Perspectives

"The Holy Grail of Sustainable Development:
Blueways in Viet Nam and Greenways in Indianapolis"

by Greg Lindsey

An Occasional Series Published by The Office of the Dean
Published May, 2001

I have been asked to speak today about impossible ideals and the problem of reconciliation. I want to discuss the impossible ideal of sustainable development and the importance of reconciling competing dimensions of its meaning. To illustrate my argument and to make my talk practical, I will draw on some of my recent work in Viet Nam and at home in Indianapolis, Indiana. But let me first reflect on the Y and why I think it is both appropriate and necessary that the Y sponsor a lecture series with a title that, in at least some academic circles, would be considered audacious. Far from being a digression, however, I think that these thoughts are integral to the message I have to share.

The Y is in the business of creating a better world by providing university students opportunities to explore what it means to live ethically in a complex society. Through its programming, the Y provides students opportunities to share and pursue visions of a better world, to complement and supplement their classroom training with service, and to test their mettle and reflect on the challenges of giving ideas meaning through action. These are opportunities that students deserve and need but too often lack or fail to take advantage of. The purpose of the Y, frankly, is epitomized in the theme of this Friday Forum Series: Impossible Ideals. If we are to come close to achieving any of the impossible ideals to which we aspire, we need organizations like the Y that are willing and committed to raising issues of principle and ethics in public discourse. Civil society depends on it, for it is in the process of working to achieve our ideals that we create better places for people to live and work.

If ever there was a Holy Grail, it is sustainable development. I think we need to reconcile ourselves to the fact that we probably cannot even define it, let alone achieve it. The most frequently quoted definition of sustainable development is the 1987 wording of the World Commission on Environment and Development, or the Brundtland Commission. Sustainable development is "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (Our Common Future, The World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). | next |

The Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs presents here a lecture delivered by Associate Professor Greg Lindsey in September 2000 as part of a series entitled "Impossible Ideals" sponsored by the Friday Forum at the University of Illinois YMCA in Champaign, Illinois. The Friday Forum series was founded in 1926. The YMCA has a 100-year history of exploring ethical issues related to intellectual lines of inquiry and has for decades sponsored student programming related to international and environmental affairs. Lindsey, who earned a bachelor's degree in urban and regional planning at the University of Illinois during the 1970s, was a volunteer at the YMCA and, among other activities, served on its Board of Directors. In 1999, he was a member of the first group of Senior Fulbright Scholars to study in Viet Nam since the U.S. and Viet Nam normalized diplomatic ties in 1997. At SPEA in Indianapolis, Lindsey is Associate Director of the Center for Urban Policy and the Environment and the Duey-Murphy Professor for Rural Land Policy. He earned his doctorate at The Johns Hopkins University.

-Editor


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