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Sustainability
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Social Sustainability and Justice
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Social Sustainability and Justice

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2017) | Viewed by 106078

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Yosef Jabareen

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Urban Planning and Just Urbanism, Columbia University, NYC 10027, USA Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 3200003, Israel
Interests: urban planning and practices; the risk city; justice and rights in cities; climate change and sustainability; and international comparative planning
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Efrat Eizenberg, PhD

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, 3200003, Israel
Interests: urban nature and landscape perceptions; social sustainability; planning with communities; planning and coexistence; urban regeneration; urban struggles and the politics of space
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, we have become increasingly aware of the phenomenal mounting levels of evolving risk and uncertainties that the environmental crisis and its climate change outcomes pose to our cities and communities. Climate change is likely to affect the social, economic, ecological, and physical systems and assets of every city and society. Even though the literature on climate change and sustainability suggests that coping with these issues demands a “paradigm shift” toward transdisciplinary thinking, most of the literature on the subject is fragmented and fractional in scope and typically overlooks the social nature of the matter. Moreover, environmental risk is unequally distributed among social groups and neighborhoods, and risk itself is socially differentiated. Without doubt, cities contain individuals and groups who are more vulnerable than others and lack the capacity to adapt to climate change. Thus, this Special Issue will focus on social conditions, justice, equity, inequality, rights, ‘right to the city’, and social vulnerability related issues. We are interested in papers that address the social issues regarding the ways climate change may affect urban communities, justice, inequality, poverty, safety, and survival of urban people.
We look forward to receiving your submissions.

Yosef Jabareen and Efrat Eizenberg
Guest Editors

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.

Keywords

  • Social sustainability
  • Social justice
  • The right to the city
  • Social vulnerability
  • Climate change policies

