Course:IGS585/OK2020WT2/GuestMarkHolland

Mark Holland - Holland Planning Innovations

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	Reflection Authors and Commenters
Author	Ian Chambers	Ayla de Grandpre	Adam Kunis	Joshua Ayer	Luis Cadavid	Janna Wale
Commenter	Janna Wale	Joshua Ayer	Luis Cadavid	Adam Kunis	Ian Chambers	Ayla de Grandpre

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Janna Wale For me, one of the bigger learnings that came out of Mark Holland’s discussion on sustainable communities was the idea of health community frameworks, or sustainability as health. I have been especially reflective of his comments around using health as a leverage point for the environment because of how highly we (as British Columbians) regard health, wellness, and wellbeing. By linking health to the environment, we are beginning to go beyond the dichotomy of human and natural systems (which is the commonly used school of thought in the Canadian education system), by considering them together. In researching my thesis, a lot of the material I have read on Indigenous community resilience have also stressed the importance of a holistic perspective inclusive of the dimensions of health and wellness when speaking about sustainability. In my own community, health, wellness, and spirit (Otsin) are tightly bound to land (Lax Yip). Wellness in my culture has to do with the spirit of the land, and is described as a physical space but is also described as one’s relationship with that land. Hearing the same principle echoed in Mark’s “health as sustainability” point allows me to consider the parallels between these ideas, and reinforces the validity in considering human and environmental systems together. Related to my own work, this could be an important avenue to explore for bridging western and Indigenous views on the concept of sustainability. Furthering this, listening to Mark Holland’s discussion on planning innovations and the pillars of a sustainable community, I was reminded of the discussion on complexity given by Dr. Lael Parrott. The pillars are themselves embedded within the larger complex socio-ecological system that is affected by timing, spatial area, and the economy. In order to be able to achieve any of the sustainability pillars within a community, many other areas of the dynamic and interrelated system will be affected and shifted. While the pillars are themselves independent of one another, they exist within the same nested system, and will respond to the changes that occur when shifts happen elsewhere in the system. Thinking back to my own thesis on community resilience, Mark’s discussion is an important reminder of the connections that exist within human and environmental systems when looking for ways to become more holistically sustainable. Overall, Mark’s perspective has allowed me the space to relate his discussion back to my own understanding of what it means to be sustainable, and has been valuable in my own work towards my thesis. Ayla De Grandpre Once again, it appears as though we have addressed the same topic in our reflections (his discussion on health). I really appreciated the way that you articulated the idea of interconnectedness in relation to how Indigenous Peoples perceive the land and the wellness of the people. I think this is a critical point, and one which we have lost sight of, leading to many of the ills and unsustainable practices we are experiencing in our societies. As you suggested, I believe this would be a strong way to integrate western and Indigenous worldviews. I remember reading an article titled: "A linked vulnerability and resilience framework for adaptation pathways in remote disadvantaged communities" By Maru et al (2014), suggesting that the presence of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in communities often leads to greater sustainability and resilience. I would be very curious to explore if TEK could be considered an indicator of resilience, and a key guiding principle in adaptation and creating a new path forward?

