SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION AND THE IMPORTANCE OF NEIGHBOURHOOD: A CENTRAL CITY/SUBURB COMPARISON1 EMILY HUDDART KENNEDY NAOMI KROGMAN HARVEY KRAHN Abstract. This paper applies urban and environmental sociological theory to sur- vey data on self-reported sustainable consumption practices, using a matched sample of central city and suburban residents in Edmonton, Alberta. We use clus- ter analysis to create an ordinal typology of four types of consumers, conduct an analysis of variance to characterize the resultant clusters, and perform logistic regression to predict the net effect of urban and neighbourhood context on sus- tainable consumption practices. We find that neighbourhood and environmental attitude are the strongest predictors of sustainable consumption practices. We conclude by arguing many sustainable activities are more difficult to incorporate into daily routine when residing in the suburban neighbourhood. While suburban residents may feel strongly that they should consume less, their geographic loca- tion appears to significantly constrain their ability to meaningfully reduce their own consumption. This urban Canadian case study has implications for middle class environmental practices in other North American urban and suburban set- tings. Keywords: neighbourhood; sustainable consumption; compositionalism; deter- minism; political economy Résumé. Le présent article applique la théorie sociologique urbaine et environne- mentale aux données d'un sondage sur des habitudes de consommation durables auto-déclarées, à partir d'un échantillonnage apparié de résidents du centre-ville et de la banlieue d'Edmonton (Alberta). L'article emploie l'analyse des grappes pour créer une typologie ordinale de quatre types de consommateurs, l'analyse de la variance pour caractériser les grappes résultantes, ainsi que la régression logistique pour prédire l'effet net du contexte de quartier et d'autres variables sur les habitudes de consommation durable. Le contexte de quartier et les attitudes environnementales sont les indicateurs les plus fiables des pratiques de consom- 1. All correspondence should be addressed to Emily Huddart Kennedy: huddartk@ual- berta.ca. The authors acknowledge the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Grant no. 865-2008-18. CANADIAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY/CAHIERS CANADIENS DE SOCIOLOGIE 38(3) 2013 359
360 C CANADIAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY/CAHIERS CANADIENS DE SOCIOLOGIE 38(3)2013 mation. D'après nos constatations, il y a de nombreuses pratiques durables plus difficiles à incorporer au quotidien pour des banlieusards. Vivre en banlieue limite de façon significative la capacité de réduire appréciablement sa propre consommation, même si on est convaincu qu'on devrait consommer moins. Mots clés: quartier; consommation durable; déterminisme; économie politique INTRODUCTION As international climate change treaties flounder (Berman and Leiren- Young 2011), the potential for local responses to environmental challen- ges has garnered increased attention (Fisket and Mamo 2007; Seyfang 2009). Knowledge of how physical and social communities function is now vital for the creation of pro-environmental outcomes. Despite theor- etical advances on the topic of urban sustainability within environmental sociology (Lorr 2012), such theories insufficiently consider the impact of place, and specifically neighbourhood, on daily actions. Here, we ex- plore the potential to apply urban and environmental sociological theory to the study of sustainable consumption practices. In 2009, we interviewed families living throughout the city of Ed-