Abstract

Sustainable development is often described as including ecological, social and economic dimensions. The conventional view of “sustainable” development is largely based on ideas of economic growth, which promotes expansion in space and compression in time – what we call a global market economy. Furthermore, the dominant conventional view also enhances a technical-economic approach that results in a rather narrow subject specific research focus on specific problems. Thereto connected strategies thereby use general technological and institutional policies and solutions that tend to conceal the reality of how people act and respond in relation to resources and constraints in a time-spatial context. So, the conventional development perspective seems in many ways to be unsustainable in ecological, social and thereby also economic terms. This article is of a conceptual character and focuses on local development in a time-space context. The article is inspired by Hägerstrand’s time-geographical approach, and explores an approach that contextualizes processes of change in time and space. This time-spatial approach thereby enhances an alternative view for integrated local social-, economic- and ecological sustainable development processes. In so doing, this approach has the potential to enhance a more all-embracing sustainable development approach applicable to design local policy instruments and strategies.This article is of a conceptual character and focuses on local development in a time-space context. The article is inspired by Hägerstrand’s time-geographical approach, and explores an approach that contextualizes processes of change in time and space. This time-spatial approach thereby enhances an alternative view for integrated local social-, economic- and ecological sustainable development processes. In so doing, this approach has the potential to enhance a more all-embracing sustainable development approach applicable to design local policy instruments and strategies.