WORKING TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES IN CANADA

Sustainable development has become a core concept in environmental management during the 1990s. However, scientists and policy-makers have encountered many difficulties in giving practical effect to the general ideas and principles underlying sustainability. This paper reviews three important aspects of recent Canadian practice and research which advance our understanding of the nature of municipal sustainability planning. First is the development of models of 'ecological footprints' at the University of British Columbia, which provide a graphic means of demonstrating how communities might 'tread more lightly on the earth'. Second, also at the University of British Columbia, has been the coupling of research expertise to municipal planning in the City of Richmond. In particular, this has generated ideas about the ways in which 'social capital' might be substituted for 'ecological capital'. Third, the municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth has become one of the 'model communities' attempting to develop a sustainable basis for the delivery of its services and policies, under a programme co-ordinated by the Toronto-based International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives. It is argued that these three innovative projects are greatly assisting our knowledge of appropriate city planning and management for the 21st century.