‘Community Sustainability’ Will Be Discussed

Ten years ago, a United Nations conference set a new standard for development, which it called “sustainable.”

Communities are sustainable, U.N. delegates agreed, if they can “meet present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.”

“Exploring Community Sustainability” is the subject of a free lecture from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday at the downtown public library. It will be presented by Washington State University architecture professor Tom J. Bartuska.

Bartuska, co-author of the award-winning “Pullman Sustainable Village” report, says his lecture will focus on “positive examples of quality development.”

Those examples include some of the same communities that routinely show up on magazine writers’ annual lists of America’s “most livable cities” - Portland; Boulder, Colo.; Eugene, Ore.; and Davis, Calif.

Bartuska says creating a sustainable city takes leaders with vision, along with citizen involvement.

“Most of Pullman’s success is the result of citizen initiatives, where residents actually formed organizations to get things done,” he says.

Bartuska’s lecture is co-sponsored by Creating the Future, the Inland Empire Public Lands Council and the Moran Prairie Neighborhood Association.

For more information, call 467-0990.

, DataTimes