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This book is the seventh volume in a series covering best practices in community quality of life indicators. The case studies and analysis in this volume demonstrate how community indicators projects today operate within a need to amplify the voice of disadvantaged communities, seriously explore the increasing use of information technology, produce positive community change and sustain these efforts over time. The work presented here spans North American and Australian community work and demonstrates how the field of community indicators has undergone a rapid evolution in only a few decades. Today as in their original formulations, community indicators projects are designed to gauge the social, economic and physical health and well-being of communities. Meg Holden (PhD, New School for Social Research) is a social scientist whose research investigates the promises and results of sustainability planning in cities around the world. She is an Associate Professor of urban studies and geography at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. Meg served as a board member of the Community Indicators Consortium from 2011-2016 and she currently serves as editorial board member of the journal Applied Research in Quality of Life as well as the Springer book series on Community Quality of Life and Wellbeing. Meg is the author of Pragmatic Justifications for the Sustainable City: Acting in the common place (Routledge, 2017). Rhonda Phillips, Ph.D., FACIP, has research and outreach efforts that focus on quality of life and well-being related to community and economic development. At Purdue University, she serves as inaugural Dean of the Honors College and a professor in the Agricultural Economics Department. She is author or editor of over 20 books, including Sustainable Communities: Creating a Durable Local Economy, and Introduction to Community Development. Formerly a Senior Sustainability Scientist with the Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, Rhonda also served as director and professor in the School of Community Resources and Development at Arizona State University. She is a member of the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Certified Planners, and immediate past president of the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies. Chantal Stevens is a Performance Management Analyst for the King County Auditor's Office where she also holds the position of Program Oversight Manager for the Countywide Community Forums, an innovative collaboration between the public and King County to improve public engagement. She previously served on the CIC board from 2004-2007, and again in 2012. Chantal was formerly the Executive Director of Sustainable Seattle, a pioneer in the development of community indicators. She was the co- lead of the first conference dedicated to the exploration of CI-PM integration, and is currently an active advocate for community indicators and public engagement as a key element of a functioning performance management system at King County. She holds a BS and MMA from the University of Washington.

This article is a longer reflection on Frank Cunningham's Ideas in Context in light of the pragmatic philosophy of John Dewey.

This article presents an analysis of social sustainability in comparative theoretical context and as a challenge to the post-political interpretation of sustainability in policy practice at the urban and regional scales. Metro Vancouver provides a case study for improving our understanding of the meaning of social sustainability as a framework for social policy in that it is among the handful of cities around the world currently working to define and enact social sustainability in governance terms. Results of this participant research provide evidence that some cities are politically engaging alternative development pathways using the concept of social sustainability. For sustainable development to retain its promise as an alternative policy framework for cities, social sustainability must be at the forefront.

