The Future of Sustainable Communities: Planning, Design and Implementation

Dear Colleagues,

What will communities of the future look like? As climate change threatens the resilience of the contemporary built environment and nation state—the very core of what makes us feel modern—this Special Issue invites papers that turn inward and consider who we are as individuals and communities in this changing world. Sustainability science has relied heavily on the natural sciences to help flesh out what exactly this grand experiment, now called the athropocene, is really doing to our planet. Many have asserted that there are fundamental natural processes that have crossed critical thresholds, so called planetary boundaries, beyond which we can never return. So what lies ahead for mankind as we attempt to make meaning and community in yet another new frontier? Interested authors should submit theoretical or research papers that contend with the future of sustainable communities, how they are conceived, planned, designed, and realized amidst the breaching of boundaries and the obduracy of our infrastructure and habits of mind. We invite authors to submit work that attempts to define and create sustainable communities in the present, as well as work that explores alternative futures and their implications for sustainable communities. Communities are not limited to geographic communities and authors considering cultural, interest-based and virtual communities, among others, are invited to submit their works.

Dr. Lauren Withycombe Keeler
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short 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 thoroughly refereed through a single-blind 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 semimonthly 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 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.