There is more diversity of income, race, ethnicity, and religion than ever before in the state's history. Communities need to draw upon the resources that diversity affords. Even though diversity sometimes brings more polarization, resilient communities should be able to capitalize on their differences in a way that improves living conditions for everyone in the community. Sustainability is a long-term process, requiring attention to equity, ecosystem, and the economy. For sustainability to thrive, all three issues must be addressed equally.
Sustainability depends on how communities of interest and place use their resources.
Resources can be consumed and therefore unavailable to generations of today or tomorrow, stored and potentially available for future generations, or invested, which can provide new resources for meeting present and future needs of all people. Sustainability means investing in various forms of capital in ways that do not deplete other resources. As we see in the papers in this publication, there are different forms of capital that resilient communities can draw upon, and ways of utilizing these forms of capital that sustain the communities' resources. Specifically, there are four forms of capital that seem most essential to the well-being of healthy communities and people. Forms of Capital Human capital consists of such individual resources as education, skills, health, values, and leadership.