Sustainable Rural Community Development: Experiences and Lessons

The purpose of this article is multifactorial. The primary question we investigate here refers to human barriers and established practices in a local county that obstructs pathways towards a sustainable future, as well as the measures taken to overcome difficulties and their societal impact. We base our analysis solely on the experience gained during the 2012-2015 planning period for the sustainable development of Vytina county-Greece. Our research focuses on sustainable development and its dependence on local community behaviours, as well as alternative ways for citizen involvement in the development process in order to avoid obstacles encountered in established bottom-up methodologies. Societal constraints include the complexity of communications and relationships between residents, the community's existing internal processes, a complex external environment, and a lack of shared vision which all contribute to the ego of the inhabitants, and to their time availability. These constraints represent obstacles and threats. The fundamentals of the planning process should neutralize and override these obstacles. It is important to recognize and measure these constraints and evaluate their societal impact. Weak predictions/estimates, inconsistent goals, top-down policy decisions, short-sighted planning, resistance to change, and intractable local government can all be barriers to bottom-up methodologies. The bottom-up process, fair and meaningful, is somewhat cumbersome and requires time to mature in order for sustainability practices to be effective. But the pilot application can help foster alternative approaches that allow the citizen to enter the era of sustainability easier and faster. The prerequisite is the existence of a rich cultural heritage. Facing all these problems in the planning for the sustainable development of a local community today, I wonder how a sustainable outer space civilization can be accomplished in the distant future when we have finally arrived at, what Michio K aku refers to as, the God equation or theory of everything.

This article draws on experiences and lessons learned through the bottom-up process of developing a sustainability plan for the Vytina county of the Municipality of Gortynia-Greece and the subsequent research on ways of accepting more easily the changes required by the residents for a sustainable future. It is based exclusively on the following writings:

1. Kapsalis T. Local Communities and Sustainable Development: How Easy is the Change?. Greece. Municipality of Gortynia. 2018; this study outlines the developed plan and the process.
2. Kapsalis T, Kapsalis V. Sustainable Development and its Dependence on Local community behavior. Sustainability. 2020; doi: 10.3390/su12083448. In this study, we investigate the fundamental components and the subsequent difficulties that influence changes in residents' behavior and attitudes. A structural formulation analysis helped us simplify and remodel the equation of change and revealed factors necessary to interpreting the data.
3. Takis Ap Kapsalis. A three-leg cultural relay race to sustainability of rural communities. CRSUST.  2022. doi: 10.1016/j.crsust.2022.100136. This study offers an alternative way to promote sustainability in a local community by focusing on local cultural attractions and potential economic, social, and environmental impact of increased tourism.

The suitable mathematical models for studying a complex world enable us to consider various development scenarios based on changes in different parameters.

Most scenarios for the future of the Earth by 2100 are pessimistic. They end up "overshooting the limits" and collapsing due to resource depletion, food shortages, industrial decline, or some combination of the above or other factors. How much does this affect our local community? What are the chances presented to us for a sustainable course in the future?

According to calculations of the Global Footprint Network in 1972, on August 2nd, 2017 humanity would exhaust the planet's natural resources and by the end of 2017 would be living on loans taken from future generations. As far as the states of the European Union are concerned, and Greece in particular, our way of life has produced an enormous "ecological debt"; every year, 2.8 "Greece’s", to be exact, are needed to meet the demands of its citizens. On August 2, 2017, we officially exhausted the resources that the Earth can provide us for the whole year. Humanity's ecological debt is not sustainable, according to the environmental organization World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) and the Global Footprint Network. Analysis of 2018 data, published in 2022, verifies the predictions. Some scenarios, however, indicate that sustainable development can result from modest population growth, low pollution levels, alternative energy investments, mindful industrial production and material mining, etc.

Local communities everywhere increasingly understand the interconnections of their local well-being with the global state of the economy, social fabric, governance, and environment. One such local society is the Vytina County in Greece. In 2012 the Association of Sustainable Development, side by side with the citizens, adopted and launched a bottom-up methodology and approach aimed at sustainable development that would benefit future generations. Furthermore, the global financial crisis highlighted the changes needed at the local level. The development planning process adapted the general approach of Taking Action for Sustainability by Hallsmith G, Layke C, and Everett M for local conditions. It quickly became apparent that changes in our behaviour were required: [Muro F. El pez que no quiso evolucionar. Expanded edition. Empresa Activa.2009;], changes in the ways we address the future, changes in the way we deal with officials and vice versa, changes in the way we deal with fellow citizens, and changes in the way we deal with the environment. Attention, we are not talking about a change in human nature but change in human actions, and behaviour. Let us focus on two important behavioural skills.

