I have been very interested in Social Sustainability recently. I have a really interest on how people and cities can evolve in a sustainable way and what makes a city socially sustainable.
I suppose that the fist idea would be: it depends. Depends on the kind of city, the kind of people living there (mono cultural, multicultural, cosmopolitan,…), the kind of environment that we found around the city, and so on.
I think a key issue would be to maintain and give to traditions the importance that they have and deserve. Traditions use to gather people and are linked to culture. They improve the sense of belonging among and keep a continuity along time that stays the same but evolves at the same time.
As traditions I mean music, festivals, food, holidays and every activity that is repeated every year by locals.
In some cases these traditions sometimes become a tourist attraction and loose all its original meaning. As the Tomatina in Buñol or San Fermín in Pamplona, both in Spain. Old traditions become a product and they stop to be sustainable. Not only socially sustainable but environmentally as well.
The affluence of people is so great in just a week that this small towns are not able to provide all the food or drinks (not only water but mainly alcohol) that they need, or to manage the waste that so much people produce.
In summary, these ‘in other times’ traditions are some how economically sustainable but the other two legs (society and environment) finish so damaged that it becomes a problem because people still want these festivals.
GREEN BEANS IN THE CITY 