Change and development are going on all around us. On both an international platform, as well as at the local governmental and community level, governments, decision and policy makers constantly strive to improve the world in which we live, seeking to make it better and to improve quality of life. This book focuses on such development in the context of localism in the UK. It strips the principle of local sustainability down to its constituent parts and considers the extent to which it can be said to be central to local life. As part of this, it presents the case for the importance of accountability and citizen participation in achieving objectives aligned with sustainability, and illustrates the relationships that these principles share. On this foundation, it evaluates local government in the UK, as well as examples of community-led regeneration initiatives and bodies, and seeks to determine both the nature of their pursuit of sustainability and the extent to which accountability and citizen participation play a part in that pursuit. It shows that local sustainability is enhanced by accountability and citizen participation; those principles ensuring that local people can be central to the process. Whilst its evaluations of local democratic systems in the UK reveal certain issues as regards the extent to which this is reflected in practice, it at least demonstrates an enthusiasm and awareness of the important role that accountability and citizen participation can play in the process of local sustainability. The book is aimed at legal academics, with relevance also to students in law, environmental politics and sustainable development, as well as those working in government policy and political practice.

Local government affects us all. Wherever we live, in towns, cities, villages, or the smallest of communities, there are locally elected councils tasked with representing people’s interests in the running of the local area. This involves, inter alia, providing public services, maintaining local spaces, and acting as a level of democratic governance within the broader constitutional and executive structure of the state. To fulfil these responsibilities, though, local government must be democratically legitimate; it must have at its disposal reasonable means and resources to function; and it must enjoy a healthy and balanced relationship with centralised government. This book explores and analyses the extent to which local government in the different parts of the United Kingdom is able to function effectively and democratically. It draws from local councillors’ views in analysing the state of local government under the current constitutional and governmental arrangements, discussing issues such as councils’ relationships with central government; citizen engagement; finance and public services; and the impact of recent reforms. It contrasts and compares the different approaches adopted in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, also setting out and discussing possible reforms of local government across the United Kingdom. While the focus is on the United Kingdom, the work includes a comparison with other relevant jurisdictions.

Shows how consumer society is changing due to demographic ageing, rising income inequality, political paralysis, resource scarcity, and steady jobs being replaced by freelancing. It examines how people are striving to find new ways to ensure livelihoods and the role that the role that worker-consumer cooperatives could play.

Cities are the most likely actors to design and bring about lasting sustainability. An agreement among the world’s larger cities is possible, and likely a necessary but insufficient condition to achieve sustainable development. Cities and Sustainability explores the ways in which cities are both the biggest threat to sustainability, and the most powerful tool to get us to sustainable development. Employing an innovative methodology to a complex issue, the book proposes new metrics and approaches that assume cities as fundamental in the search for sustainability. Providing population projections for the world’s larger cities and a hierarchy of sustainable cities, the author develops two new tools: (i) a cities approach to physical and socio-economic boundaries, and (ii) sustainability costs curves. These tools are designed to be implemented in a multi-stakeholder, integrated partnership that truly maximizes the benefits of cities in the quest for sustainability. Applying the tools outlined in the book to case studies from Dakar, Mumbai, Sao Paulo, Shanghai and Toronto, this volume will be of great relevance to students, scholars and practitioners with an interest in urban and city management, climate change, and environment and sustainability more broadly.

This book undertakes a critical appraisal of the concept of sustainable development in the European Union. In addition to existing issues of sustainability, it examines the development of a European "general principle" of sustainable development. This original, critical approach examines legal, political, and economic implications of the emergence of the principle and places the impact of such in local, national, intranational, and international contexts. While essentially focusing on the development of the principle, the discussion also includes a normative assessment of current policy and practice, and appraises European efforts in the light of international goals.

‘Transdisciplinarity’ is a form of research and practice that synthesises knowledge from a range of academic disciplines and from the community. There is now global interest and a significant body of work on transdisciplinarity and its potential to address the apparently intractable problems of society. This creates the opportunity for a specific focus on its practical application to sustainability issues. Transdisciplinary Research and Practice for Sustainability Outcomes examines the role of transdisciplinarity in the transformations needed for a sustainable world. After an historical overview of transdisciplinarity, Part I focuses on tools and frameworks to achieve sustainability outcomes in practice and Part II consolidates work by a number of scholars on supporting transdisciplinary researchers and practitioners. Part III is a series of case studies including several international examples that demonstrate the challenges and rewards of transdisciplinary work. The concluding chapter proposes a future research pathway for understanding the human factors that underpin successful transdisciplinary research. As Emeritus Professor Valerie Brown AO notes in her Preface, this book moves transdisciplinary inquiry into the academic and social mainstream. It will be of great interest to researchers and practitioners in the fields of sustainability, qualitative research methods, environmental impact assessment and development studies.

Sustainable communities raise questions about the compatibility of capitalism and environmentalism and how we can green our way of life in a capitalist economy that values short-term production and consumption over long-term conservation and simple living. If capitalism and its drive towards consumption has produced social and environmental degradation, is it the best medium to identify solutions? Sustainable Communities and Green Lifestyles examines one ecovillage as it attempts to create a sense of community while reducing its impact on the natural environment. Through extensive participant observation, the book demonstrates how ecovillages are immersed within a larger discourse of class, race, and lifestyle choices, highlighting the inseparability of environmental sustainability and social justice. Sustainable communities are confronted by the contradictions of green consumption and must address social inequality or risk focusing inward on personal green consumerism, creating mere green havens for the few who can afford to live in them. This book, cautious of redirecting environmentalist efforts away from structural solutions and onto personal environmentalism, offers a critical perspective on the challenges of an emerging green lifestyle. This book offers a critical perspective on the direction of US environmentalism and contributes to debates in environmental studies, anthropology, and urban planning.