Special Issue "Social Sustainability: Theory, Practice, Problems and Prospects"

Guest Editor
Dr. Suzanne Vallance
Faculty of Environment, Society and Design, Lincoln University, P.O. Box 84, Christchurch, New Zealand
Website: http://www.lincoln.ac.nz/staff-profile?staffId=Suzanne.Vallance
E-Mail: suzanne.vallance@lincoln.ac.nz
Phone: +64 3 325 3838 (ext. 8747)
Fax: +64 3 325 3857
Interests: urban studies; socionatures; resilience; sustainability; communities; housing; food

Dear Colleagues,

Though sustainable development is said to rest on ‘three pillars’, one of these - social sustainability - has received significantly less attention than its bio-physical environmental and economic counterparts. In an attempt to highlight some of the concepts associated with, and attributed to, social sustainability Vallance, Perkins and Dixon (2011) presented a ‘clarification of concepts’ based on a framework of (a) ‘development sustainability’ (addressing basic needs); (b) ‘bridge sustainability’ (concerning changes in behaviour so as to achieve bio-physical environmental goals) and; (c) ‘maintenance sustainability’ (referring to the preservation of socio-cultural norms in the face of change). While this provides a useful starting point, much remains to be done, particularly around the reconciliation of the tensions between these different aspects. This special issue seeks contributions from scholars and practitioners whose theoretical or practical work either addresses these tensions between different aspects of social sustainability, or sheds light on the complex relationships between the social sustainability and bio-physical environmental/economic dimensions more generally.

Dr. Suzanne Vallance
Guest Editor

Submission

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed Open Access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 800 CHF (Swiss Francs).

• social sustainability
• development
• behaviour change
• socio-cultural norms
• contradictions
• practice
• theory