Social Sustainability, Climate Resilience and Community-Based Urban Development

What About the People?

Cathy Baldwin, Robin King

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351103305
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Politique en matière d'environnement et d'énergie

Urban communities around the world face increased stress from natural disasters linked to climate change, and other urban pressures. They need to grow rapidly stronger in order to cope, adapt and flourish. Strong social networks and social cohesion can be more important for a community's resilience than the actual physical structures of a city. But how can urban planning and design support these critical collective social strengths?

This book offers blue sky thinking from the applied social and behavioural sciences, and urban planning. It looks at case studies from 14 countries around the world – including India, the USA, South Africa, Indonesia, the UK and New Zealand – focusing on initiatives for housing, public space and transport stops, and also natural disasters such as flooding and earthquakes. Building on these insights, the authors propose a 'gold standard': a socially aware planning process and policy recommendation for those drawing up city sustainability and climate change resilience strategies, and urban developers looking to build climate-proof infrastructure and spaces.

This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of urban studies, resilience studies and climate change policy, as well as policymakers and practitioners working in related fields.

1 Context and rationale

This book unites three major strands of cities research and policy of interest to governments, planners, designers, architects, social scientists and others: Urban Development, Social Sustainability and Community (Social)¹ Resilience, to the impacts of global warming and climate change. It explores the influence of urban planning, design and the development of urban built environments on residents’/users’ pro-community behaviours (including psychological states of mind) in 14 countries, through urban form and public participation. The psychological term ‘pro-community behaviours’ is defined as: ‘a broad category of acts that are beneficial to the community at large as well as to other community residents’ (Oishi et al., 2007: 831). Urban social networks of residents or ‘communities’ need to develop their capacity for pro-community action more urgently than ever due to climate change. Pro-community behaviours and psychological responses are at the root of the daily social sustainability of communities in ‘normal’ times, and their resilience to the negative impacts of unplanned adverse environmental events and natural disasters. The urban sector can contribute to the development of capacity for pro-community behaviours by creating built environments that encourage and support them. We use the term ‘socially aware planning’² to describe the intention to influence such behaviours and create positive social impacts via the development process, with the resulting product being a ‘socially planned built environment’.

Built environments planned with social awareness are imperative. The 3.5 billion people living in the world’s urban centres (Thwaites, 2015) face numerous pressures and challenges. Urban residents make up more than half the earth’s population (United Nations, n.d.) with 4.9 billion – about 60 per cent of total global population – expected to live in cities by 2030 (Global Commission on the Climate and Economy, 2014: 60; United Nations, 2005; WHO, n.d.). Astoundingly, 60 per cent of the area expected to be urban by 2030 – predominantly in Asia and Africa – has not been constructed yet (Thwaites, 2015). Rapid urbanisation due to economic growth and population expansion puts pressure on available land, urban infrastructure, and green space worldwide. It is occurring faster than governments or markets can provide safely located, adequate housing or public infrastructure for growing populations (United Nations, 2014). Longstanding and new tensions such as crime, violence and disease also threaten sustainable human habitations (Barata-Salgeuiro and Erkip, 2014; King and Rathi, 2010: 7; Lanzafame and Quartesan, 2009; World Bank, 2013: 145). The increasing frequency of climate change effects such as unpredictable rainfall patterns, sea-level rise, wider and less predictable temperature extremes, and more frequent and variable extreme weather events (World Bank, 2010) also puts city-dwellers, their communities and physical environments under increased pressure. This is especially true in low- to middle-income countries (IPCC, 2014), and those with large numbers of people in poverty who often live in the most vulnerable locations and structures (UN-HABITAT, 2010). Sub-standard housing and infrastructure sometimes pose risks to social capital and social cohesion. These social resources underpin the social sustainability and resilience of the social organisation of urban communities – how people think, behave and organise themselves collectively – and the unique social strengths and capacities of individual communities: the attributes that shape their collective capacity to respond resiliently to the effects of climate change and/or natural disasters (e.g. seismic). People worldwide need to maximise their capacity to cope with, and adapt to, these pressures.

Social capital describes the networks, norms, reciprocity and trust that form the ‘glue’ of human communities. Social cohesion is the ability of different socio-demographic groups to live peacefully together across differences. Both concepts encompass pro-community behaviours and psychological responses as either their composite dimensions or their outcomes. These behaviours can increase communities’ collective capacity, health, well-being and quality of life during routine life (‘social sustainability’) (Berkman, 2000; Ferlander, 2007). Simultaneously, these social resources contribute to community members’ ability to cope with, adapt to, and ‘bounce back’ (Holling, 1996) from unplanned negative environmental events by caring for each other and their built environments in a transformative way, to ensure a healthy and sustainable continuing existence (‘community resilience’). Socially planned built environments can nudge people towards adopting pro-community behaviours in routine life and during/after crises, to realise these goals.

