Professional Documents
Culture Documents
DOI 10.1007/s11482-012-9166-x
L. Magee et al.
Introduction
Understanding the uneven resilience of communities has been a preoccupation of the
social sciences since the nineteenth century. Classical social theory and sociology was
preoccupied with themes and questions about the cohesion, stability and integration
of communities. While terminology has changed, debates in this area are still to be
resolved. Despite, or perhaps because of this lack of resolution, enquiry over the past
two decades has shifted sideways to potentially more fruitful lines of inquiry. The
task of understanding society, and more locally, community, has increasingly
intersected with a new set of preoccupationssustainability, wellbeing and quality of
life. The underlying task of enquiry thus has moved, at least rhetorically, from
questions of social structure, regulation and function, to more agency-focussed
questions dealing with issues such as sense of sustainability, community, wellbeing,
quality of life, security from risk or inclusion and participation.
We identify four common dilemmas in the measurement of community sustainability. The first of these relates to what is measured by indicatorswhether they
measure objective conditions of a community, or to those conditions as subjectively
experienced by its members (Diener 2006; McCrea et al. 2006). A second and
associated dilemma concerns the ontological status of community itself. Is community
as an entity reducible to the sum of its parts, or rather is it constituted as an integrated
object beyond its parts (Sirgy 2010). A third dilemma concerns the temporal orientation of assessment. We suggest that an important distinction between wellbeing and
quality of life, on the one hand, and sustainability studies, on the other, fundamentally
concerns this temporal dimensionwhile notions of quality of life and wellbeing
tend to assess past and present states of communities and individuals, sustainability
can be broadly conceived as oriented towards future states. The fourth dilemma,
epitomized in the distinction between so-called global, or topdown, and local, or
bottomup assessment approaches, concerns whether to apply universal indicators
setswhich lead to comparability but tend to ignore local, community-based meanings of sustainabilityor whether to devise context-specific indicators, selected by
and relevant to the communities themselves, but requiring interpretation and translation in order to compare communities meaningfully (Agger 2010; Fraser et al. 2006).
It is in this context that we developed a questionnaire instrument that provides an
integrated assessment of community sustainability. The particular instrument we
introduce is oriented towards these dilemmas in the following ways. It aims to
measure the subjective attitudes of a community towards sustainability. It is geared
towards understanding these attitudes both individually and as they relate towards the
community as a whole, thereby treating community as a distinct and irreducible
entity. It focuses upon both present wellbeing and future sustainability of the community. Finally, it adopts a topdown approach, where variables are predefined.
Hence, in this conception of sustainability, the kinds of theoretical distinctions
introduced abovebetween global and local, objective and subjective, holistic and
individualistic, and present and future framesare both important to distinguish
but invariably intertwined. Analytically, this suggests that contemporary communities
need to be understood as upon reflection they would understand themselvesas
enmeshed in global systems while striving for local autonomy; as entities that can be
objectively studied but also with validly subjective interpretations of their conditions;
L. Magee et al.
the communities surveyed here, these differences further point to what may, given
further study, prove to be important distinctions between communities in the North
versus the South. Finally, the questionnaire is based upon an alternative theoretical
conception of sustainability to the common triple bottom line paradigm, as we
discuss further below. We therefore used the questionnaire as a form of extended
pilot, during which this conception was further developed, and in turn led to a
reformulation of the questionnaire itself, which we present below.
We begin in the next section by surveying briefly current trends in wellbeing and
sustainability indicator development. We then introduce our own sustainability questionnaire with an overview of its theoretical basis, and discuss pilot studies using the
questionnaire, conducted with a range of communities in the Middle East, South and
Southeast Asia. We include a range of communities in the Global South, and also
include several communities from Israel and Australia, for comparative purposes.
These communities were surveyed between 2006 and 2010, in conjunction with
qualitative studies. We then discuss our results, along with several limitations that
emerged during these pilots. We conclude with an outline of a new version of the
questionnaire, that includes some possible remedies, along with final observations.