AbstractIn the context of calls for more effective processes to facilitate deliberative democracy in cities, and the connection often asserted between participatory means and sustainability ends in urban governance, this article examines a case of public participation for sustainability indicator selection in Vancouver, Canada. Sustainability indicator systems are often introduced via participatory exercises, but the quality of this participation and its outcomes are questionable. Based upon current debates in deliberative democratic theory, our judgment of the quality of a particular process depends on the level and mode of interaction. Do we expect, along with Healey, that participants build a rational consensus beginning from root values and visions, or do we expect, along with Mouffe, a conflictual consensus among participants working from incommensurably diverse life worlds? An examination of governmentality theory, based on the work of Rydin, adds to this a way of understanding the impact on participation outcomes of what participants learn about their own and others' roles in democratic urban governance as they prepare recommendations specific to local sustainability. This case study analysis reflects on these theoretical debates in terms of the unfolding of a public participation process for sustainability indicator selection. It offers lessons for public process design that is better aligned with the expectations of radicalized communicative rationality and for the specific learning values of engagement for participants, which were at least as strongly related to democratic practice as they were to sustainability per se.RésuméSur fond de demandes de processus décisionnels plus efficaces facilitant la démocratie délibérative dans les villes, et de lien souvent revendiqué entre méthodes participatives et objectifs de développement durable en matière de gouvernance urbaine, l'article étudie un cas de participation publique visant la sélection d'indicateurs de durabilitéà Vancouver, au Canada. Les systèmes d'indicateurs de durabilité apparaissent souvent avec les pratiques participatives, mais la qualité de cette participation et ses résultats sont discutables. D'après les débats actuels sur la théorie de la démocratie délibérative, l'évaluation de la qualité de tel ou tel processus dépend de ses niveau et mode d'interactions. Veut‐on croire, tel Healey, que les participants bâtiront un consensus rationnel en commençant par des valeurs et perspectives fondamentales ou, telle Mouffe, qu'un consensus conflictuel se créera entre des participants émanant d'univers de vie sans commune mesure? L'étude de la théorie de la gouvernementalitéà partir des travaux de Rydin offre un moyen de comprendre comment les résultats de la participation sont affectés par ce que les participants apprennent sur leur rôle personnel et sur le rôle des autres dans la gouvernance urbaine démocratique, pendant qu'ils préparent leurs recommandations en matière de durabilité locale. L'analyse de l'étude de cas revient sur ces débats théoriques pour expliciter un processus de participation publique visant la sélection d'indicateurs de durabilité. Elle en tire des enseignements qui suggèrent une conception des processus publics plus conforme aux attentes d'une rationalité communicative radicalisée et qui déterminent, pour les participants, les valeurs d'apprentissage social propres à l'engagement, valeurs qui ont été liées à la pratique démocratique au moins autant qu'au développement durable lui‐même.

This collection of urban studies research and interpretation crosses the country from Quebec to B.C., comparing trends and perspectives over the past decade and across and beyond disciplines. Core questions of research, policy and practice facing Montreal and Vancouver—those featuring housing and transportation, in particular—are featured in terms of new and innovative directions. Emerging questions—about urban indigeneity, food systems, climate action—are broached in challenging ways. The twenty authors whose original work is compiled here demonstrate the scope for continued, critical, comparative conversation across francophone and anglophone divides. The book offers a significant resource for understanding the intersecting field and practice of urban studies in Quebec and in B.C. and for spurring its further evolution. A French version of this book is also available

The outcomes of urban redevelopment projects are never predictable, nor do they conform perfectly to any single ideological expression of contemporary development approaches, whether that of rational master planning for the public interest, a market-driven neoliberal approach in the name of the competitive world class city or some other vision of utopia. We argue here that a critical pragmatic analytical lens can be applied usefully to improve our understanding of the justifications, qualifications and compromises that contribute to shaping such projects in their contexts. The critical pragmatic approach, deriving from the work of Laurent Thévenot, Luc Boltanski and others, is offered here with illustrative applications to the case of a major redevelopment project in Vancouver, Canada. The approach is situated within planning theory related to governmentality, communicative action theory and American pragmatic philosophy. We establish the utility of studying disputes in the public sphere surrounding development projects, in terms of the objects and actors involved in particular contexts (as opposed to a pure discourse approach) and in terms of the nature and trajectory of compromises attempted and attained in the process (as opposed to consensus-seeking or governmentality approaches).

This paper examines whether public space regulation changed around Vancouver's preparations to host the 2010 Winter Olympics, particularly in the poor neighborhood of the Downtown Eastside. We argue that Vancouver's desire to be competitive on the international stage has major effects on how public space is used and regulated. Any policy shift would have a disproportionate impact on the homeless, given that this demographic group is compelled to live their lives in public space. We find that changes have occurred, but the Olympics have acted as catalyst for such changes, not the sole driver. The spotlight provided by the Olympic Games has amplified a new round of power struggle between city government and the police department to set the policy agenda for tackling concentrated social problems. The outcome of this conflict will determine the future of public space regulation in post-Olympic Vancouver, and the extent to which a poor neighborhood and those who call it home can be included in a world class, livable city.