The patchwork politics of sustainable communities

The aim of this paper is to review government strategies for sustainable communities in England and particularly the programme of neighbourhood planning introduced from 2011 in which responsibility for achieving sustainable development was devolved to local communities. It explores the definition of sustainability that emerged from these neighbourhood plans, one in which the priorities of environmental quality and the welfare needs of social reproduction were constrained through a choice of economic growth or self-reliance. The paper reports on research with urban and rural communities seeking sustainability through neighbourhood planning and it reveals the starkly unequal geography of sustainable development that is emerging. The paper concludes that hopes of sustainability in England are now heavily dependent on the geographical whims of the property market.

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