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

701 KiB  
Article
Life Satisfaction of Downtown High-Rise vs. Suburban Low-Rise Living: A Chicago Case Study
by Peng Du, Antony Wood, Nicole Ditchman and Brent Stephens
Sustainability 2017, 9(6), 1052; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9061052 - 17 Jun 2017
Cited by 28 | Viewed by 8803
Abstract
There has been a long-standing debate about whether urban living is more or less sustainable than suburban living, and quality of life (QoL) is one of several key measures of the social sustainability of residential living. However, to our knowledge, no study to [...] Read more.
There has been a long-standing debate about whether urban living is more or less sustainable than suburban living, and quality of life (QoL) is one of several key measures of the social sustainability of residential living. However, to our knowledge, no study to date has examined life satisfaction among residents of downtown high-rise living compared to residents living in suburban low-rise housing. Further, very few studies have utilized building or neighborhood-scale data sets to evaluate residents’ life satisfaction, and even fewer have controlled for both individual and household-level variables such as gender, age, household size, annual income, and length of residence, to evaluate residents’ life satisfaction across different living scenarios. Therefore, the goal of this study was to investigate residents’ satisfaction with their place of residence as well as overall life in general via surveys of individuals living in existing high-rise residential buildings in downtown Chicago, IL, and in existing low-rise residential buildings in suburban Oak Park, IL. Over 1500 individuals were contacted directly, resulting in over 500 responses. The number of fully completed responses for this study was 177, including 94 from residents of four downtown high-rise buildings and 83 from residents in suburban low-rise homes. Residents living in downtown high-rise buildings had significantly higher life satisfaction scores than residents living in suburban low-rise homes when controlling for demographic differences; however, the differences were small, as housing type explained less than 5% of the observed variance in life satisfaction outcomes. The research also evaluated five life satisfaction domains including travel, accessibility, social interaction, safety, and overall residential environment (ORE). In all cases, residents of the downtown high-rises reported higher satisfaction levels, although the scores on all these five satisfaction domains reported from both urban scenarios were very high. Moreover, all five satisfaction domains were highly associated with each other, and accessibility and safety were found as the strongest predictors of ORE for individuals. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Social Sustainability and Justice)
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1455 KiB  
Article
Regional Maldistribution of China’s Hospitals Based on Their Structural System
by Lie Ma, Qiu Xie, Shiying Shi, Xiaosu Ye and Aifeng Zhao
Sustainability 2017, 9(6), 1046; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9061046 - 16 Jun 2017
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3881
Abstract
Health equity is significant for social sustainability and the Chinese government is trying to achieve the goals of “universal access to basic health care services”. As the comprehensive carrier of health care services, hospitals are almost the most important health care resources and [...] Read more.
Health equity is significant for social sustainability and the Chinese government is trying to achieve the goals of “universal access to basic health care services”. As the comprehensive carrier of health care services, hospitals are almost the most important health care resources and their regional maldistribution needs to give a special concern for health justice and social sustainability. This study aims to explore regional maldistribution of various hospitals through constructing, decomposing and calculating per capita hospitals Gini Coefficient based on the unique structural system of China’s hospitals from 2003–2014. Results show that: (1) the level of regional maldistribution of hospitals in China is not too serious in terms of quantity and there is a slight decline in recent years; (2) regional maldistribution of hospitals is mainly from General Hospitals and in inland areas; and (3) the slight decrease of regional maldistribution is mainly caused by Concentration Effect and increased per capita hospitals. Based on empirical results and the reality of China, some targeted policy suggestions are proposed to reduce regional maldistribution of hospitals and promote health equity for social sustainable development. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Social Sustainability and Justice)
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423 KiB  
Article
Social Sustainability in an Ageing Chinese Society: Towards an Integrative Conceptual Framework
by Yafei Liu, Martin Dijst, Stan Geertman and Can Cui
Sustainability 2017, 9(4), 658; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9040658 - 21 Apr 2017
Cited by 34 | Viewed by 7627
Abstract
Social sustainability is a relatively underexposed dimension of the sustainability debate. Diversified and discipline-specific study perspectives and the lack of contextualization make it difficult to gain a comprehensive understanding of social sustainability in non-Western societies. In examining the problems facing a rapidly ageing [...] Read more.
Social sustainability is a relatively underexposed dimension of the sustainability debate. Diversified and discipline-specific study perspectives and the lack of contextualization make it difficult to gain a comprehensive understanding of social sustainability in non-Western societies. In examining the problems facing a rapidly ageing Chinese society, this paper aims to construct an integrative conceptual framework of social sustainability, taking into account the Chinese contextual interpretations and elderly population in particular. This paper proposes an integrative conceptual framework composed of two key contextualized components: well-being and social justice. Well-being, according to Lindenberg, is the ultimate goal of life and is achieved by relevant themes organized in a hierarchical system. Social justice relating to the equal distribution of resources, opportunities, and rights is also significant for the achievement of well-being. Interpretations of social sustainability are explored within Chinese socio-cultural (Confucianism, collectivism), institutional (welfare regime, hukou system), and demographic (population ageing) contexts. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Social Sustainability and Justice)
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393 KiB  
Article
Social Sustainability: A New Conceptual Framework
by Efrat Eizenberg and Yosef Jabareen
Sustainability 2017, 9(1), 68; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9010068 - 5 Jan 2017
Cited by 539 | Viewed by 71665
Abstract
There is a lack of theoretical and empirical studies regarding social sustainability. The literature reveals that the “social” was integrated late into debates on sustainable development. This paper aims to fill this gap and proposes a new conceptual framework of social sustainability. We [...] Read more.
There is a lack of theoretical and empirical studies regarding social sustainability. The literature reveals that the “social” was integrated late into debates on sustainable development. This paper aims to fill this gap and proposes a new conceptual framework of social sustainability. We suggest that risk is a constitutive concept of sustainability and that the contemporary conditions of risk resulting primarily from climate change and its ensuing uncertainties pose serious social, spatial, structural, and physical threats to contemporary human societies and their living spaces. Within the framework of sustainability, we propose that social sustainability strives to confront risk while addressing social concerns. Although we agree that without socially oriented practices, efforts to achieve sustainability will be undermined, as too many gaps exist in practice and theory. Thus, we propose a comprehensive Conceptual Framework of Social Sustainability, which is composed of four interrelated concepts of socially oriented practices, where each concept has a distinctive function in the framework and incorporates major social aspects. The concept of Equity encompasses three dimensions: recognition, which “revalues unjustly devalued identities”, redistribution, which suggests that the remedy for injustice is some form of economic restructuring, and parity of participation, which promotes substantive public involvement in the production of space. These efforts may, in turn, reduce alienation and enhance civility and a sense of community and place attachment. The concept of Safety is the ontological foundation of sustainability in general and social sustainability in particular. The concept refers to the right to not only be safe but adopt all measures of adaptation and security to prevent future casualties and physical harm. The concept of Eco-prosumption refers to modes of producing and gaining values in socially and environmentally responsible ways. The concept of Urban Forms represents the physical dimensions of socially desired urban and community physical forms. Eventually, a desired physical form should promote a sense of community, safety, health, and place attachment, among other environmental objectives. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Social Sustainability and Justice)
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