Prospects for a sustainable local development and the possible role of design.

Contrary to what was thought in the past, the joint phenomena of globalisation and networking have given rise once again to the local dimension. By the expression ‘local’ something very removed is meant from what was understood in the past (i.e. the valley, the agricultural village, the small provincial town, all isolated and relatively closed within their own culture and economy). Indeed, it combines the specific features of places and their communities with the new phenomena generated and supported world-wide by globalisation and by cultural, socio-economic interconnection. Unfortunately, these phenomena are characterised today by extremely negative dominant tendencies, on the one hand, that swing between traditionalist stances, supporting local interests, and reactionary stances (all the different forms of fundamentalism hidden behind the protecting veil of traditions and identity); and, on the other hand, by inclinations towards turning what remains of traditions and landscapes into a show for tourist purposes (the tourist-related ‘supermarket type’ of localism, which is just another side of the standardising aspect of globalisation, from which there is the desire to break away).

Luckily, however, at a closer look, more interesting and promising cases can be observed. Local communities that invent unprecedented cultural activities, forms of organisation and economic models; initiatives which, as a whole, represent an interesting development scenario, which we can refer to as cosmopolitan localism……

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Local and global visions

In the transition towards a sustainable society, shared visions are needed to orient the political and economical debate and to conceive and promote sustainable solutions. Scenarios and, specifically, the design-orienting scenarios (DOS), may play an important role in promoting the social generation of these shared ideas and, more specifically, in creating favourable conditions to conceive and develop sustainable solutions. In this framework, scenario building becomes a new, specific and socially relevant design activity.

The paper discusses these themes presenting the results of some design workshops on “Scenarios of sustainable ways of living”, that recently have been held in several places [in Europe(1), in China(2), in Japan, Korea and Canada(3)].

The paper is organised in three parts: (A) the introduction of the design-orienting scenarios and of their potential role in the generation of sustainable ideas of wellbeing, (B) the discussion of the traditional and emerging ideas of wellbeing and of a general framework of new, sustainable ones, (C) the discussion of the workshops results.

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(1) In the framework of “SusHouse.Strategies towards the Sustainable Household”: a research funded by the European Union’s Environment and Climate Research programme Theme 4: On Human Dimensions of Environmental Change (ENV4-CT97-0446). The research has been co-ordinated by the Delft University of Technology and has been concluded in the year 2000.

(2) In the framework of “Hong Kong – Mainland China Network on Design for Sustainability”: a research funded by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The research started in the year 2001 and it is developed in the framework of a joint-programme with CIRIS-Politecnico di Milano – Italy, and with the Hunan University in Changsha – China

(3) In the framework of “A global network on design for sustainability”: an on-going Program of activities promoted by the CIRIS-Politecnico di Milano.

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