It is well-established that the physical form and infrastructure of urban built environments and the social organisation of people are intimately connected. Built environments planned, designed, located, constructed and operated with social interaction in mind can positively influence levels of social capital and cohesion in urban networks through the relationships, social activities and cultural life that they support. Built environment structures used by millions of people – in particular housing, public areas such as squares and parks, and transport stops – are the most likely contenders for influencing pro-community behaviours, and their longer-term outcomes (referred to throughout as ‘pro-community outcomes’). We focus on these three types of structures throughout. Town squares and plazas, along with public parks, sometimes located adjacent to religious or municipal institutions, have provided such spaces historically. Other non-built environment factors – such as ‘individual predisposition, income, family situation, health, crime, culture’ (Kelly, 2012: 9) influence levels of social interaction. However, cities provide the backdrop for the interactions of diverse masses.

When residents and users of urban areas exhibit pro-community behaviours associated with social capital and cohesion, there can be positive effects for both individuals and communities. In turn, social capital and cohesion can influence a variety of longer-term macro- and micro-level outcomes in economic development, education, job seeking, democracy, governance, health, well-being, personal security, and climate change resilience.

Whilst the potential structural and economic implications of swift urbanisation and climate science are mainstream policy discussions,³ the social behavioural dimensions of urban social sustainability and resilience are not (Holden, 2012). These issues appear ‘softer’ yet harder to achieve, but they can be woven into urban planning, sustainability and resilience policies and strategies via socially aware planning. Sustainability and resilience – two high profile, buzz word concepts – are twins in efforts to prolong the resources and existence of cities for future generations, and their social components must be united in urban development research and policy. Without sustainable urban communities, there will be no human capital to create physically, economically and environmentally sustainable and resilient cities over time, by the very definition of sustainability.

Structure of the book

This study is an example of ‘blue sky’ conceptual thinking applied to a practical global problem. Its conceptual aim is to place the social sustainability of neighbourhood networks and their regular built environments on a continuum with their resilience to environmental adversities. The practical aim is to identify a set of pro-community behaviours open to planner and designer application and adaptation, and recommendations for the implementation of ‘socially planned built environments’. The book uses qualitative case studies to scrutinise how urban communities interact with the built environment at micro-level that quantitative approaches can overlook. It considers behaviours and psychological responses at the collective, or aggregated individual levels. The case studies offer a preliminary evidence base for those aiming to use metrics to monitor the social dimensions of urban social sustainability and resilience over time by showing dynamic development and behavioural contexts from which timely and relevant indicators may be devised.

We first review the concepts of social capital and social cohesion. We then establish urban social sustainability as a worthwhile endeavour underpinned by these concepts via: 1) policy-making, with case studies from Paraguay, Canada and Australia, and a multi-city perspective from UNESCO; and 2) the influence of neighbourhood-level urban planning, design, form and space on pro-community outcomes during periods of calm and environmental calamity. We use two pre-existing parallel theoretical frameworks devised by unconnected research teams: 1) ‘sustainability of community’ (Bramley and Power, 2009; Dempsey et al., 2009)⁴ and ‘fundamentals of neighbourhood resilience’ (Zautra, Hall, and Murray, 2008) that we adapted slightly to identify the behavioural and psychological dimensions of (1) social sustainability, and (2) community resilience. We show the relationship of each dimension to social capital and social cohesion.

We applied the ‘sustainability of community’ frameworks to eight of the case studies across public and private sectors, and community co-led building and/or regeneration projects in India (1), the UK (3), South Africa (2), New Zealand (1), and the USA (1). They address housing, public space and transport stops. Each had explicit socially aware planning goals, and urban form and public participation influenced existing and/or potential residents’ pro-community behaviours. These were, or may potentially be influenced by and during the envisioning, planning and design, and the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the development process. Collectively, the findings point to a four-stage ‘socially aware planning process’. Each case demonstrates approaches, tools and methods that urban practitioners can implement to create socially planned built environments that influence pro-community behaviours.

