What do we mean by a Sustainable Community?
Creating sustainable communities means building an urban, suburban or rural community with housing and transportation choices near jobs, shops and schools, through a means that results in livable communities, builds our local economy, protects the environment, and spends the money we have more effectively.
What is a Sustainable Region?
A collection of cities, towns and counties that are joined together by a common geography, economics or other tangible characteristics that work together to create a region that:
–Has jobs that are tolerant of weak economies;
–Capitalizes on individual strengths;
resulting in a stronger more resilient region.
The Triple Line
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sustainability is the capacity to endure. In ecology, the word describes how biological systems remain diverse and productive over time. Long-lived and healthy wetlands and forests are examples of sustainable biological systems. For humans, sustainability is the potential for long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions.
Healthy ecosystems and environments provide vital goods and services to humans and other organisms. There are two major ways of reducing negative human impact and enhancing ecosystem services. The first is environmental management; this approach is based largely on information gained from earth science, environmental science, and conservation biology. The second approach is management of human consumption of resources, which is based largely on information gained from economics.
Sustainability interfaces with economics through the social and ecological consequences of economic activity. Sustainability economics involves ecological economics where social, cultural, health-related and monetary/financial aspects are integrated. Moving towards sustainability is also a social challenge that entails international and national law, urban planning and transport, local and individual lifestyles and ethical consumerism. Ways of living more sustainably can take many forms from reorganising living conditions (e.g., ecovillages, eco-municipalities and sustainable cities), reappraising economic sectors (permaculture, green building, sustainable agriculture), or work practices (sustainable architecture), using science to develop new technologies (green technologies, renewable energy), to adjustments in individual lifestyles that conserve natural resources.