What is ‘Economic Sustainability’?

Julian Agyeman and Tom Evans, RETHINKING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: Toward Just Sustainability in Urban Communities: Building Equity Rights with Sustainable Solutions, 590 Annals 35 (November 2003).

Inspired by Tuesday’s presentation and DAPAC’s decision to use the term ‘economic stability’ without first defining it, I did some research on economic stability in academic literature.

The article posted here juxtaposes economic and environmental sustainability and argues that, through certain policies and programs, a nexus between the two can be achieved. It then proceeds to discuss this nexus in the context of five discreet areas of development policy: land use planning, transportation, residential energy use, solid waste, and toxic use reduction.

The highlight of the article as far as I am concerned was a brief section citing US policies (and some potential US policies implemented elsewhere in the world) which positively harness both economic and environmental sustainability. This is particularly compelling as more and more policy analysts are advocating for environmentally responsible policies that will also benefit the economy and, as a result, serve the goal of economic equity. I found the following to be some of the most promising policy recommendations:

• Ecotaxes, which shift the tax burden from good things like employment to bad things like pollution and excessive resource use.
• Elimination of agricultural and energy subsidies, which are environmentally damaging through their encouragement to overuse energy, fertilizer, pesticides, and irrigation water. Sustainable agriculture relies on the recycling of nutrients, natural pest control, labor intensivity, and reduced artificial usage.
• Affordable housing is being financed through community finance initiatives such as community development banks, corporations, and credit unions. Location-efficient mortgages, which reward certain locations (close to transit nodes), are being developed. Cooperatives and cohousing options are becoming increasingly popular.
• Community-supported agriculture schemes, or community farms in Europe and food guilds in Japan, and farmer's markets are becoming increasingly popular in U.S. cities.