L. Magee et al.
(Cummins et al. 2003), World Values Survey (Inglehart and Basanez 2000) and
World Database of Happiness (Veenhoven 2009), and indeed certain constructs of
the Wellbeing Index and World Values Survey are incorporated into our indicator set.
Secondly, we distinguish our approach from purely psychometric studies in focussing
on the community as a level of analysis. Hence, although individuals responses
concerning their own wellbeing are relevant, we also measure attitudinal assessment
of the communities they belong to, reflecting Sirgys observation (2010) that community is both equal to and more than the sum of its parts. Finally, we differentiate
our approach by looking to measure the intersubjective and future character of a
communityhow members of that community not only feel about themselves in the
present, but also about their broader social and natural environment, and about the
future prospects of that environment.
Methodology
The Social Sustainability Survey was first developed and administered to a number of
rural and urban communities in Victoria, Australia in 2006. Over the next 4 years it
was further administered to a number of diverse communities in the Southeast Asian,
South Asian and Middle Eastern regions. When administered in urban and regional
community settings in India and Sri Lanka, the questionnaires were used as
auxiliaries to interviews and consultations with coastal rural communities affected
by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Use of the questionnaire with the City of
Melbourne cohort was through a combination of randomized street and online
polling. In all other cases, questionnaires were administered as part of community
consultation, and participants were selected through a combination of purposive and
snowball sampling in those areas. In those cases, the questionnaire accompanied a
more extensive qualitative engagement in the communities sampled, through a series
of ethnographic, interview-based and observational inquiries into community wellbeing and sustainability (see, for example, Mulligan and Shaw 2007; Scerri et al.
2009). Hence the initial aim of the questionnaire was to supplement existing qualitative research, to identify areas of community concern, rather than to offer a basis for
comparative assessment. Consistent with this aim, a number of supplementary questions were included in different community settings, regional, localized, projectbased and time-based differences. For example, questionnaires administered in Sri
Lanka and India after the tsunami included a module of additional questions on
disaster recovery (Mulligan and Shaw 2007). A core set of variables was measured
consistently throughout, with the notable exception of the City of Melbourne questionnaire administered in 2009. These are discussed further below.
The questionnaire is developed on a theoretical model, the Circles of Sustainability,
elaborated in earlier work (Scerri and James 2010a, b). This model departs from
conceptions such as the triple bottom line by treating sustainability under a broadly
social constructionist and critical pragmatic paradigm. In this model, sustainability
indicators measure the extent to which a communitys goals, desires and ambitions
are being met. Accordingly, in contrast to triple bottom line, we treat the social as an
overall category that is integral to the very definition of sustainability. We then
differentiate four rather than three conceptual domainseconomy, ecology, politics,
and cultureagainst which the sustainability of different forms of social practice and
meaning can be assessed. Notably, in distinction to the triple bottom line, politics and
culture are distinguished as two separate domains of social life that, governed by their
own integral logics, warrant equal consideration and assessment as existing in a
relationship with the forms of social life that appear to take place when regarded in
terms of the economic and/or ecological domains. Aside from representing a more
evenly weighted conceptualization, this approach also mitigates against a key line of
critique of the triple bottom line approachthe invariable encroachment of economic
relations, especially market relations, upon environmental and social concerns.
Instead, respondents perceptions of what counts as indicators of sustainable social
relations, that is, economic, ecological, cultural and political relations, are treated as
prerequisites for sustainability.
The variables we introduce in the questionnaire aim to measure such perceptions
of community sustainability in each of these four domainsboth in absolute and
relative, atomistic and holistic, present and future and topdown and bottomup
terms. As the theoretical model itself was being developed during the pilot of the
questionnaire, we have constructed retrospective proxy subscales to measure sustainability against these domains. One side-effect of this iterative process has been some
early obfuscation between economic and ecological variables, and we opted to
collapse these into a single subscale in our principal component analysis below. We
also constructed a HDI Proxy subscale modelled on the Human Development Index
(Human Development Report 2010), to examine how our results could be interpreted
against a standardized index, and to test construct validity against the UNDP published HDI figures. Similarly, in line with our views that community sustainability
can be treated as an extension of community wellbeing, we adopted a number of
variables from the Wellbeing Index (Cummins et al. 2003). Other variables, as part of
the core set, were chosen to reflect broader intersubjective and future-oriented
community attitudes. The remaining common survey questions capture administrative and demographic variables. The complete set of questions and the manifest
variables they are measure are listed in Table 2 below.
