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The Origins of the Sustainability Concept: Risk Perception and Resource Management in Early Urban Centers

Climate Change, Culture, and Economics: Anthropological Investigations

ISBN: 978-1-78560-361-7, eISBN: 978-1-78560-360-0

Publication date: 22 September 2015

Abstract

Purpose

This paper examines the conditions under which ancient peoples might have developed a concept of “sustainability,” and concludes that long-term resource management practices would not have been articulated prior to the development of the first cities starting c. 6,000 years ago.

Methodology/approach

Using biological concepts of population density and niche-construction theory, cities are identified as the first places where pressures on resources might have triggered concerns for sustainability. Nonetheless, urban centers also provided ample opportunities for individuals and households to continue the same ad hoc foraging strategies that had facilitated human survival in prior eras.

Social implications

The implementation of a sustainability concept requires two things: individual and institutional motivations to mitigate collective risk over the long term, and accurate measurement devices that can discern subtle changes over time. Neither condition was applicable to the ancient world. Premodern cities provided the first expression of large population sizes in which there were niches of economic and social mutualism, yet individuals and households persisted in age-old approaches to provisioning by opportunistically using urban networks rather than focusing on a collective future.

Originality/value

Archaeological and historical analysis indicates that a focus on “sustainability” is not an innate human behavioral capacity but must be specifically articulated and taught.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Evan Carlson, Sarah Chandlee, Ashley Fent, Aditi Halbe, Brittany Jackson, Jillian Jones, Kanika Kalra, and Trevor Van Damme for sharing conversations about urbanism and the environment at UCLA; in addition, thanks to Melinda Zeder for observations about biological diversity in cities. I very much appreciate the extensive and helpful comments from two anonymous reviewers as well as the support for the research expressed by Donald Wood.

Citation

Smith, M.L. (2015), "The Origins of the Sustainability Concept: Risk Perception and Resource Management in Early Urban Centers", Climate Change, Culture, and Economics: Anthropological Investigations (Research in Economic Anthropology, Vol. 35), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 215-238. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0190-128120150000035009

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2015 Emerald Group Publishing Limited