توسعه پایدار و پایان نامه نجیب زاده - اثرات ویژگی های محلی و شرایط در سیاست توسعه پایدار چیست؟

The Childe thesis is fundamental to the urban ecology theoretical framework, explaining the development of communities as a result of the interplay between the dynamics of population, organization, environment, and technology. This perspective is consistent with sustainability, ecosystem, and bioregional principles that recognize the importance of local response to local conditions. In the face of globalizing forces that enable communities to expand their range of exploitation beyond local carrying capacity, how relevant are these concepts? This study provides evidence that communities in the US do respond to local signals and that such response is conditioned by levels of education and political mobilization. It also identifies factors that are related to increased levels of adoption of sustainable development policies.

Sustainable development has become firmly established in the community development and planning literature. Drawing from science and built on such universal values as environmental protection and social welfare, it has been characterized as having clear relevance to public decision making in virtually all of its dimensions, from process to policy (Campbell, 1996). Still, when it comes to practice, sustainable development remains largely outside the mainstream. While many communities in the United States profess to the adoption of policies that are consistent with its theoretical framework, few have been shown to have integrated it into their planning, policies and operations in a comprehensive and meaningful way (Jepson, 2004a, Portney, 2003 and Berke and Conroy, 2000). This is certainly largely related to the fact that, while perhaps conceptually convincing, sustainable development remains politically problematic due to the continuing dominance of the alternative expansionist worldview (Jepson, 2004b and Rees, 1995). Nevertheless, there are some communities that stand out from the rest in the extent to which they have adopted sustainable development policies and practices. This selective pattern of adoption suggests two possibilities: Either (a) there is something about sustainable development that makes it relevant only in certain, limited cases or (b) there is something about communities that either constrains or enhances their capacity to recognize its relevance and then act accordingly. If the premise of its being grounded in universal values is accepted (giving it a potentially universal relevance), then it is only the latter possibility that merits attention. There has been little research about the reasons behind variation in sustainable development policy adoption among communities. Portney (2003) identified 24 cities that were notable in their level of commitment to sustainable development as reflected in their adoption of certain public policies. When he subjected them to statistical analysis, he found some significance of correlation between a few characteristics of population (primarily age and education) on an individual basis. However, many of these relationships broke down in his multivariate model, leading to his conclusion of a “general lack of a pattern” between demographic and place characteristics and the adoption of sustainable development policies (p. 237). Similarly, in my study of 103 communities, I could find no significant statistical relationship between how actively sustainable development policies are initiated and location, population size, or educational attainment (Jepson, 2004a). It is my purpose in this paper to expand the scope of this type of inquiry to include not just demographic characteristics, but also specific community conditions, capacities, and opinions and attitudes. Such a query can contribute toward determining the extent to which communities, in this age of large-scale, carrying capacity appropriation and permeability of effects (in which problems are transported into and out of municipal boundaries), are still inclined to recognize problems and take action to do what they can, even if such action will contribute in only a minor way toward their resolution. The conceptual basis for the study draws primarily from three sources: the Childe thesis, which proposes community development to be the product of the four interrelated factors of population, organization, environment and technology; and bioregionalism and ecosystem theory, with their concepts of localization, feedback and adaptive innovation.

The results of this analysis reveal that the adoption of sustainable development policies can be at least partly explained by the Childe thesis, i.e., that the adoption of policies (i.e., Techniques) constitutes a collective response to Environmental factors, with the nature of that response being related primarily to a community’s Organizational capacities and the educational characteristics of its Population. Drawing from ecosystem theory, this implies that “signals” are being received and then acted upon. On the basis of the research presented here, two crucial questions are raised: (1) Do sustainable communities differ from other communities in their methods of signal formulation and reception; and (2) Are policy-making procedures in sustainable communities different than they are elsewhere? The first question points to the need for research that focuses on how communities differ in the ways that they (a) identify indicators (the cultural equivalent of signals in ecosystem theory), (b) collect data, and (c) disseminate information. Research to answer the second question might focus on (a) the manner and extent to which indicators are integrated into policy decisions and (b) the identity of NGOs involved in the formulation of public policies and the nature of that involvement. My use of survey sampling errors to calculate significance makes the results highly conservative. It is important to note that there were some differences of attitudes and opinions between groups that would have been significant had sampling error adjustments not been made (as indicated by t- and z-scores that were close to or exceeded + or −2.00 in Table 6). 8 These results may be used as justification for a larger, multi-faceted survey project that aims for high response rates among all segments of the Population (both residents and elected officials) in High- and Low-scoring communities. If significant differences in attitudes and opinions are confirmed to be associated with different policy choices, important research questions emerge. For example, how are attitudes and opinions about sustainability formed and how do they change over time? Do the acts of developing indicators and receiving signals have any affect on attitudes or opinions? How do attitudes contribute to the formation of public policies and vice versa? The answers to questions such as these will provide insight into how public support for sustainability can be generated and translated into policy. Finally, the finding that policies to control sprawl are inversely related to the size of urbanized areas is of particular interest since it indicates that such policies are less likely to emerge precisely where they are most needed, i.e., our large urban regions. Two hypotheses might serve as the basis for future research: one is that it is due to the presence of a stronger central city flight response in large cities, fueled by perceived conditions of high crime, congestion, pollution, etc. Another possibility is that it is caused by an institutional effect that limits the range of policy opportunities: the jurisdictional fragmentation that typically accompanies extensive urban regions may reduce the opportunities for partnerships between cities and their surrounding/ neighboring jurisdictions that are often necessary for sprawl-controlling policies such as urban growth boundaries and transfer/purchase of development rights programs. In conclusion, this study does not dispel the notion that the adoption of sustainable development policies among communities in the US remains essentially inexplicable; no formula of propensity toward sustainability has been revealed. Perhaps we will need to be comfortable with the notion that communities, like individuals, are too complex to ever be truly predictable. Still, from these results, it is reasonable to expect that, as the general public becomes more educated and the use of indicators becomes more sophisticated and widespread, interest in sustainable development will grow. Given that the surveyed opinions of local government officials about sustainable development were not found to be significantly divergent from those of their residents in most respects, it is likely that better mobilization of supportive organizations will result in that interest becoming directly transformed into the increased adoption of sustainable development policies.