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In a changing and unpredictable world, sustainable community development is less a goal than a dynamic process of working with the resources and informationat hand. In order to sustain this dynamic interactive process, communities need to anticipate and respond to these dynamics and nurture their resilience in order to innovate and diversify. This is particularly difficult for communities that are marginalized, dealing with poverty, homelessness, and addiction. However, social capital can beharnessed to create the community agency needed to foster sustainable development. This paper focuses on the ability of community networks to build social capitalcritical to the creation of the resilience needed to sustain communities. It draws on a case study of a community-driven initiative taking place on the East Side of the cityof Vancouver, British Columbia, a community with very low levels of economic capital.

PurposeTo distinguish sustainable development education from environmental education and stress the importance of problem‐based interdisciplinary learning to sustainable development education.Design/methodology/approachA range of published works relating to sustainable development education are critiqued, an introduction to complexity theory is given and related to sustainable development education, and a case study is provided to demonstrate an example of incorporating sustainability into course delivery and to demonstrate problem‐based interdisciplinary learning.FindingsOur discussion supports our claim that reconciling sustainability and development requires a complex interdisciplinary approach beyond that found in some areas of traditional environmental education.Research limitations/implicationsOur literature search is not exhaustive and focuses on sustainable development education. A much greater body of literature relating to environmental education exists.Practical implicationsOur discussion and case study suggests practitioners designing and teaching sustainable development related programs should incorporate an interdisciplinary approach and allow for problem‐based applied learning to take place.Originality/valueThis paper distinguishes sustainable development education from environmental education and suggests practical courses of action for initiating sustainable development education in a meaningful manner.

Topophilia, or love of place, has been described as a desirable outcome of urban planning. The rhythms of movement within a city at different times and in diverse ways help to generate this sense of topophilia within urban spaces. Multi-rhythmic spaces are partly a product of deliberative design; spaces of overlapping rhythms create room for spontaneous connections that can build a sense of community and social capital. In contrast, spaces dominated by single rhythms are "dead spaces" a good deal of the time, such as monochronous hollowed out downtown cores or commuter corridors. Granville Island, Canada is given as an example of a designed space that facilitates both the movement of people in diverse ways at different times, and incorporates non-human rhythms as well.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to discuss the potential of online communication technologies to facilitate university‐led transdisciplinary sustainable development research and lower the ecological footprints of such research projects. A series of case studies is to be explored.Design/methodology/approachA one year project is conducted in which a series of research tasks are carried out on an online communications platform. Findings are compared to other examples from the literature.FindingsOnline communication technology can be used to facilitate transdisciplinary research tasks, saving time, money and with less environmental impact than that of face‐to‐face meetings. However, in order for online collaboration to be successful the researchers must be very organized and have strong facilitation skills.Research limitations/implicationsThe research takes place in a North American setting. Time zone issues and access to sufficient internet technology can be a barrier in global research collaboration.Practical implicationsOnline communication technology can be a practical way to lower the environmental impact of the research process and lower the cost of collaborative meetings.Originality/valueThe outcomes of this research suggest online collaboration can play a much larger role in student and faculty research, including but not limited to online research analysis, data collection and field exploration.