Ayla De Grandpre Though I did not agree with everything Mark Holland presented, I was highly impressed with the experiences and knowledge that he imparted on us. In particular, I was intrigued by the “Sustainable Development Matrix” that he produced to try and understand and evaluate the resilience of our communities. Under the Community facilities, programs and process pillar, Mark Holland noted that he has started to take a health-centric approach, rather than an eco-centric one, to engage community members in taking positive action towards sustainability and resilience goals. This was an intriguing idea for me, as I often think about how to encourage people to care about and take action towards climate change mitigation and proactive adaptation strategies. Over the weekend, this point caused me to wonder if our apathy towards the damage caused to the ecological world through human impacts (e.g. causing anthropogenic climate change) can truly be remediated by taking, what I might consider to be a more personal or “egocentric” approach, through the impacts on human health. When the Pandemic struck in the spring of 2020, I read an article published by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, titled: COVID-19 stimulus Measures Must Save Lives, Protect Livelihoods, and Safeguard Nature to Reduce the Risk of Future Pandemics (https://ipbes.net/covid19stimulus). In this article, the authors suggested that highlighting and promoting “One Health” in decision-making could improve the sustainability and resilience of coupled social and ecological systems, and improve our ability to deal with pandemics. “One Health” is an approach that considers the health of our ecosystems and the health of humans to be intricately interconnected –therefore, if the ecosystem suffers, so do humans, and vice-versa. I think there is truth in what Mark Holland said about needing to “sell health rather than saving the planet” to elicit action. However, I think that this is perhaps just a first step, or an emergency response to slow down the destruction caused by human impact.  To cultivate sustainable and resilient communities in the long term, I think it will be critical to educating our population on the essence of what “One Health” is all about: where humans recognize that their health is ultimately reliant on that of their environment, and that their actions affect that “One Health”. Overall, I learned a lot from Mark Holland’s presentation. I really appreciated Mark’s pragmatism in describing what it takes for a community to be sustainable and resilient – he provided many great real-world examples of the concepts that we often hear and read about in a more theoretical context. I hope to take some of that pragmatism into my own Thesis project, and perhaps build a Matrix tailored to my research. Regarding the health approach, I am still processing and trying to understand how to best engage community members in taking informed action towards resilience: whether that is a more reductionist approach through human-health, or a more holistic approach, applying the principles of “One Health”. Either way, what Mark Holland shared is valuable to me in that it caused me to be critically reflexive by questioning my stance and personal biases on this issue. Joshua Ayer I found myself responding similarly to Mark’s pragmatism, on the one hand (as I’ve reflected) I found it impressive and inspiring, but on the other I found the philosophical foundations suspicious, particularly those concerning the ‘ego’ or ‘anthropocentric’ strategy. I too wonder how effective a ‘one’s own health’ approach can be in cultivating a concern for the non-human environment.  If our desire to be sustainable and save the environment is ultimately rooted in self-preservation then it seems foolish to expect sustainable policy aimed at a care for the external environment to be generated from this ‘ego’ centric starting point. The point here is motive, and what sort of motivation is capable of getting large groups of people to change their behavior.  The question is whether concern for the environment (a non-egocentric approach) can generate enough political will to do what’s necessary, or is the only way to muster that kind of group action to appeal to a preservation instinct?  Questions regarding human nature seem to follow pretty naturally from this.  What’s interesting to think of is the tension between what is most effective politically and what is most effective sustainably.

Ian Chambers Mark’s presentation presented a lot of information regarding resilience and sustainability in urban settings. Breaking it down into the ten pillars he presented was a great way to make the plethora of information easier to comprehend and think about. His sustainability matrix was a great tool to put these 10 pillars into use and I think it will prove exceptionally useful in our project on Keremeos. Sustainability is such a large and complex problem with many different faucets, I find this tool a great way to break the overwhelming task down into tangible pieces that are easier to work with. Another portion of Mark’s presentation that I found really interesting was the idea of a kind of rebranding of sustainable initiatives. He gave the example of encouraging people to ride a bike to cut greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles in order to help prevent climate change. This can be rebranded in a way that encourages people to ride a bike for their own health, not only does riding a bike provide you transportation but it is also exercise that is good for you, win-win. Mark referred to this sort of rebranding as pursuing the positive which I think would be a very powerful tool for many sustainability initiatives. Another idea from Mark’s presentation I really enjoyed was the New Urban Transect, where the built environment is placed in an order from least urban to most urban in such a way that makes all of the various environments easily accessible to everyone. I had never heard of this idea before, but it made a lot of sense to me, where people can easily access the conveniences of being in the middle of the city such as shops, bars, restaurants etc. but additionally can easily access schools, offices and even nature. Such a design seems ideal and it’s surprises me that this hasn’t been utilized more. Keremeos seems to have aspects of this design and I think keeping this in mind as it grows would benefit their sustainability initiatives. Janna Wale Ian, I agree that the concept of the 10 pillars clarified my thinking around resilience and sustainability in urban settings and in planning and design. Sustainability to me borders on a wicked problem, much the same way that climate change does. Wicked problems are difficult to define, and are therefore difficult to solve with a single solution - the complexity of the problem speaks to the level of complexity the answer will need to have as well. Mark's point about rebranding sustainability initiatives also resonated in my thinking and reflections. Relating back to your earlier point, this would perhaps allow people to feel less intimidated by the idea of "sustainability", which would allow them to focus on a smaller and more tangible piece, such as riding their bike. The idea of having a New Urban Transect was also interesting to me, and I also was surprised it hasn't been used more. It was something that I have never really considered before, but having it articulated explicitly also made me think back to Keremeos.

