Reaching Out to Local Communities in a Discussion of Sustainable Development

The term sustainability is the basis of the "Green Movement," and understanding the various aspects of the term is the starting point for creating and maintaining sustainable communities. The Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation intends to do that with the Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Project. A key element of the planning process is to engage local citizens and groups who are generally left out of community discussion on sustainability issues. These groups include low-income communities, immigrant communities, minority groups and people from more rural areas groups. Challenges often faced during this process include countering present isolation of these groups from current regional discussions and clearing confusion and misunderstood explanations of what sustainability means. The purpose of this paper is to review the methods used to establish discussions with these groups to help them better understand sustainability within the context of their communities, individual lives and eventually the larger regional community.