A further interest was in how well our results at a community level, and measuring
subjective attitudinal responses, could be compared with nation-level objective indices such as the Human Development Index (Human Development Report 2010).
Though previous research suggests subjective and objective indicators do not always
correlate strongly even under controlled circumstances (McCrea et al. 2006), a
positive correlation for the self-assessment subscale of the questionnaire across
different communities is at least suggestive of construct validity. Similarly, we also
discussed results with researchers engaged in qualitative research with the surveyed
communities, to establish anecdotally whether results are consistent with their
findings.
Given that the administration of the questionnaire typically took place in the
context of a range of very different community engagements, where often the very
notion of community was difficult to define, there are notable inconsistencies in the
size and sampling strategies of the samples collected. We also note in our analysis that
this is the first time a comparative study of the samples has been conducted. In
addition to several difficulties harmonizing variant data sets, we became aware of
several problems of construct validity and reliability, which we aim to address in
L. Magee et al.
Country
Year
Size (N)
Percent
2006
1,062
Malaysia
2006
105
3.1
Sri Lanka
20072008
515
15.3
31.5
India
2008
181
5.4
Timor Leste
2008
615
18.3
Israel
2009
137
4.1
Australia
20062009
753
22.4
3,368
100.0
Total
Domain
Variable kind
Variable type
Age
Demography
Characteristic
Interval
Gender
Demography
Characteristic
Nominal
Ethnicity
Demography
Characteristic
Nominal
Location
Demography
Characteristic
Nominal
Postcode
Demography
Characteristic
Nominal
Country
Demography
Characteristic
Nominal
Living_With
Demography
Characteristic
Nominal
Household_Size
Demography
Characteristic
Ratio
Country_of_Birth
Demography
Characteristic
Nominal
Years_lived_in_current_neighbourhood
Demography
Characteristic
Ratio
Years_lived_in_previous_neighbourhood
Demography
Characteristic
Ratio
Financial_Assessment
Economy
Characteristic
Ordinal
Health_Assessment
Culture
Characteristic
Ordinal
Level_of_Education
Culture
Characteristic
Ordinal
Identified_Community
Culture
Characteristic
Nominal
Integration_with_Community
Culture
Attitude
Ordinal
Environmental_Conditions
Ecology
Attitude
Ordinal
Life_as_a_Whole
Culture
Attitude
Ordinal
Personal_Relationships
Culture
Attitude
Ordinal
Sense_of_Safety
Culture
Attitude
Ordinal
Work_Life_Balance
Economy
Attitude
Ordinal
Influence_Authority
Politics
Attitude
Ordinal
Decisions_in_Interest_of_Whole_Community
Politics
Attitude
Ordinal
Experts_can_be_trusted
Politics
Attitude
Ordinal
Govt_make_good_laws
Politics
Attitude
Ordinal
Enjoy_meeting_others_with_differences
Politics
Attitude
Ordinal
Trustworthiness_of_others
Culture
Attitude
Ordinal
Influence_of_cultural_history
Culture
Attitude
Ordinal
Importance_of_technology
Culture
Attitude
Ordinal
Frequency_of_use_of_technology
Culture
Behaviour
Ordinal
recorded as missing. For the purpose of the exploratory analysis, all Likert items are
here treated as ordinal variable types.