Adam Kunis Dr. Holland’s presentation covered a great deal of information and was a great launching point for deeper conversations. One of the statistics that he brought up, which was quite surprising to me, was that 40% of the health budget goes towards chronic diseases. When he described these diseases as “lifestyle diseases”, it was rather jarring. While some of these diseases are avoidable, lifestyle choices can be a major contribution to the severity of them. However, it is difficult to compare Canada’s chronic disease situation to that of my home country the United States. While chronic diseases are a disproportionately larger issue in the US, the social-political context is very different. Even though many more people are faced with these health burdens, there is no socialized medicine. If someone in the United States makes life choices that lead to a chronic disease, it is the burden of that person only. This is where Canada differs greatly from the US. If a Canadian makes the life choices that lead to chronic disease, the burden of health care cost is passed onto the taxpayers. This makes me curious as to which system is more resilient and sustainable. Is it better to have individuals responsible for the cost of their health care or is it better to address this issue through socialized medicine (with a bi-product being higher taxes)? In the United States, treatment of chronic illness is a major contribution to the health care economy. Each year in the United States, chronic illness accounts for 1.65 trillion dollars of spending (Center for Medicare and Medical Services). While the high cost of health care and lack of a safety net may have negative consequences for those who are unable to afford help, this system does discourage free ridership. Free ridership is a burden on a shared common resource (socialized medicine) where a resource is overused by people not paying their fair share. I am curious if this occurs with the lifestyle choices of those living with a chronic illness (“lifestyle disease”) in a national health care model. The second point that jumped out to me was that resilience seeks redundancy, but a critical factor of efficiency is reducing redundancy. An unlikely discipline that I have found this to be true in is mountain climbing. When climbing big walls, the standard safety practice is to have redundancy in everything we do. From how we tie our knots to the design of our gear, redundancy is the key to resilience in mountain sports i.e., not dying. However, in order to push the boundaries of the sport, efficiency is crucial which can mean utilizing more advance, riskier techniques. Understanding the tradeoffs between resilience and efficiency has allowed me to push deeper into the mountains with great success. Name of Commenting Author This is a reflection on the reflection of the author above.

Joshua Ayer

In reflecting on Mark’s presentation there are several things that set him apart from the other presenters including the length of his slideshow, the ground covered by his materials, and his overall attitude towards sustainable development. Though a lot could be said about the slideshow Mark presented, I want to focus on the last difference on my list concerning Mark’s personality.  I think what was most striking about Mark was the sense of success he conveyed regarding sustainable development.  So often it feels like conversations on sustainability and resilience hit an abstract wall; seemingly, even if the values can be defined, actualizing, and pursuing resiliency and sustainability becomes difficult to conceptualize.  In Mark’s presentation, the opposite seemed true: sustainable development seemed so inevitable, so commonsensible, that the real question was: what alternative is there to sustainable development?   Mark seemed to possess an endless toolkit that, combined with a decision making matrix, could offer countless means to sustainably develop.

I think that in terms of sustainable development, I have always considered it to be a paradox and in this way am probably closer to Dr Senese’s skepticism than Mark’s optimism. However, this contrast reminded me of a conversation I had with my economics professor in an ecological economics course I took in my undergrad.  At the time I was really excited and invested in the de-growth, and steady state economics literature and was excited to learn more about those theories in the course.  But more than either of those theories, we tended to focus more on sustainable development.  I complained one class that all these theories did was perpetuate the same problems of the neo-liberal economy and my prof responded by saying, “yes, but you have to start somewhere,” which, at the time, I took for granted for being really helpful advice.  I tend to think about sustainability and resiliency on large scales, for instance if the whole economic system is not remade than its not really sustainability its just more sustainable unsustainable development.  However, those sort of large scale changes rarely happen all at once, and historically, when they do, they tend to go poorly. I still find myself skeptical of incremental changes, but that skepticism is being slowly eroded by the reality that incremental changes are potentially more effective than utopic theorizing (though I nevertheless still defend that practice as well).

What stood out to me most about Mark’s presentation and left the largest impression on me was that Mark had obviously been very successful in implementing designs that improved societies’ sustainability and resiliency, and that he was doing it without a culture of steady-state or de-growth.  He, and his partners, were finding ways to initiate those forms of development now. Across 65+ slides, he communicated dozens of brilliant ideas I had never heard of and though each one could have warranted its own reflection, the vastness of information is what stood out, and that made for a very encouraging learning experience.

Adam Kunis

Josh, I think you keyed in on a really interesting element of Mark's presentation. You are totally right that in academia (at least to me) sustainability appears to be an unachievable Utopia and that we are just arguing in circles about how to achieve it; when in reality, its about making small individual contribution that amass to a transformation. Hearing Mark talk about these individual success stories was refreshing and reminded me of how each contribution plays into the bigger picture.

It's funny that we share similar experiences about "sustainability questions" in our environmental economics undergraduate courses. I too asked a similar question, as I was heavily invested in the theory of circular economics, and received a very similar response. In regards to incremental change, I think it will be interesting to watch Marginal Costs as they creep towards 0, but to achieve 0 may require transformation.

I hope I can work on projects like Mark's. So many great ideas that seem to require expertise from a large array of backgrounds.