Articles
Between Field and Table: Environmental Implications of Local Food Distribution
Edges, Patches and Human Diversity
In the natural world, the transfer of resources between landscape features such as the
corridors and patches that make up the mosaic of ecological niches is improved where those
Community vitality: The role of community-level resilience adaptation and innovation in sustainable development
Community level action towards sustainable development has emerged as a key scale of intervention in the effort to address our many serious environmental issues. This is hindered by the large-scale destruction of both urban neighbourhoods and rural villages in the second half of the twentieth century.
Facilitating trans-disciplinary research teams through on-line collaboration
A template for integrated community sustainability planning
This article describes a template for implementing an integrated community sustainability plan. The template emphasises community engagement and outlines the components of a basic framework for integrating ecological, social and economic dynamics in a community. The framework is a series of steps that support a sustainable community development process. While it reflects the Canadian experience, the tools and techniques have applied value for a range of environmental planning contexts around the world.
Social capital: A planner’s primer
Large footprints in a small world: toward a macroeconoics of scale
The question of scale has been of ongoing interest in the sustainable development discourse, particularly with regard to the size, geographical extent, and complexity of human systems. However, this consideration has not sufficiently informed the practical implementation of sustainable technologies and there remain echoes of historical debates over “small is beautiful” versus “bigger is better” that dominated environmentalism during the 1970s.
In praise of mundane nature
Green space, even very minor green space, reduces the feeling of crowding. [...] roadside plants have been found to calm drivers - and the more significant the greenery, the stronger the effect.
Does place matter? Sustainable community development in three Canadian communities
The creation of a sense of place has emerged as a goal of many community development initiatives. However, little thought has been given to the role of physical spaces in the shaping of possible senses of place. This article examines three Canadian examples of community sustainable development initiatives to demonstrate that sense of place can be shaped and constrained by the geographical and environmental features of the physical space a community occupies.