A series of descriptive statistics were obtained for this variable set, both to
observe tendencies in the data and to cross check the data-cleaning process, to
ensure absence of out-of-band data. We also correlated pair-wise all scalar
variables. We then conducted a factor analysis with varimax rotation, to view
whether variables clustered together intelligibly. We hypothesized also that
characteristic demographic data could be useful predictors for some of the
behavioural and attitudinal data, and ran regression tests to test this. Finally,
ANOVA and further correlation tests were administered to determine whether
L. Magee et al.
meaningful differences existed, for the core attitudinal variables, between the
various communities participating in the survey, and also how strongly our own
measures correlate with published HDI figures. The interpretation of these tests
is discussed below.
Findings
After the data was consolidated, our total sample size was 3,368. Country distribution
was heavily oriented towards Papua New Guinea, Australia, East Timor and Sri
Lanka. Gender distribution was approximately even (Female 049.4%; Male 0
50.2%), while age distribution is skewed towards a younger demographic, with over
75% of respondents under the age of 50. Self-assessments of health, wealth and
educationvariables related to indices such as the HDIreflect the application of
the survey to large number of Global South countries. The majority of respondents
described themselves financially as Struggling (50%), with only 9.1% stating they
were Well-off. 45.2% of respondents stated they had primary school or no formal
education at all, while only 18.4% had completed secondary school. Conversely,
against the health measurement-construct, 48.6% of respondents self-assessed as my
health is generally good.
A proxy HDI index variable, termed HDI Self-Assessment was composed out of
the normalized values of health, financial and education self-assessment variables.
The frequency distribution of this composite variable demonstrates that in fact the
relative skews of these variables collectively cancel out, leaving a close approximation to a normal distribution, as shown in Fig. 1 below.
Of the 15 common attitudinal variables listed in Table 2, all but three had
median, and all but one had mode values of Agree (4). As all Likert items were
phrased in such a way that agreement tended to endorse the underlying variable
being measured, this indicates a degree of correlation between responses is
likely. The average mean value was 3.65, while the average standard deviation
was 1.06, a relatively low dispersion, one that confirms the clustering of
responses on the positive end of the scale. As the presentation of inferential
tests below suggests, there are some interesting differences between communities
sampled however.
Correlations
Both Spearmans rho and Pearsons correlation coefficient were obtained of all core
scalar variables, 22 in total, and separately, of all attitudinal variables, 15 in total. Of
231 possible scalar correlations, 179 (77.5%) were significant at the 0.01 level, with a
further eight significant at the 0.05 level (81.0%). Of the 105 possible correlations of
the 15 attitudinal variables, 100 were significant at the 0.01 level. Together these
results suggest a very high degree of dependence between the variables, a feature
discussed further below in both the factor analysis and survey redesign sections.
Given the sample size, use of five-point scales for attitudinal variables, and potential
for skew in both wording of question probes and sampling strategy, such coalescence
is perhaps not surprising.
&
&
Satisfaction with various aspects we have interpreted against our theoretical fourdomain model as economic and ecological conditions (life as a whole, involvement with community, personal relationships, the environment, sense of safety,
work/life balance).
Trust and confidence in political conditions (ability to influence authority, belief
decisions are in interest of whole community, trust in experts and government)
Trust and confidence in cultural conditions (enjoy meeting and trust in others,
influence of history, importance and use of technology)
L. Magee et al.
Table 3 Principal component analysis
Component 1
Integration_with_Community
.639
Environmental_Conditions
.674
Life_as_a_Whole
.711
Personal_Relationships
.669
Sense_of_Safety
.627
Work_Life_Balance
.629
Component 2
Influence_Authority
.577
Decisions_in_Interest_of_Whole_Community
.711
Experts_can_be_trusted
.765
Govt_make_good_laws
.731
Component 3
Enjoy_meeting_others_with_differences
.581
Trustworthiness_of_others
.551
Influence_of_cultural_history
.488
Importance_of_technology
Frequency_of_use_of_technology
.577
.671
Principal component analysis is used as the extraction method. Rotation is conducted using varimax with
Kaiser normalization, converging in 5 iterations. Only scores above 0.4 are recorded
The three factors are interpreted here as accounting for each of the four domains in the
underlying model. The first factor combines all six satisfaction constructs, taken from
the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index (Cummins et al. 2003). These have been
admittedly quite liberallyinterpreted as reflecting general contentment with
economic and ecological circumstances, where ecology is considered as the intersection between the social and natural context. The following two factors more
directly aggregate items reflecting political and cultural engagement, respectively.
