Basic Concepts of Social Sustainability

July 08, 2014

Author’s Preface

Social Sustainability is a topic that has absorbed almost all of my time for the last seven years. The Fundamentals of Social Sustainability, Designing Sustainable Societies, Democracies and Economies, (FSS), is a summation of those seven years, in a rough, manuscript form. A major portion of the manuscript, “Sustainable Democracies,” had its earliest beginnings while I was stationed in Viet Nam. One of my assignments there allowed me the time to develop some early thoughts about the benefits and problems of the American form of democracy. Most of those problems are addressed in FSS.

Over the years many of my friends have asked me to start a blog regarding social sustainability, but each time I demurred as it did not seem to be the right time. Now it does. The time is right because social sustainability as it is described in FSS has matured to the point where it is now conceptually complete and systemic in nature, so that one can approach the topic from any point in that systemic whole and find their way to the beginning or end.

“Basic Concepts of Social Sustainability” will provide the reader with just that. It is my hope that I can provide those concepts on a regular basis that will lead readers to understand social sustainability and to begin thinking about the basic concepts of social sustainability in their workplace, at home and in their local community.

As for format, I hope to provide these concepts in one page so that they can be printed, hole punched and collected in a 3-ring binder if some of you choose to do so.


Daniel Raphael, Ph.D.,
USA, 2014

Cumulative file: PDF