SDG250 Socially sustainable local communities

The course provides an introduction to how social sustainability can be understood and assessed in local community contexts. This will be elucidated from different perspectives and disciplines within the social sciences, including public health, urban and regional planning, property development, landscape architecture and natural resource management.

Social sustainability concerns the development of local communities where people can satisfy their needs and experience good health and wellbeing, now and in the future. The course therefore places knowledge about human beings at the forefront and introduces how societal and environmental conditions, including the physical environment as well as social and cultural factors, influence the inhabitants’ health and wellbeing. The course covers knowledge of how to work to ensure socially sustainable local community development within above-mentioned disciplines and practices. This includes an introduction to different methods and tools for assessing and investigating social sustainability in local community contexts. The course will offer interdisciplinary collaboration training, as well as provide experience in assessing ethical dilemmas related to sustainability.

After completing the course, it is expected that the student should:

Knowledge

• Have good knowledge of different ways to define and theorize social sustainability in local community contexts, including the differences and similarities between various definitions and approaches.
• Have insight into factors that influence social sustainability.
• Have a good understanding of how physical and social environments are related to, and influence, human health and wellbeing.
• Have knowledge of methods and tools for analyzing and assessing social sustainability.
• Have knowledge of how different fields approach the concept of social sustainability, and how they operationalize and work with social sustainability.
• Have knowledge of challenges and dilemmas related to promoting socially sustainable local community development.

Skills

• Be able to consider a local challenge and account for what can be done to ensure social sustainability.
• Be able to apply relevant theory and empirical knowledge to discuss important issues related to social sustainability.
• Be able to identify and assess ethical issues linked to other dimensions of sustainability.

General competence

• Be able to analyze, communicate and present complex issues.
• Be able to participate in an interdisciplinary dialogue and contribute constructively to an interdisciplinary collaboration process.