Since missing values caused a large number of cases (1,593, or 47.3% of 3,368) to
be ignored in the analysis, a separate analysis was conducted with mean values
substituted back in. The analysis showed a weaker sampling adequacy result, but
no change in the variables or factors identified. A series of composite indices, termed
respectively Attitudes towards Economy and Ecology, Attitudes towards Politics and
Attitudes towards Culture, was constructed from the normalized values of the relevant
underlying indicators. These in turn were compiled into an overall Attitudinal SelfAssessment index, similar to the HDI Self-Assessment variable described above. All
five computed variables were then used in subsequent regression and ANOVA tests.
Predicting Sustainability AssessmentsRegression Results
Regression tests were conducted to note the significance and direction of relationships between the principal component clusters of attitudinal variables, and demographic and self-assessment characteristics. Results of these for all attitudinal
variables are included in Table 4. For the Well-being Index satisfaction levels
(interpreted, as suggested above, so as to cover economic and ecological domains),
(Constant)
Age
Household size
Financial assessment
Health assessment
Unstandardized
coefficients
Standardized coefficients t
Beta
Std. Error
Sig.
81.237
2.084
.612
.220
.089
38.979 .000
2.781 .006
.159
.119
.043
1.336 .182
2.649
.536
.155
4.946 .000
.606
.502
.039
1.206 .228
Level of education
.263
.272
.031
.966 .334
.812
.220
.124
3.687 .000
.198
.167
.039
1.189 .235
and attitudes relating to the political domain, only the financial self-assessment
variable stands out as a strongand negativepredictor, suggesting that those who
assess themselves poorly nonetheless score highly against satisfaction and political
engagement indicators. Conversely, all variables other than Financial Assessment
and Years lived in previous neighbourhood have a strong predictive relationship on
the aggregated cultural engagement indicator.
Comparing CommunitiesANOVA and Correlation Results
An ANOVA test was also conducted using the community as the grouping variable. Of
particular interest was whether the first three principal components identified in the
component analysis had significant differences between communities. Similarly we
examined the composite Attitudinal Self-Assessment and HDI Self-Assessment
variables across the groups. The tabulated results of this test are included in Table 5.
Each of the five computed variables showed significant differences across the
different community groups at both 0.05 and 0.01 levels.
Table 6 compares both mean values and rank for the five composite variables
across each of the seven communities (Melbourne (2009) and Timor Leste are
incomplete due to certain items not being included in their respective surveys). As
the ranks make clear, HDI self-assessment means appears to correlate with attitudes
towards economy, ecology and culture, with Australian Towns and Beer Sheva
ranking highly for each of these four variables. Attitudes towards Politics, on the
contrary, correlate inversely. This suggest that communities generally satisfied and
confident regarding economic, ecological and cultural dimensions are sceptical of
prevailing power systems and structures; those, on the other hand, who self-assess
poorly and are dissatisfied with present material conditions nonetheless express
greater trust and confidence in political mechanisms.
A further pair-wise set of correlations was ran over the composite variables, which
confirm the above findings across the whole data setall variables correlate significantly at 0.05, 0.01 and 0.001 levels, with Attitudes towards Politics the only variable
correlating negatively with the others. We also plotted our HDI Self-assessment proxy
L. Magee et al.
Table 5 ANOVA of composite variables across communities
Sum of squares
Attitudes towards economy
and ecology
Attitudinal self-assessment
HDI Self-assessment
Between Groups
df
Mean square
1763.205
440.801
Within Groups
34612.283
2159
16.032
Total
36375.488
2163
Between Groups
1999.909
399.982
Within Groups
26098.794
2614
9.984
Total
28098.704
2619
Between Groups
14879.615
2975.923
Within Groups
26435.147
2711
9.751
Total
41314.762
2716
6620.378
1655.095
Within Groups
Between Groups
199032.075
1770
112.448
Total
205652.453
1774
Between Groups
429736.973
71622.829
Within Groups
1122152.037
3205
350.125
Total
1551889.010
3211
Sig.
