A Framework for Analyzing and Supporting Communities on Their Path to Sustainability

Sustainable community development presents complex challenges, often leading to failed initiatives. This paper addresses the need for a conceptual framework to analyze, understand, and support communities striving for sustainability. It questions how diverse community stories can be synthesized to clarify core issues and subtleties, enabling communities to navigate towards a sustainable future. The research adopts a design perspective, drawing parallels between engineering design processes and community development. The methodology involves applying the Problem-Social-Institutional (PSI) framework, initially developed for engineering design, to analyze published case studies of sustainable and ecological community projects in Israel. The PSI matrix, a tool within the framework, models initiatives across three layers (vision, reflection/implementation, daily life) and three spaces (Problem-‘What’, Social-‘Who’, Institutional-‘How’). By analyzing multiple case studies using the PSI matrix, the research identifies key factors that contribute to both the success and failure of these initiatives. Results indicate that sustainable communities require dynamic alignment across all matrix cells, a shared and adaptable vision achieved through dialogue, an active ‘reflection/implementation’ layer for monitoring and alignment, community-defined daily operations, and the nurturing of citizen skills and leadership for participation and dialogue. The framework effectively highlights misalignments—such as conflicting visions or the absence of a reflection layer—as early indicators of potential failure. The paper concludes that the PSI framework provides a valuable, albeit simplified, tool for communities to diagnose challenges, facilitate dialogue, and guide actions toward sustainability, acknowledging the complexity of social systems and the need for continuous adaptation and learning.