Town, Gown and Place-Based Sustainability: Collaborating in the Shared Space

The locational and spatial circumstances of town and gown present opportunities to advance sustainability. This essay examines these areas of opportunity by proposing collaborative frameworks between town and gown. In what we describe as “place-based collaborations,” we identify three areas for productive collaboration by two mutually compatible institutions. Part I of this essay introduces the impacts of the sustainable curriculum and other projects that implement the educational mission of the institution, including the more progressive notion that pedagogical strategies for engaged learning, combined with the introduction of sustainability in the curriculum, may serve as drivers for nested sustainable practices. Part II considers the special relationship that towns may foster in their nested universities by recognizing shared space. Part III illustrates interaction and collaboration possibilities that build on the intellectual capital occurring in educational institutions.