27.496
.000
40.061
.000
305.189
.000
14.719
.000
204.563
.000
variable against 2010 HDI values given by the UNDP for the corresponding countries.
Here we noted a strong positive correlation (R00.756, p<0.05).
Discussion
In the first instance, this article has reflected our interest in examining whether a
generalizable questionnaire could accurately measure subjective attitudes of
members across diverse sites and communities, and supplement information
available from other sources. For this purpose we used two forms of control:
the ethnographic research conducted at the communities, and general HDI statistics
for the countries in which the communities reside. Secondly, we investigated
whether salient differences existed between low and high-income communities
towards different sustainability dimensions. In the context of the communities
surveyed here, these point to distinctions between communities in the Global North
versus the South. Finally, the questionnaire is based upon an alternative theoretical
conception of sustainability to the common triple bottom line paradigm. We therefore
used the questionnaire as a form of extended pilot, during which this conception was
further developed, and in turn led to a reformulation of the questionnaire itself, which we
present below.
Overall, results suggest that the questionnaire provides a useful and general
instrument for measuring community attitudes towards what is perceived by
community members to constitute sustainability. Administered over a broad
range of communitiesurban and rural, high and low-income, and those dealing
with the aftermath of environmental (Sri Lanka), political (Timor Leste) and
economic (Melbourne) upheavalpost facto regressions and component analyses
21.4
11.7
22.5
Sri Lanka
Timor Leste
14.0
Sri Lanka
Timor Leste
Malaysia
Melbourne, Australia
Australian Towns
15.3
19.7
17.1
15.8
22.7
72.7
70.9
65.2
74.8
36.0
38.4
41.6
53.6
46.5
78.4
0.502
0.658
0.431
0.937
0.744
0.872
Attitudes towards Economy Attitudes towards Attitudes towards Attitudinal Self-Assessment HDI Self-Assessment 2010 HDI Country Relative
and Ecology
Politics
Culture
Ranks a
Beer Sheva
Mean ranks
13.8
24.2
13.5
Melbourne, Australia .
13.1
0.937
24.3
65.5
72.8
Malaysia
21.4
24.2
Australian Towns
11.5
Attitudes towards Economy Attitudes towards Attitudes towards Attitudinal Self-Assessment HDI Self-Assessment 2010 HDI Country Values a
and Ecology
Politics
Culture
Values
Mean values
L. Magee et al.
In total, the revised structure of 48 variables more closely measures community sustainability against our own Circles of Sustainability theoretical model.
We have included eight items for each of the four domains, along with 10 demographic and six wellbeing items (the latter are again sourced from the Australian
Unity Wellbeing Index). The domain items are further divided into subscales for
sense of trust, concern and optimism about the future. We have also mapped the
questions in the survey in relation to the Human Development (Creating Capabilities)
approach (Nussbaum 2011), to provide more structured concordance with an existing
L. Magee et al.
Conclusion
The Community Sustainability Survey has been applied to approximately 3,300
members of various communities in the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia
between 2006 and 2010. Our results showed several interesting patterns: members
of communities in countries with above average HDI scores (Australian towns,
Beer Sheva, Melbourne) scored higher on all but one of our composite attitudinal
scales (attitudes towards economy, ecology, culture, self-assessment and HDI proxy).
The exception, Attitudes towards Politics, tentatively corroborates other findings
confirming widespread disaffection with politics in economically advanced liberal
democracies, such as those observed over several decades by Inglehart (1977, 1990,
1997). The relative stable political environments in these countries further suggests
discrepancies between subjective assessments and objective conditions regarding
specifically political sustainability. As we acknowledge though, this result may be
the product of confounding variables and construct validity. Political scepticism can
equally be taken as an indicator of a robust political environment rather than its
converse, the failure of political processes. We also found a pleasing degree of
correlation between our own HDI proxy variable and published UNDP HDI values,
and anecdotal confirmation with qualitative research conducted at the same community
sites.
