Social sustainability as a driving force in local community development

The project SOSLOKAL examines local social sustainability in three Norwegian settings and find 3 core elements and 4 premises are needed to create healthy places and ensure sustainable communities.

Social sustainability as a new driving force in local community development (SOSLOKAL). The main goal of the project is to develop social sustainability as a core value and reference point for local community development. The UN's Sustainable Development Goals have revitalised the attention in the municipalities to sustainable development as a comprehensive social goal. At the same time, the municipalities have so far placed too little emphasis on the social sustainability dimension in community and land-use planning. Social sustainability is also a new field in research. SOSLOKAL responds to this need by exploring what social sustainability means in a local, Norwegian context and instruments that can help support socially sustainable local community development:
1. A literature review that will provide increased knowledge about what social sustainability means in a local context. The results
will serve as a common platform in the project.
2. Development of co-creation as a tool for knowledge development and local community mobilization, by testing a Scottish
tools for quality of life and engagement of "silent voices" in society, as well as exploring Bylab as a tool.
3. Development of mechanisms that ensure a closer link between the knowledge base and political decisions. If socially sustainable changes are to be created, politicians must also be engaged. The potential of these activities for conceptual, strategic, product, process and management innovation has been tested in the municipalities of Kristiansand, Stavanger and Fredrikstad in the form of two literature studies, testing of the Place Standard Tool
in the three cities, implementation of five city labs and three political workshops. By carrying out these activities successively, they have been able to build on each other. In this way, we have experienced a progression in the understanding of social
sustainability, while at the same time gaining insight into the function of the activities as tools to lift the population's experience of social sustainability in their own local community. The project activities show that local social sustainability mainly consists of three core elements; (a) Equitable access to basic
services, (b) the opportunity to influence one's own area and (c) socially, resilient local communities. Local social sustainability also requires four local conditions; (1) Fair distribution of benefits and disadvantages within and between local districts, (2) bridge-building capacity internally in the municipality and internally in the local community, (3) a clear role and division of responsibilities and (4) a flexible form of governance with the ability to co-create.