The right vision for the future is also the driving force for a better one. If we believe in our vision and find the motivation and strength to follow through, the results usually vindicate us. Furthermore, we are the ones who can create our visions. The right ones for us. If there is no vision there is apathy. So the way we envision things determines outcomes. The same applies to the local community. The shared vision has a corresponding effect on the planning process of sustainable development and its implementation thereafter. Shared vision brings motivation and mobility. After all, the researching, synthesizing, capturing, and adopting of a shared vision has a positive social effect: teamwork and mobilization of citizens energized by the opportunity to participate in society. We consider that a shared vision in the bottom-up process is a cornerstone of sustainability development. It is a cornerstone because the goals to meet this vision and all the remaining elements of the process depend solely on the vision. The vision represents how people imagine their region in 20-30 years. It describes an “ideal” imagined future and provides a roadmap that assists in the transition process. The shared vision is a cumbersome effort and an immense network-based approach based in responses to open-ended questions. Challenges include response coding, respondents’ time and effort, and statistical analysis. This process takes time, but it is a good team experience during its adaptation phase. In the Vytina pilot project, fifteen volunteers were tasked with collecting the distributed questionnaire and interviewed residents. Ten volunteers analyzed the responses. This information gathering process led to a sudden and vibrant learning community.

 The ability to anticipate an upcoming event is a key skill. It is a skill that links directly to analysis and goal setting, ensuring balance and protection from extreme situations and a steady path toward the shared vision. That is to say, always look for something better. Pursuing and welcoming change into our lives and into our local community is of paramount importance to development. After all, being pro-active is a matter of survival: Behavior cannot be taught but it can be learned.

As proactive as local communities are, some weaknesses limit their proactivity. It is crucial to be aware of who they are because we have to take them into account and live with them. First, most local communities do not have a shared vision, thus contributing to the first limitation of the "ME" or self-focused qualities of inhabitants. The complexity of communication and relationships between them entails more threats. Does the phrase "I want, but others don't want" remind you of something? Second, many communities suffer from additional limitations, such as limited budgets, disinterested officials, challenging legislative framework, and more. In addition, there is an increasingly more complex external environment, given global population growth, rising/falling dollar prices, increasing oil prices, challenging state laws, strikes, leading to increased uncertainty. And finally, there is the limitation of time. Reduced planning time results in a corresponding decrease in enthusiastic participation. Business as usual blocks proactivity. All of the above limitations threaten the sustainable planning of a community.

Many residents are very interested in participating in their communities. Personal interests may focus them on one or more local issues, such as school budget, volunteering, tourism, and water reserves. Or, they may share international concerns, such as global warming, environmental pollution, violence and terrorism, or the growing divide between the rich and the poor. But despite our best efforts, we often found that our community did not respond to short-term planning requirements. As the issues persisted, community leaders focused even more on short-term solutions and crisis management, and we often discovered that yesterday's first aid solution would become today's problem. So how to create the sustainable future of our local community? By planning our future together, residents and authorities can then implement that future together. The fundamentals of the process should also try to neutralize the threats and obstacles facing sustainable planning. So what are those fundaments and what is their social impact?.

a) Better predictions/estimates for future events even when we have a cavalcade of changes that make it hard to manage, effecting the community, regardless of the degree of their proactivity. Trusted mathematical and system dynamics models, like MIT's World3, are available to simulate the future.

b) Goal consistency: Many times goals are conflicting. Sometimes, goals are interconnected by good fortune. But most, are disconnected and will not lead to the intended vision and outcomes. Non-coherent goals do not bring order to chaos. There is no vision - utopian or otherwise - that will motivate efforts when goals are haphazard. It is not just that we do not know what goals to seek as a community. The problem is deeper than that. Accelerated changes require new methods by which we can reach the goals. The systemic approach facilitates the lifting of the problem of consistency. The sustainable planning in the municipal unit of Vytina yielded, in 2015, a strategic plan with 17 important sectors-goals (similar to the UN's 17 sustainable goals) of the society (Financial development, Health, etc.), 43 visionary targets, 85 secondary targets, 85 strategies and 293 proposals leading to actions. The seventeen sectors pointed out by the citizens of Vytina County are part of the same system to which the three sustainability pillars of the local society belong. Are they related to each other? Do they interact with each other? These are the questions that need to be addressed in order to choose strategies and sustainable actions. That indicates cοnsistency and that the local society will avoid arriving at dead ends in the future. 

