Good afternoon everyone!!

How are you doing?? Today I would like to share my thoughts about "Dimensions of housing and urban sustainability" by Eastaway M. P. & Støa E. (2004).

Recently I had a chance to take a class about Environmental Justice and deepened my understanding about housing.

In one of the lecture, the professor introduced house in all over the world that adopt and utilize everything (water, wind, temperature) without using energy or electricity.

Toba-Batak House in Indonesia ©Mr. Wabu www.creativecommons.org.

This house is in Indonesia and cooler air by circulating underneath and to prevent production of moisture.

This is a really good example of a "sustainable house" I think.

However, this paper was not.

At first, the authors talked about the ambiguity of the concept of "sustainability."

Their goal was to clarify what "sustainability of house" means in the scientific arena and technology, urban planning, geologically, economics, and anthropology.

Three components consists of sustainable development. Economic, socio-cultural, and environmental dimensions.

However, the authors want to add one more "governance" for making "sustainability" in all formulation, and evaluation of policies.

The one point of sustainability is whether the function continues in the future without restricting the options available. Authors mentioned.

In the last, they introduced people's thoughts of "sustainable houses"

Bontje: "New employment concentrations outside the traditional city center are not counterproductive to a more sustainable development"

Hargraves: provide a sense of belonging, ownership, and identity.

Tosies: in the mean of sustainability, housing is important to achieve sustainable urban development.

Holden: Making a few large cities to smaller compact cities and towns

Klunder: combination of area, flows and actors.

Conclusion

sustainability should be "An essential basis for multidisciplinary understanding among actors."

My thought

I actually, really wanted to see solid definition of "sustainability" in this paper, so I was a little bit disappointed. However, this paper made me realizing each person has own definition of "sustainability." It might be difficult to say all of them are same, but life is changing and along that "sustainability" is changing, I guess.

For me, Bontje's thought made sense. As I introduced the picture from class, in the future, we might have to think to back to traditional and ecological houses.

Thank you for reading!

From this reading I could understand importance of multiple perspectives on sustainability.

Reference

Eastaway, M.P., Støa, E. Dimensions of housing and urban sustainability. Journal of Housing and the Built Environment 19, 1–5 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:JOHO.0000017838.15339.06

Toba-Batak House in Indonesia ©Mr. Wabu www.creativecommons.org.

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