Social Sustainability in Planning

The term sustainability refers the ability to progress an action. For the majority of people, sustainability usually refers to environmental issues such as climate changes, protection of natural environment and melting of ice caps. Sustainability included three main aspects – economic, environment and social, however, social aspects have been often overlooked. According to Joanna Brain, social sustainability refers to recognise the need and desire of people, consider how individual actions could effected on the community and also open and anticipate to social changes in order to achieve higher social wellbeing (Brain).

Social sustainability is also a crucial factor for development in built environment. According to Brain, ignoring social factors in a planning of city or public domains could lead to serious social issues such as poverty, crime, low quality of life, social exclusion and inequality of communities (Brain). These issues would affect economic and environmental aspects as well. Therefore, social sustainability should be considered during the planning process. There are series of tools and strategies that help us to resolve social issues in the planning. These tools include Social impact assessment and robust research which provides quantifiable outcomes.  Public Participation and social planning are two strategies that planner can consider during the planning process, public participation involved with understanding the function of community, identifying issues in the community and predicting social activities (Brain). Social planning refers to incorporate social infrastructure with physical infrastructure in the planning process, where social factor, facilities affect the physical infrastructure of the city.

In my opinion, social aspect would be the most important aspect of sustainability. It deals with human activities and human wellbeing which are difficult and complex topics. These factors also make up the basis for economic and environmental aspects. Therefore, I think that social factors should well consider and designed in order to achieve an overall sustainable development. It would be impossible to maintain economic and environmental sustainability if social issues are not treated or considered.

Brain Joanna. The Social Side of Sustainability, available at: https://www.planning.org.nz/Folder?Action=View%20File&Folder_id=185&File=Brain.pdf [Accessed 1 April 2017].