We published What Makes a Sustainable Community? (pdf, 457kb) in October 2009.
The report was the first stage of a ‘State of the Region’ thematic dialogue attempting to help define and measure progress towards developing sustainable communities in the West Midlands.
In 2010 the Observatory will be working with the Population & Society Group to put some of the ideas developed in the report into practice.
We'll begin by testing our methodology on a small number of communities in the region to test the methodology's effectiveness on different types of community.
Once testing is complete we plan to hold a further dialogue workshop looking at how the method can be used to support community development, links to funding bids and as part of developing a usable evidence base.
We'll continue to report progress on the Observations blog.
What makes a sustainable community?
A successful West Midlands must be made up of communities where people want to live and work, now and in the future. But what are the factors which make communities sustainable in this way? How can we identify which of our current communities are sustainable and which need action to help them to change?
As with all State of the Region dialogues, the report focuses particularly on understanding how the evidence can inform policy responses across a range of areas.
Common themes shared by sustainable communities
The report looks at a variety of definitions of sustainable communities, identifying six main themes which are common to all of them. For a community to be truly sustainable, these six themes need to be well balanced. They are:
Housing and the environment
A sustainable community would have a mix of housing type and tenure in an area that has attractive, accessible public spaces, including some greenspace, and clean, safe streets.
Crime
A sustainable community would have a low incidence, and low perceptions, of crime. Residents would feel safe both in their houses and on the streets. The quality of the environment and public spaces would not be diminished by graffiti, litter or fly-tipping.
Community cohesion
A sustainable community would have a strong sense of community spirit. Residents would feel like they belonged to their local area and feel that it is a place where people can get on well together.
Economic opportunity and jobs
A sustainable community would have a range of available employment opportunities, a suitable balance between lower paid opportunities and higher skilled jobs, a diverse business base, and would provide opportunities for business start-ups.
Transport
A sustainable community would provide options for its residents to travel both by private care and on reliable and user-friendly public transport. It would allow easy access to major economic centres in the vicinity, and encourage walking and cycling.
Health and population
A sustainable community would have a population with a wide spread of ages, a mix of ethnic backgrounds, low mortality rates, and low hospital admissions.
The report also proposes a set of indicators that can provide some measurement of the sustainability of a community and track the progress achieved in building sustainable communities.
It also highlights some case studies of communities in the region where activities across all of the key themes have improved the communities and made them more sustainable.
We recognise that there is no perfect formula for a sustainable community. However, we want to use this report as a starting point for discussion around the themes identified and the approach to measurement.
Keep up-to-date
You can keep up-to-date on developments for all State of the Region dialogues via: