Creation Of Sustainable Communities Research Articles

The Impact of Cultural and Economic Factors on Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Development Goals

Objective: Understanding the role of social entrepreneurship in supporting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) while addressing complex social issues and promoting responsible resource use.
 
 Method: Analyzing the impact and characteristics of social entrepreneurship in relation to SDGs, considering its focus on neglected regions, eco-friendly products, and balancing financial returns with social objectives.
 
 Result: Social entrepreneurship plays a crucial role in addressing social and environmental challenges such as poverty, inequality, climate change, and environmental degradation. It leads to economic development, improved access to goods and services, and the creation of sustainable communities.
 
 Conclusion: Social entrepreneurship aligned with SDGs offers innovative solutions to intricate social problems while contributing to economic growth. By balancing financial viability and social impact, these ventures attract investors and generate positive changes in society and the environment. This approach enables the growth of self-sustaining enterprises that can lead to lasting improvements in various domains.

Comparative Review of Neighborhood Sustainability Assessment Tools

The paper aims to evaluate criteria for appraising the existing urban transformation projects in view of the social dimension of sustainability. Within the case study of the recovery project of “G. Prandina” barrack in Padua, north-east of Italy, the paper compares two different Italian rating systems to evaluate neighborhood sustainability: “GBC Quartieri” and “ITACA Scala Urbana”. The GBC Quartieri rating system, with a point scheme, allots credits for neighborhood design features, and integrates the environment, infrastructures, and buildings for the creation of sustainable communities with a relationship net and a pre-existence connection. The “ITACA Scala Urbana” procedure consists of a multicriteria evaluation of the environmental sustainability and the compilation of a group of worksheets, one for each different internal performance indicator. The results show the main differences and analogies among the different tools, and this analysis confirms that new neighborhood protocols originating from building rating systems dedicate little space to social aspects and to the concept of inclusion, instead of the newly developed neighborhood protocols. Through this examination, the research can also conclude that the identification of common macro-areas is present, which highlights the different levels of importance given to the various features connected to social sustainability in neighborhood transformation.

Strengthening and sustaining a community through reciprocal support between local businesses and the community

Purpose Community economic development (CED) focuses on the creation of sustainable communities. To that end, a reciprocal relationship that sustains the community and business alike can be created. However, little is known about the nature of informal interactions between residents and businesses that achieves that end. This study aims to explore the nature of these interactions and their contribution to CED within a rural context. Design/methodology/approach A case study approach was used with interviews with five rural entrepreneurs. Questions explored the nature of the support that they receive from their home community and their contributions back to it. Findings The results show that communities and businesses do not operate independently of each other, but rather are mutually supportive and contribute directly to the other’s objectives. These relationships are reinforced over time by a business owner’s direct involvement in the community, though this process takes time and effort. Research limitations/implications This study focuses on a limited geographical area in British Columbia with a small group of rural entrepreneurs. The results may not be generalizable to other contexts. Practical implications The results suggest concrete actions that both the rural entrepreneurs and their associated communities can take to be mutually supportive of each other to the benefit of each party alike. Originality/value This paper enlarges the understanding of the types of interactions, especially informal ones, that can support both businesses and the larger community in their efforts to sustain themselves and contribute to CED efforts.

Challenging the myths: An investigation of the barriers to wider use of Local Asset Backed Vehicles in the UK

With a shortage of debt funding, particularly for real estate investment and development, alongside public-sector funding cuts, the full effects of which are only just being felt, the need to explore alternative modes of regeneration financing has, arguably, never been so acute. When considering the public-sector real estate asset base, composed of operational assets, commercial estate and development land, a series of questions arise, mostly related to access to finance. Such questions are often prompted by concerns about refurbishment requirements and liabilities, financing of new developments, the creation of sustainable communities and the delivery of better estate management. How will these be funded in light of current budgetary and wider resource constraints? One option is Local Asset Backed Vehicles (LABVs) — limited liability, special purpose joint ventures, operating through Public–Private Partnership collaboration between a public body and a private company. This paper presents the findings of a research project that sought to identify essential success factors and investigate barriers preventing wider uptake of LABVs, first through a comprehensive review of the literature on LABVs that have operated in the UK over the last decade, and secondly, by capturing, through expert interviews, the perceptions and experiences of practitioners involved in such LABVs. The study sheds light on some of the myths surrounding LABVs and attempts to dispel some of the common misconceptions surrounding their procurement, operation and performance. The research ultimately sought to identify the key measures that are required to make LABVs a more viable tool for financing and facilitating investment in economic development, regeneration and renewal in the UK.

The Current Approach of Urban Design, its Implications for Sustainable Urban Development

Urban Design derived as a separate profession after the determinations of the 1956 international conference about the future of cities that took place in Harvard's Graduate School. City beautification was the fundamental purpose of urban design at the time it was introduced as a separate profession. Over time, the scope and objectives of the urban design have changed. Today Urban design plays a key role in the creation of sustainable communities in terms of the “triple bottom line,” that is the three dimensions of life–economic, e.g. well-paid jobs, social e.g. good schools and sports facilities and environmental e.g. clear air, clean rivers, beautiful places to live, work and play. So today urban design seeks to enhance the life of the city and its inhabitants in socio-economic & environmental terms.However the current approach to urban design is mainly top down, i.e., generally the architects or the planners design the urban environment and at the implementation stage the community may have some involvement. There are serious criticisms of this approach as it may not touch the “ground” community level and therefore there is a serious risk these projects will fail to create sustainable environments.The criticism is that the experts in development simply comply with requirements of funding agencies in the development and this top down process may alienate local community members and fail to capture locally significant factors. Through a re-examination of the literature on this topic this paper argues that a proper bottom up approach will help to achieve better performance against the sustainability indicators. It also explores the strengths and weaknesses in the classic top down approach to urban development which provides early high level planning solutions, whereas although a bottom-up approach can make more sense because the professionals have a strong base of understanding of the place with the help of effective participation from the concerned stakeholders it takes more time and commitment from all parties involved. Therefore this paper explores the gap between the current top down approach and a bottom up approach in urban design towards the creation sustainable urban environments.