c) Participatory policy: It is important to reward public officials who listen to and support community voices driving participatory policy. Collaborative processes that include officials and residents increase community enthusiasm and sense of belonging. Community members will have pride in their contributions. Nevertheless, local government official's acceptance of the sustainable principles and rules is a prerequisite for the sustainable community planning and development. In particular, with the covenant of mayors of Europe, mayors have agreed to make their municipalities models of sustainable development. Subsequently, there is acceptance and agreement by all to support a sustainable future.

d) Short-term planning: Every community is a system, needing to engage in long-term planning rather than short-term fixes. Short-term planning is an obstacle to growth, and the interactions of the system's various parts often take many years to reveal outcomes; If the long-term impact is devastating and the pattern of change goes unnoticed, then the frog parable is a fitting way of understanding this unexpected disaster: If you put the frog in boiling water, it will react and try to get out, but if you put it in a saucepan with room temperature water, it will stay put; If you then slowly heat the water something strange will happen: the frog will not try to escape. The frog's survival sensor is activated by sudden changes in the surroundings, not in slow, gradual changes. We used the systems approach to feel the shock from a poor decision contemplating its impact, even after 20-30 years. Thus, we jumped out from a decision driving us to a dead end, before falling into apathy. 

e) Resistance to change: A local community is usually ready to enter the change process when its desire for change overcomes its resistance. This is a matter of behavior and depends, according to T. Kapsalis's formula (evolution of Kathleen Dannemiler's formula DxFxF>R), on the ability to have concern with the existing situation, to envision the future as well as to take first steps towards sustainable changes. The greater this desire to truly vision sustainable change, the greater the chance that a local community will achieve sustainability. We have a tool based on a simple questionnaire that can alert us to a change of behavior and therefore, the readiness for the next phase of integrated sustainable planning by means of a bottom-up process. 

f) Local government: A bottom-up strategic plan for the sustainable development of a local community should be an umbrella for all the other planning and decisions of the municipality. When a new local government comes to power, organizations and residents can lose influence and momentum. Through legislation created by a round table body, officials and residents can secure continuity. Selected through an evaluation process, round table members can serve as the municipality's expert(s) and the community's volunteers. 

Rooted in a shared vision, the bottom-up approach is a well-tested process that demands extensive coordination, as well as computational, educational, and specialized planning. A resulting obstacle is a lack of quick implementation and results, and therefore, the risk that enthusiastic participation decreases. Another drawback, depending on the community, is the lack of knowledge regarding the concept of sustainability. In turn, such community members are reticent to change behaviors and are more likely to continue with business-as-usual. In addition, decision-making is not always reliably optimized due to a lack of local expertise in complex systems. For these reasons, we propose a new approach focused on smooth and structured changes to support the community's sustainable future. This approach relies on a combination of tried and tested methodologies. It explores the sustainable development of a local community, starting with its unique culture, and implementing a series of scalable cohesive actions familiarizing residents with the concept and practices of sustainability and strengthening incentives for greater citizen participation. This process avoids the formal and cumbersome obstacles of a bottom-up approach so that citizens can enter the sustainable era more quickly and easily.

Dr. Michio Kaku crosses the frontiers of astrophysics, rocketry, artificial intelligence, robotics, and biotechnology, presenting a grand vision of our species: humanity's journey to inaccessible galaxies and the development of sustainable civilization in deep space. It is comical to compare Kaku's vision of a sustainable civilization in outer space to a sustainable local community. Michio Kaku predicts that by the end of the century, fifth wave technology star ships, Nano ships, laser sails, ramjet engines and anti-matter will make our journey beyond our solar system a reality [Kaku M. The God Equation the Quest for a Theory of Everything. Doubleday 2021;]. But to get there, shouldn't we first achieve our own sustainability? Recent disasters (earthquakes, railway accidents) that were far more destructive due to a lack of technological infrastructure and implementation bring to mind Plato's saying: “Πάσα τέ επιστήμη χωριζομένη δικαιωσύνης και της άλλης αρετής, πανουργία τις και ου σοφία φαίνεται” [Every science, when separated from justice and the rest of virtue, becomes artifice and not wisdom]. Let Plato's saying be our guide; everyday citizens must be alert, not complacent