Books

As Canadians, we are faced with a choice: do we continue to allow communities to merely survive or can we help them to thrive? Dr. Ann Dale has dedicated her life to studying Canadian communities and how they can transition towards more sustainable development paths. Since publishing her book At the Edge over fifteen years ago, her new book chronicles the various options that Canadians have to step back and actively implement sustainable community development practices. But what factors are stopping Canadian communities? How can a single 'story' dominate our development? What are the barriers and drivers and how do we reconcile competing agendas, and vested interests against changing the single story?

Community Vitality: From Adaptation to Transformation explores key themes related to what makes a community vital while illuminating the importance of the concept in order to inspire and guide critical shifts towards thriving, resilient and sustainable communities.

Popularizing Research describes methods of communicating research ideas by utilizing more that the traditional publications approach. The book is divided into nine parts: film, visual media and graphics, exhibits and installations, audio, periodicals, books and reports, dialogue, performance, and publicity.  Each chapter is written through a unique voice and set of experiences; however, common elements are seen throughout the volume as to why an approach to communicating research was designed or selected.

A corresponding webpage has been created and released with the book.

Innovation, Science, Environment includes reflections from a number of Canada's leading sustainable development thinkers, two decades after the 1987 publication of the seminal United Nations report Our Common Future. Published by the World Commission on Environment and Development - and often referred to as the Brundtland Commission Report after its Chair Gro Harlem Brundtland former Prime Minister of Norway - the report popularized the concept of sustainable development which continues to influence economic, environmental, and social policy decisions and structures in individual countries and international organizations. 

Available from McGill - Queen's University Press

The aim of this volume is to provide a coherent set of chapters that address major issues in resource and environmental management. The book has a North American focus with significant, but not exclusive Canadian Content. 'Integration' is the organizing theme of the volume. Integration as a concept (meaning variously integration across disciplines, across agencies, and across sectors) has been a key theme in the policy and management rhetoric of virtually every agency in North America and abroad for more than 30 years. As one of the dominant themes of the discipline, integration has been addressed both as a component and as the main focus of a variety of texts for this course. However, there is nothing on the market at the moment that is both up-to-date and North American in approach.

Book Available From: Oxford University Press 

Looking at case studies in both Australia and Canada, it draws upon lessons that can be learned to reconnect large urban centres and smaller communities.

Available from UBC Press

Urban Sustainability: Reconnecting Space and Place brings together researchers and practitioners from across North America in an interdisciplinary exploration of the governance challenges and opportunities that face city planners. The book highlights the importance of collaborative partnerships and engagement processes when engaging in sustainable urban planning and development, and contributors to the book provide insights on how issues that affect sustainbility can be reconciled through such processes.

Available here from the University of Toronto Press.