Social sustainability: a potential for politics?

Over the past decade, social sustainability has progressively permeated metropolitan politics as part of a wider sustainability agenda. In doing so, “the social” has reappeared from within a neoliberal context that has ideologically had preference for the individual (Harvey, D., 2005. A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford University Press). This paper explores the politics bound up in this recent embrace of social sustainability. It claims a key political distinction lies between a policy emphasis on either the “social” or “sustainability”. Through a consideration of the social, it is argued a potential site of progressive metropolitan politics can emerge, although the context of sustainability brings with it particular challenges. In conclusion, the paper considers how social sustainability debate at the metropolitan scale might be made to reflect a site of politics (Badiou, A., 2002. Ethics: an essay on the understanding of evil (Wo Es War). London: Verso; Zizek, S., 2006. Against the populist temptation, Critical Inquiry, 32 (3), 551–574).