Six case studies from India (2), Indonesia (1), USA (1), New Zealand (1) and Bangladesh (1) were then compiled and analysed with the ‘fundamentals of neighbourhood resilience’ framework to demonstrate how under conditions of environmental calamity, these same and other similar behaviours enabled urban residents to cope with, and adapt to adverse impacts on their communities/built structures more or less well.

Drawing from our analyses, we offer a combined set of socially sustainable, resilient pro-community behaviours that urban development stakeholders should seek to influence. The study concludes with a preliminary action agenda of recommendations to adopt in policies, plans, programmes and projects for sustainability and resilience, emphasising processes and inclusion. This book exemplifies what social science and community development perspectives can offer, and illustrates innovative work occurring around the world. While this work is not exhaustive or representative, it provides important insights for urban development.

Notes

1 These terms are used interchangeably in the literature, see discussion in Chapter 5. We use the term ‘community resilience’ with our focus on neighbourhood communities. The term ‘urban development’ itself covers a wide range of literatures including architecture, economics, ecology, urban planning, and real estate.

2 The authors are aware of the lack of capacity for ‘socially aware planning’ in both the government and design professions, which demands a blend of social policy, social science and planning skills. Training and continuing education programmes as well as revisions of curricula in universities could help address these gaps.

3 The environmental, economic, physical and governance dimensions of sustainability and resilience are addressed by international organisations and programmes, various levels of government, NGOs, and academics at varying geographical scales. See, for example, United Nations Climate Summit of 2014; the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities Programme, the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, and the World Resources Institute.

4 These papers, co-authored by the same teams, covered these dimensions between them.

References

Barata-Salgeuiro, T and Erkip, F (2014) ‘Retail planning and urban resilience: an introduction to the special issue’, Cities 36: 107–111.

Berkman, LF (2000) ‘Social support, social networks, social cohesion and health’, Social Work in Health Care 31 (2): 3–14.

Bramley, G and Power, S (2009) ‘Urban form and social sustainability: the role of density and housing type’, Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 36: 30–48.

Dempsey, N, Bramley, G, Power, S and Brown, C (2009) ‘The social dimension of sustainable development: defining urban social sustainability’, Sustainable Development 19: 289–300.

Ferlander, S (2007) ‘The importance of different forms of social capital for health’, Acta Sociologa 50: 115–128.

Global Commission on the Economy and Climate (2014) Better Growth, Better Climate: New Climate Economy 2014 Report, Washington, DC: World Resources Institute, accessed on 22 December 2015 at: http://newclimateeconomy.report/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/NCE_GlobalReport.pdf

Holden, M (2012) ‘Urban policy engagement with social sustainability in Metro Vancouver’, Urban Studies 49: 527–542.

Holling, CS (1996) ‘Engineering resilience versus ecological resilience’, in: Schulze, P.C (ed) Engineering Within Ecological Constraints, Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 31–44.

IPCC (2014) Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Core Writing Team, R.K. Pachauri and L.A. Meyer (eds)], Geneva, Switzerland, accessed 30 November 2015 at: www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/

Kelly, J-F (2012) Social Cities, Melbourne: Grattan Institute, accessed on 22 December 2015 at: http://grattan.edu.au/report/social-cities/

King, R and Rathi, S (2010) ‘Urban Infrastructure and Climate Change in India: Constructing Environmentally Sustainable Cities’, background paper prepared for Report of High-Powered Committee on Urban Infrastructure, Isher Ahluwalia, chair. Delhi: National Institute of Urban Affairs.

Lanzafame, F and Quartesan, A (2009) Downtown Poverty, Methods of analysis and interventions – A sourcebook for practitioners, Inter-American Development Bank, Washington DC, accessed on 6 December 2015 at: www.iadb.org/intal/intalcdi/PE/2009/04190a01.pdf

Oishi, S, Sherman, GD, Rothman, AJ, Snyder, M, Su, J, Zehm, K, Hertel, A.W and Hope Gonzales, M (2007) ‘The socioecological model of procommunity action: the benefits of residential stability’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 95(3): 831–844.

Thwaites, T (2015) ‘UN Goals: Our citi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Endorsements
• Series Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Glossary of terms and definitions
• 1 Context and rationale
• 2 Spirit and methodology
• 3 Social sustainability in routine daily life
• 4 Social sustainability and urban development
• 5 Community resilience and environmental adversities
• 6 Creating built environments that influence pro-community behaviours
• 7 Built environments that influence socially sustainable behaviours
• 8 Socially sustainable communities can also be resilient communities
• 9 Findings and conclusion
• 10 Recommendations: Planning and designing for the socially sustainable, resilient community
• References
• Index