Sustainable Development Alternatives

The literature on sustainable development has long purported to focus on the tripartite relationship between economy, environment, and social justice. While all definitions of sustainability imply this trio of interrelated interests, only two are typically addressed in contemporary analysis: economic sustainability and environmental sustainability. This is true in conceptual and empirical analyses and policy practice. In conceptual terms, sustainability scholarship has focused primarily on normative accounts of sustainable development—the way it should be. Sustainability as a policy discourse and an embodied set of practices has yet to live up to its progressive potential to bring together these issues in a holistic way. In response to these forms of analysis, a new body of work on local and regional sustainability, with a more critical and empirical ...