Creating strong communities – measuring social sustainability in new housing development

and references). Introduction This article describes a social sustainability measurement framework developed jointly in a project carried out by Social Life and the University of Reading, commissioned by the Berkeley Group. 1 The article sets out in detail how social sustainability can be defined, how it can be measured, and the resultant implications of the research findings for policy and practice. What is social sustainability, and why is it important to the housebuilding industry? Previous academic work has identified that social sustainability brings together a number of different ideas about ideas about social equity, well-being, social needs and the sustainability of communities (see Table 1), often described in terms of social capital, social cohesion and wellbeing. 2-6 Housing and urban regeneration are strong themes throughout this work, as is the idea that the neighbourhood or local community is an appropriate scale for measurement. 7 Importantly, this work acknowledges that the practical and operational aspects of social sustainability are not well explored, clearly defined or well integrated in the policy and practice of urban planning and housing. 8