Stewardship of the Built Environment in England: Lessons for Developing Sustainable Communities

This paper explores the role of stewardship in developing sustainable communities. It begins with a discussion of historical examples of landowners taking a long-term view of the development and management of the built environment, and contrasts these with the short-term view of development taken by the contemporary UK housebuilding industry. It then presents a case study of contemporary private-sector stewardship, which is seen as an example of best practice in the creation of sustainable communities, and explores the strengths and weaknesses of this approach. The paper concludes with a discussion of the potential of private-sector-led stewardship to produce high-quality development and its lessons for creating sustainable communities.

Social housing regeneration in Dublin: market-based regeneration and the creation of sustainable communities

A number of social housing flat complexes in the inner city of Dublin have been selected to be demolished and redeveloped as mixed tenure neighbourhoods using public–private partnership mechanisms. Driven in part by an economic rationale, this policy also seeks to regenerate these estates as mixed or integrated communities, with the assumption being that the existing estates are exemplars of unsustainable communities. This article analyses the rationales used to regenerate these areas, in particular focussing on the emerging central government policy of developing sustainable communities. The article argues that delivering a sustainable community is neither a straightforward nor an easy process, particularly for the residents of the social housing estates being regenerated. In seeking to develop mixed and balanced communities through this market-based method, the existing social housing tenants are faced with a complex series of negotiations with regard to the physical and social regeneration of their estates. The article, using ongoing research, analyses the ways in which the existing communities have to negotiate the process of regeneration and the risks that are inherent in a market-led model of regeneration.

Social Housing Regeneration and the Creation of Sustainable Communities in Dublin

In the past decade many social housing flat (apartment) complexes in Dublin have undergone some form of regeneration, from minor refurbishment to complete demolition and redevelopment. The context and impetus for such widespread regeneration has been the political articulation that social housing in Ireland, and especially in Dublin, is dysfunctional and unsustainable. It is contended, primarily on the basis of tenure mix arguments, that regeneration will lead to longterm social and environmental sustainability. Consequently, a number of inner city social housing complexes are currently subject to regeneration that involves their demolition and redevelopment as mixed-tenure estates through Public-Private Partnership (PPP) methods. This represents a new social and economic model of regeneration, albeit one which has generated considerable controversy. The process of regeneration has, for example, been criticised as lacking any meaningful community participation, with the mechanisms of the redevelopment process making it difficult for the community to influence the process. More generally, the creation of mixed tenure estates has been criticised as leading to a diminution of social housing in Dublin, as the social housing component in these estates has been significantly reduced. On the positive side, however, it has been argued that this model of social mixing will lead to sustainable regeneration. This paper, which is partly based on ongoing research of some case study estates in Dublin, examines and reflects on the issues of sustainable regeneration and the creation of sustainable communities.

Securing Sustainable Communities

During the 2000s spatial and urban policy in the UK has become increasingly concerned with the creation of sustainable communities. The urban renaissance's focus on security through design has been replaced by new, more holistic discourses which emphasize `community safety' and the ways in which the planning process can be reformed in order to achieve this. The new emphasis is on the responsibilization of neighbourhood communities with the police becoming more `citizen-focused' in the design and implementation of their strategies. This article examines the shift towards sustainable community building and assesses its implications for the policing and securitization of places. It argues that a paradox lies at the heart of the government's new agendas. On the one hand, they promote community balance, mix and diversity as a vehicle for the creation of more functional and less crime-ridden places. On the other hand, they simultaneously identify diversity as a threat to community safety. Security policy, the article argues, has therefore become focused on the deployment of new types of relational citizenship, based on top-down conceptions of whose presence or absence is required to make a community sustainable. In this context `sustainability' is being used as a discursive cover for a series of potentially repressive and counter-productive policy measures. Rather than increasing a sense of security within newly built and regenerated places, the new focus of policy may encourage the formation of new governmentalities of insecurity and fear.

An educational experiment to address infrastructure needs

Over recent years, it has become clear that engineering of the built environment is more than designing structures and infrastructure that satisfy codified values of resistances and loads. The creation of sustainable communities that enhance current and future standards of living is an outcome of tradeoff analyses that reflect economic, scientific and social decisions. Advances in analytical models and computational capabilities in the last decade have enabled concepts of probabilistic performance-based design, risk analysis and sustainability to become part of the research lexicon and will soon be a physical reality. This paper describes a new graduate programme and consortium at the University of Colorado at Boulder that attempt to address the need for broadly educated engineers who are familiar with the range of issues of future infrastructure design while working within the constraints of current engineering practice requirements. This paper presents the motivation, objectives, core areas of knowledge, and the initial outcomes of this formative programme.