Mark Roseland - Toward Sustainable Communities: Solutions for Citizens and Their Governments--

Praise for

Toward Sustainable Communities

Toward Sustainable Communities represents the best kind of resource in this time of rapidly evolving approaches to making our cities and towns resilient, healthy and just. By providing both strong frameworks for understanding community sustainability and pragmatic information on current best practice, this book is a treasure for policymakers, planners, thought leaders and anyone working to shape the future of our communities.
Tom Osdoba, Chair, Portland Sustainability Institute

In the global era, sustainability as much as ever needs strong community anchoring, to create spaces for local innovation and engender civic engagement. Mark Roselands powerful and far-reaching work provides both the intellectual arguments and practical guidance to enable sustainable communities to flourish. A must-read for researchers, policy-makers and practitioners alike.
Professor Simon Joss FRSA, International Eco-Cities Initiative, University of Westminster

This new and revised edition of Toward Sustainable Communities demonstrates how local government and communities are leading the transition towards a sustainable future. Complete with numerous creative ideas, practical examples and stories from around the world, its a must read for anyone working to help communities thrive in these uncertain times. Mark Roseland has also taken his research and work to the next level by creating a new on-line community called Pando | Sustainable Communities, which will serve as an invaluable source of information and network for researchers, policy makers and community sustainability professionals from around the world.
John Purkis, Senior Advisor and Senior Manager, Sustainable Communities, The Natural Step Canada

Over successive iterations of this seminal text, Roseland has deepened our understanding by combining theory and practice in increasingly elegant ways. Now we also have a new tool, the Community Capital Scan to assess proposals and plans for their contribution to sustainable development, and Pando, an online community for local sustainability-focused researchers and practitioners. The path toward sustainable communities just got much clearer.
Julian Agyeman, Chair, Department of Urban + Environmental Policy + Planning (UEP), Tufts University

In the absence of global governance institutions that can meet the historic challenge of transitioning the world towards sustainability, the new edition of Mark Roselands book, Toward Sustainable Communities, shines an important light on the impressive accomplishments and transformational potential of local action. Building on his 20 years of scholarship in the field, Roseland deftly situates community sustainability efforts in the broader policy arena and introduces the community capital framework to advance a systems perspective that enhances our understanding of the complexities involved. The book provides a wealth of real-world examples and tools aimed at mobilizing citizens as well as governments. It is an invaluable resource for practitioners and policymakers alike.
James Goldstein, Director, Sustainable Communities Program, Tellus Institute

This fourth edition is a tour de force, a marvelous up-to-date amalgam of history, theory, and examples reinforced with a comprehensive description of tools that we can use to establish truly sustainable communities. And while Dr. Roseland does not shy from recognizing the scale of the challenge, his sense of optimism runs through the volume like an unbroken thread, right to the final sentence: Sustainable communities will not merely sustain the quality of our lives they will dramatically improve it. Those words cogently capture why every community, arrondissement, county, province, state and national leader worldwide should read and absorb this book.
Thomas F. Pedersen, PhD, FRSC, FAGU,
Executive Director, Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, Canada

As any sustainability professional knows, the battle for sustainability will be won or lost in cities. After all, the way cities are designed and governed determines over 80 percent of its residents resource demand. There is no better guide than Mark Roseland, for showing us whats possible so we can win this battle. Please give this book to every local official you know.
Mathis Wackernagel, Ph.D., President, Global Footprint Network

In a world where despair comes too easily, Toward Sustainable Communities awakens our collective creativity. Mark Roseland calls on us to imagine our communities as vibrant, healthy places where we connect with our neighbours, work with the natural world and live well. He recognizes the increasingly crucial role for local governments in leading the way to this vision and provides many examples of practical actions to get us there.
Josha MacNab, Director, Sustainable Communities Group, Pembina Institute

For practitioners and interested members of the public alike, figuring out the true meaning of sustainability remains a challenge. Mark Roselands book provides many practical insights that will help put the complexities of sustainable development into a meaningful perspective.
Glenn Miller, Vice President, Education & Research, Canadian Urban Institute

Toward Sustainable Communities is an excellent guide to the ways that cities and towns, both urban and rural, are pursuing strategies for long-term growth and viability that does not impinge on the resources available to future generations. It is very well organized and comprehensive in its coverage. I especially commend the author for including lots of case studies as well as practical information on how to work toward sustainability. This book is an important reference for anyone working to promote community sustainability.
Andre Shashaty, President, Partnership for Sustainable Communities

4th EDITION

Toward
Sustainable
Communities

SOLUTIONS for CITIZENS
and their GOVERNMENTS

Mark Roseland

Copyright 2012 by Mark Roseland.
All rights reserved.

Cover design by Diane McIntosh.
Main image: David Flanders, UBC-CALP; insets L to R iStock (vasiliki);
iStock (JEwhyte); iStock (J Bryson); author supplied.

New Society Publishers acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada
through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP)
for our publishing activities.

eISBN: 978-1-55092-506-7

Inquiries regarding requests to reprint all or part of Toward Sustainable Communities should be addressed to New Society Publishers at the address below.

To order directly from the publishers, please call toll-free (North America)
1-800-567-6772, or order online at www.newsociety.com

Any other inquiries can be directed by mail to:

New Society Publishers
P.O. Box 189, Gabriola Island, BC V0R 1X0, Canada (250) 247-9737

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Roseland, Mark

Toward sustainable communities : solutions for citizens and their governments / Mark Roseland. 4th ed.

Includes index.

1. City planning. 2. City planningEnvironmental aspects. 3. Sustainable development. I. Title.

HT169.C2R67 2012 307.1216 C2012-901950-X

New Society Publishers mission is to publish books that contribute in fundamental ways to building an ecologically sustainable and just society, and to do so with the least possible impact on the environment, in a manner that models this vision. We are committed to doing this not just through education, but through action. The interior pages of our bound books are printed on Forest Stewardship Council-registered acid-free paper that is