Small towns facing big problems : Sustainable development, social choice and the challenge of local-level organizing for the environment: Insights from Flagler Beach, Florida, USA
Managing tensions between the need for economic development and urgently necessary environmental protection is a long-standing challenge for policymaking. By drawing on the case of coastal erosion in Flagler Beach based on five years of research, Boda argues that social choice, which is a decision-making procedure developed within the capabilities approach to human development, is a good fit to solve this tension. Social movements are of particular importance here since they can expand and build new alliances and even explore more radical forms of knowledge coproduction. By identifying contextually relevant decision criteria through reasoned public deliberation, social choice can help policymakers, civil society and all relevant stakeholders to open space for deliberation and experimentation.