In terms of the first of four dilemmas we introduced at the outset of this article, we
note this instrument will sit alongside others piloted under the same project rubric, thus
complementing the standardized, topdown indicators of sustainability outlined here
with locally developed, bottomup and issue-based indicators. In terms of the remaining three of the dilemmas, the results of the questionnaire provide a useful context for
examining the relationship between alternative subjective, intersubjective and objective
modes of measurement; between individuals and community; and between present
wellbeing and future sustainability. The reformulation of variables will, we expect,
allow us to better gauge these dimensions, and so provide a more robust instrument
for understanding and assessing sustainability from a communitys own point of view.
Though initially intended as an augmented instrumental probe into qualitative
modes of community engagement, the process of consolidating, cleaning and
analysing the results of the survey suggests that the instrument has a potentially
broader role to play as a tool for assessing a communitys own attitudes
towards sustainability. Further work is required to formulate and pilot the
revised survey. However, as the exploratory analysis shows, useful results have
been extracted from the existing data set, including the inverse relations between political and other domain indicators, and a potential scoring mechanism
for ranking communities self-assessments. We suggest that it may fill a gap
between the current group of objective, techno-scientific indices, and subjective,
psychometrically-oriented well-being and quality of life measures, focussing on
sustainability as an intersubjective and future-oriented process between community
members.
L. Magee et al.
Political
Sense of Trust
17. I can influence people and institutions that have authority in relation to my
community.
18. Decisions made in relation to my community are generally made in the interests
of the whole community.
19. Outside experts can be trusted when dealing with local issues.
20. Governments make decisions and laws that are good for the way I live locally.
Sense of Concern
21. I am concerned that global levels of politically-motivated violence will affect
our locality.
22. I am concerned about the corruption of local political institutions.
Sense of Optimism About the Future
23. Outsiders are and will continue to be comfortable coming to live in our locality.
24. People can learn to live with people who are culturally different from
themselves.
Ecological
Sense of Trust
25. Experts will always find a way to solve environmental problems.
26. My identity is bound up with the local natural environment and landscape.
27. Conserving natural resources is unnecessary because alternatives will always be
found.
28. In order to conserve natural diversity, economic development should be excluded
from substantial wilderness areas.
Sense of Concern
29. Across our locality there is good access to places of nature.
30. I am concerned that global climate change will affect our locality.
Sense of Optimism About the Future
31. We have a capacity to meet our local needs for basic resources such as food,
water and energy.
32. Continuing economic growth is compatible with environmental sustainability.
Economic
Sense of Trust
33. Wealth is distributed widely enough to allow all people in our locality to enjoy a
good standard of living.
34. Our government supports economic growth as one of its highest priorities.
35. Our economy is adequately protected against competition from foreign-owned
businesses.
36. Hard work and initiative alone is enough to get ahead financially.
Sense of Concern
37. I am concerned that global economic change will affect our locality.
38. A slump in the local economy.
Sense of Optimism
39. Keeping our economy sustainable requires that our needs for a wide range of
consumer goods are fulfilled.
40. Current levels of consumption in our locality are compatible with an environmentally sustainable future.
Cultural
Sense of Trust
41. I feel that I can influence the generation of meanings and values in relation to
our way of life.
42. I feel comfortable meeting and talking with people who are different from me.
43. Most people can be trusted most of the time.
44. Places of learning, health, recreation and faith are distributed across our locality
in a way that ensures good access by all.
Sense of Concern
45. I am concerned about a decline in the vitality of local cultural institutions.
46. I am concerned that globally-transmitted cultural values will affect our locality.
Sense of Optimism
47. I am free to express my beliefs through meaningful creative activities.
48. People living in our locality are free to celebrate publicly their own rituals and
memories, even if those rituals are not part of the mainstream culture.
