. The writers differ in their analysis when examining the approaches to improving sustainability in cities. This section will analyze four important ideas on how cities can become more sustainable.

An overcrowded area puts enormous pressure on the state for the provision of houses and other services. People in the urban areas end up being jobless because there is a lot of demand for jobs that is caused by this overpopulation. Even the rural areas suffer because there will be depopulation, people will move out leaving the place to the elders only. The rural areas will not be productive in anyway because people who are economically active have left, this means we may end up not having people who can bring changes in the rural areas or those who serve as role model to the upcoming generation.

Urbanization, which is becoming a buzzword during the last few decades, is enlarging at a booming speed. It is predicted that 93 percents urban growth will occur to the year 2020, in the developing world (Elliot J.A, 1999). Generally speaking, more than half of the people around the world have been moved to cities, which led to a series of “matters” connected with people’s life that changed in a dramatical way. In this period, sustainable development, another buzzword during the past few years, came into people’s view and gradually became the mainstream of society development. Its definition is to make the development continue in a long term, which means allowing appropriate economic growth and industrialization without