Sustainable community development, networks and resilience

Abstract

In a changing and unpredictable world, sustainable community development is less a goal than a dynamic process of working with the resources and informationat hand. In order to sustain this dynamic interactive process, communities need to anticipate and respond to these dynamics and nurture their resilience in order to innovate and diversify. This is particularly difficult for communities that are marginalized, dealing with poverty, homelessness, and addiction. However, social capital can beharnessed to create the community agency needed to foster sustainable development. This paper focuses on the ability of community networks to build social capitalcritical to the creation of the resilience needed to sustain communities. It draws on a case study of a community-driven initiative taking place on the East Side of the cityof Vancouver, British Columbia, a community with very low levels of economic capital.