Toward an interactional approach to sustainable community development

During the 1980s. the concept of sustainable development emerged as a popul ar solution to the problem of meeting the material needs of a rapidly growi ng population while minimizing environmental damage. Rather than pitting ec onomic growth against environmental protection, proponents of sustainabilit y focus on development which meets the needs of both present and future gen erations. This new legitimacy has prompted scholars to broaden the range of issues to which sustainability can be applied. A potentially important dev elopment along these lines has been the growing body of literature surround ing the concept of sustainable community development. In this paper, we del ineate the central features of the sustainable community, assess obstacles to achieving sustainable communities, and present a conceptual framework fo r sustainable community development based on an interactional approach to c ommunity. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.