Defining Key Terms

1
Defining Key Terms

• Sustainability

2
Today

• More organizing schedule for 584 student
  classes
• Short lecture
• Reading assignment
• Project time (last half hour)

3
Applications Schedule

• 584 student-led classes Weeks 6-12 on Tuesdays
• You will need to have the reading list available
  for assignment by the prior Thursday

4
Assignment One Presentation Schedule

• January 29 and 31
• Four groups on 29, two on 31

5
Sustainability

• Concept Frameworks
• Intergenerational Equity (Ethics)
• Stock and Flow (Economics)
• Do No Harm (Environmental)

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Intergenerational Equity

• Brundtland Commission 1987 Our Common Future
• Sustainable development is development that
  meets the needs of present generations without
  compromising the ability of future generations to
  meet their own needs (WCED 1987)
• note the term needs

7
Stock and Flow

• Living off the Income not the Capital
• Neoclassical economics natural and ecological
  capital are substitutable
• Combining with intergenerational equity, you
  would have to leave a sum of capital equal or
  greater than the sum you started with
• note Money cant buy you Love (economic
  theory a la Beatles)

8
Do No Harm

• Precautionary Principle
• Err on the side of caution
• Consider consequences, in the face of
  uncertainty, act to minimize potential for
  catastrophic consequences
• Limited substitutability of natural capital with
  ecological capital
• Again, see the Beatles economic theory

9
Decentralization of Authority

• subsidiarity principle
• Decisions should be made at the lowest
  appropriate level
• Decentralization ?
• More expertise, more democracy
• Centralization ?
• Less democracy, less specific expertise

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Sustaining the Peat Bogs

• Perhaps there is some substance to the
  neoclassical economic claim that there is more
  resource substitutability than we might know at
  any given time
• but how would we know?
• What are the variables?

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Issues in Sustainability

• Different frameworks different articulation of
  goals
• Different goals different measures
• Areas of consonance/disagreement?

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Implications for Neighborhoods

• Design with respect for ecosystem
• Localization due to the environmental effects of
  excessive driving
• Social capital and political involvement
• But also local richness, local meanings, vital
  places to actually live, rather than merely
  survive

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What would it be like?

• Constant themes, UK and US
• Socially heterogenous
• Pedestrian environment
• Fun, with birds and balloons
• Diversity of use
• Vernacular, authentic and eco-friendly

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What wouldnt it be like?

• But not
• People doing things youre not comfy with, and no
  threat to personal investment
• Crowds of strangers
• Noisy
• Dangerous or smelly
• Nothing too weird-looking

15
Reading Assignment

• Bartelmus chapter on reserve
• Bartelmus, Peter. 1994. What on Earth is
  Wrong? in Environment, Growth and Development.
  New York Routledge.
• Supplemental/required (584)
• Costanza and Daly, in Harris 14-17
• Page, in Harris 21-24