L. Magee et al.
References
Agger, A. (2010). Involving citizens in sustainable development: evidence of new forms of participation in
the Danish agenda 21 schemes. Local Environment, 15(6), 541552.
Assche, J., Block, T., & Reynaert, H. (2010). Can community indicators live up to their expectations? The
case of the Flemish city monitor for liveable and sustainable urban development. Applied Research in
Quality of Life, 5(4), 341352.
Atkinson, G. (2000). Measuring corporate sustainability. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 43(2), 235252.
Balana, B. B., Mathijs, E., & Muys, B. (2010). Assessing the sustainability of forest management: an
application of multi-criteria decision analysis to community forests in northern Ethiopia. Journal of
Environmental Management, 91(6), 12941304.
Bohringer, C., & Jochem, P. (2007). Measuring the immeasurablea survey of sustainability indices.
Ecological Economics, 63(1), 18.
Bramley, G., & Power, S. (2009). Urban form and social sustainability: the role of density and housing type.
Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 36(1), 3048.
Cummins, R. A., Eckersley, R., Pallant, J., Van Vugt, J., & Misajon, R. A. (2003). Developing a national
index of subjective wellbeing: the Australian unity wellbeing index. Social Indicators Research, 64(2),
159190.
Diener, E. (2006). Guidelines for national indicators of subjective well-being and Ill-being. Applied
Research in Quality of Life, 1(2), 151157.
Elkington, J. (1997). Cannibals with forks: The triple bottom-line of 21st century business. Gabriola Island:
New Society Publishers.
Field, A. (2005). Discovering statistics using SPSS. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Fraser, E. D. G., Dougill, A. J., Mabee, W. E., Reed, M., & McAlpine, P. (2006). Bottom up and top down:
analysis of participatory processes for sustainability indicator identification as a pathway to community
empowerment and sustainable environmental management. Journal of Environmental Management, 78
(2), 114127.
Gasparatos, A., El-Haram, M., & Horner, M. (2008). A critical review of reductionist approaches for
assessing the progress towards sustainability. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 28(45), 286
311.
Hagerty, M. R. (1999). Unifying livability and comparison theory: cross-national time-series analysis of
life-satisfaction. Social Indicators Research, 47(1), 343356.
Hettelingh, J., Vries, B. J. M. D., & Hordijk, L. (2009). Integrated assessment. Principles of environmental
sciences. Springer: Netherlands.
Holden, M. (2007). Revisiting the local impact of community indicators projects: sustainable Seattle as
prophet in its own land. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 1(34), 253277.
Human Development Report Office, (2010). HDI 2010 index. Available at: http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/
Lets-Talk-HD-HDI_2010.pdf.
Inglehart, R. (1977). The silent revolution: changing values and political styles among western publics.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Inglehart, R. (1990). Culture shift in advanced industrial societies. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Inglehart, R. (1997). Modernization and postmodernization. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Inglehart, R., & Basanez, M. (2000). World values survey. USA and Mexico.
James, P., Nadarajah, Y., Haive, K., & Stead, V. (2011). Sustainable communities, sustainable development:
other paths for Papua New Guinea. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
James, P., Stead, V., Nadarajah, Y., & Haive, K. (2011). Urban and peri-urban communities: Vanagi
settlement, central province; Divinai village, Milne Bay province; Kananam community, Madang
province; Yalu village and surrounds, Morobe province. Localglobal Papua New Guinea: Projecting
Community-Life, 5, 1862.
Kilbourne, W. E. (2006). The role of the dominant social paradigm in the quality of life/environmental
interface. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 1(1), 3961.
Krajnc, D., & Glavic, P. (2005). A model for integrated assessment of sustainable development. Resources,
Conservation and Recycling, 43(2), 189208.
Kruger, P. S. (2010). Wellbeingthe five essential elements. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 6(3),
325328.
Lee, N. (2006). Bridging the gap between theory and practice in integrated assessment. Environmental
Impact Assessment Review, 26(1), 5778.