Title: Researching green development and sustainable communities in small urban municipalities

Authors: Rosario Adapon Turvey

Addresses: Department of Sustainability Sciences, Lakehead University, 500 University Avenue, Orillia, Ontario, L3V 0B9, Canada

Abstract: This paper explores an important yet under-investigated topic on small urban municipalities (SUMs) concerning green development for building sustainable communities. It examines 'place making' as a function of development initiatives by local economies toward community sustainability. In Canada, an increasing number of communities adopted the strategy of green development as a sustainable focus to attain economic growth and prosperity. Green development has community-wide environmental impacts and implications on local development and community building. The survey looked at practitioner perceptions of selected priorities and strategies for green development in two case study communities in Ontario, Canada. In this paper, the results of the practitioner survey and data analysis on green development using the Mann-Whitney U test and other quantitative analysis are discussed. As the survey shows, the research may indicate how place making in the context of sustainability discourse could influence the development direction of SUMs in Ontario and other jurisdictions.

Keywords: sustainable communities; green development; sustainability; place making; small urban municipalities; SUMs; Canada; environmental impact; local development; community building; sustainable development.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSSS.2015.068023

International Journal of Society Systems Science, 2015 Vol.7 No.1, pp.68 - 86

Published online: 14 Mar 2015 *

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