Infrastructure choices play a central role in the creation and maintenance of communities that are sustainable, livable, and prosperous. The challenge is to engage with people and their diverse cultures, interests, visions, priorities and needs. One of the major reasons sustainable community development remains largely unresolved within municipalities is gridlock in the planning and implementation processes for decision-making. There are basic disconnections between federal, regional and local governments, between rural and urban communities, and between business and research communities. The challenge is to encourage widespread adoption of the infrastructure decisions being made by communities on the lead-edge of adoption of more sustainable infrastructure.

This series of e-dialogues will explore infrastructure choices in the five focus areas of the Sustainable Infrastructure project: energy, transportation, waste management, land use planning and governance. We will also hold a wrap-up dialogue that finds common ground from these five areas. These e-dialogues will involve experts from the field discussing the critical infrastructure choices necessary for sustainable community development and leading-edge North American examples of sustainable infrastructure development. Through these dialogues, we hope to develop an understanding of how current municipal decision-making may lead toward achievement of sustainability objectives. We hope you will join us in these vibrant discussions.

Royal Roads University
School of Environment and Sustainability
edialogues@royalroads.ca