Themes, Goals & Actions Cultural Thoughts from the Cultural Vitality Pillar Champions
The fundamental objective of any sustainable community is the promotion of human well‐being through enhancing both Quality of Life and Quality of Place. This is the focus of the Cultural Pillar.
To this end, the basic role of art, culture, and heritage has long been to bring beauty into our daily lives. But these also nurture individual and community identity, promote social cohesion, and contribute to the creation of “social capital.” Where social capital is strong, communities exhibit high rates of volunteerism and citizen involvement as well as greater
inclusion of all sectors of society in the social and cultural fabric. Also, a community that is rich in social capital provides a wealth of intelligence, sensitivity, and wisdom that will underpin and support appropriate ecological, economic, and social sustainability strategies.
Further, such creative, vibrant, and resilient places are attractive to investors in industry, business, and tourism and thus create employment opportunities, expand the tax‐base, and generally add real wealth of the community. Thus, the Cultural Pillar demonstrates the core of the Four Pillars approach to sustainability: each pillar must not stand alone; all pillars must benefit from the strength of the others; and to do this, they must be bound together by a shared vision of what it is they are supporting. Themes
The Themes in the Cultural Pillar (Cultural Vitality) are:
The Cultural Pillar Champions, advising on behalf of the Cultural Vitality Pillar, are Brian Osborne and Harry Symons. Throughout the development of Sustainable Kingston, Brian and Harry have provided updates to the Arts Advisory Council.
