Urban Social Sustainability Research Articles

Urban Social Identity and Sustainability

One of the most recent fields of investigation in environmental psychology focuses on the relationship between human behavior and management of environmental resources, aspects related to what is known today as sustainable human development. For the authors, this kind of behavior is linked to the relation that people establish with particular environments, specifically, the processes of socioenvironmental identity that condition the people-environment relationship. The authors present the results of a study conducted in the Olympic Village of Barcelona. The urban social identity of residents was analyzed, focusing on three main factors: identification-satisfaction, image of the neighborhood, and perceived social homogeneity. These three factors were analyzed in relation to a series of items in the initial questionnaire referring to proenvironmental behavior, representation of particular natural resources, and environmental attitudes. The authors expected the answers to these questions would differ significantly according to the degree of identification of residents with their neighborhood.

Urban social sustainability: The planning of an Australian city

The debate on urban sustainability has mainly focused on environmental and economic factors, often neglecting the vital social aspect and an evaluation of the role of urban planning. This article attempts to redress this deficiency by examining the influence of urban planning on the level of urban social sustainability, using the planning of the central area of Perth, Western Australia, as a case study. First, a conceptual framework is developed, delineating three key dimensions of urban social sustainability: equity, community and urbanity. The framework is then applied to the case study, showing that under the web of past and existing local and metropolitan planning policies, Perth's central area has not been able to sustain its social value for Perth's metropolitan community. This deficiency has been partially due to the failure of urban planning to enhance equity, community and urbanity in guiding the development of central Perth.