**2. Theoretical framework**

When one thinks about sustainability of neighborhoods, the first reflex will generate associations with technical innovations and the necessity of coping with the threats of climate change. In this contribution, the scope is on a social approach of sustainability, encompassing scientific disciplines like social ecology, social systems theory and psychology. We hold the presupposition that the ecological success of man in comparison to other animals can be attributed to a superior tool making ability, whereby the processes of social tool making (knowledge sharing, norms, institutions, and joint moral reflection) are lagging and fail to control, align, and fairly distribute the benefits and humanitarian costs of technical progress. Here, we advocate for a broader approach of sustainability in order to develop the potentialities of man is his or her environment. Thereby, a key mechanism is the resilience of inhabitants of neighborhood, cities and smaller settlements.

#### **2.1 Sustainable development goals and spillover effects**

A relation between sustainability and resilience of neighborhoods is found in the United Nations' framework of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The goals were established in a general meeting of the United Nations on September. 15, 2015 and entitled 'Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development' [1]. In this international agreement, goals are extended to social and economic dimensions of human society by putting social sustainability in the centre [2]. We attempt to follow this line of argument by taking neighborhoods as the central point of view, embodied by goals 11: 'Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable'. On the geographical level of urban neighborhood and rural settlements, the advancements, stagnations, or deteriorations on other goals will manifest themselves as well (**Table 1**).

Of this goals, numbers 6, 7, 12, 13, 14 and 15 are directly related to natural and cultivated environment. The targets of these goals are lagging far behind and seem impossible to achieve in due time frame [2]. The check marks in the rightmost column indicate that the results on the respective goal facilitates or hinders the achievements on goal 11.

In the trajectories of transformation, geographical spillover effects occur when countries' actions have a positive or negative effects on other countries' ability


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*An Explorative Perspective on the Resilience in Neighborhoods in the Netherlands*

improved nutrition and promote sustainable

Goal 3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-

Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning

Goal 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all

Goal 6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all

Goal 7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

Goal 8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive

Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and

Goal 10. Reduce inequality within and among

Goal 11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

Goal 12. Ensure sustainable consumption and

Goal 13. Take urgent action to combat climate

Goal 15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss

Goal 16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and

Goal 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for

inclusive institutions at all levels

sustainable development

Goal 14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable

employment and decent work for all

agriculture

being for all at all ages

opportunities for all

women and girls

foster innovation

production patterns

change and its impacts

development

countries

#### **Table 1.**

*Sustainable development goals United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs Sustainable Development [1].*

to achieve the SDGs. Such international spillovers are pervasive [3], including examples in which growing wealth in some countries counteract the progress on the SDGs in other countries [3]. The concept of spillover effects is the equivalent of

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externalities in economics. It is based on the mechanism that agents achieve to book revenues on their own account, while passing on the costs to the private accounts of others and to the common account of society. The mechanism drives depletion of natural resources and block the way of people to prosperity, as asserted 50 years ago by Hardin and the Club of Rome [4, 5]. It is, in Hardin's words, a tragedy that we fail to manage the commons [6] and to exstablish a social order that control spillover effects. The noxious effects are driven by extra-ordinary profits of frontier agents and their opportunistic followers. The spillover effects occur in transnational trade and in the relationships between powerful and less powerful nation states [3].

Another concern is that the efforts on physical sustainability, though very urgent, will be done without consideration of the social aspects of sustainability [3]. Thus, negative spillover effects can emerge in the relationship between goals, an argument to integrally plan and implement efforts on a geographical scale on which spillover effects are communicable and manageable. In addition, we presume that on the intra-national level spillover effects occur as well. Progress on the SDG's in some regions of countries and cities are made at the 'expense'of other parts of the country. An accumulation of problems and unbalanced distribution of adversity and generation of environmental stressors may be result.
