Education for Sustainable Living, Environmental Respect, and Celebrating the Quality of Life.

Sustainable Communities

        For a long time, I never really understood the meaning of community development.  I thought that it was about efforts to build business opportunities, infrastructure, and growing a community.   Then, I had the opportunity to live for five months in Panicale Italy, a very small town (commune) in Umbria.  Community development in Panicale was all about preserving what was beautiful about the community, helping people who were in need, creating beauty, and enjoying time with one another.   In great part, their approach to community inspired me to want to do the work for this class. 

 Steps to Get There

        A likely first step toward building a sustainable community is to learn

        The next logical step is to spend time on foot or on a bike in your town.  Get to know your town;  find out where there are open spaces and trails, study your parks, learn more about your town's assets.   Then, you should  study your town's comprehensive plan to determine what may be in store as far as changes for the future.

          Another step would be to really think about what community characteristics you like about your town and what you dislike.  What qualities would make your town be a better place to live? Are there changes that could come to your town that would cause you great concern?  This process was one of the key components of a conference held at the University of Southern Maine; conference participants went through a process of determining qualities of a sustainable community.  We also did this activity in the ESP course.  Click here to see a summary of the findings.  

Important Sustainable Community / Sustainable Development Links

Maine State Planning Organization: http://www.state.me.us/spo/landuse/resources/sprawl.php

The Clinton administration's Council on Sustainable Development http://clinton4.nara.gov/PCSD/

Maine Development Foundation:  http://www.mdf.org/mdf/index.html

Sustainable Communities Movement:  http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR855/mr855.ch2.html#h1

Linking Sustainable Community Activities to Pollution Prevention:
A Sourcebook:  Beth Lachman  http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR855/

Communities by Choice:  http://www.communitiesbychoice.org/

Smart Growth Online:  http://www.smartgrowth.org/Default.asp?res=1024

EEEEE.net  http://eeeee.net/what_is_sd.htm

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Last Modified: 09/13/2006
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