The purpose of this thesis is to investigate some of the factors that optimize sustainable community building initiatives in localized urban communities. What is a community and what is required to build communities that inform and represent personal values and address common needs? Building private community-based social structures in Canada is relevant in light of the current dismantling of the public social system. When connotations of the term community are explored, a wide range of interpretations surface. However, some components of the term can be extracted from expert opinion, including those who actually live in communities. Of interest to this thesis are community building processes that are operative. A literature review was first conducted. Five components are evident from the literature. They include co-operation among members, inclusive participation, a commitment and concerted effort to partake in activities that are socially, ecologically and economically sustainable, localization and urbanity, and finally, the conscious formulation and application of values. For the purposes of this thesis, operative communities are therefore holistic though concentrated, collaborative, deliberate and sustainable social structures that are designed to achieve common values. To explore the manifestation of these components, twelve international communities were visited between 1993 and 1995. Four of the communities are in Canada, four are based in the United States, two of the communities are located in Denmark, and the remaining two communities are located in Sweden. The communities were selected from an extended list of community initiatives because they are self-professed proponents and examples of operative sustainable environment initiatives. Each community is vastly different and is continually evolving. However, it was generally evident that in order to be operative, a high level of co-operation and participation is required on the part of the community members. As well, sustainability is concientiously pursued in operative communities, althought the focus of the efforts depends on the locality and needs of the members. Furthermore, communities that are close to urban centres have better access to the services of the city, and personal values were represented in the decision-making process that determined the social structure, particularly on the smaller-scale community level. Using the information generated from the literature review and field research, there are several policy implications, listed in Chapter 5, which public governing agencies and communities can undertake in order to support community building initiatives. The policies are predominantly focused on facilitiating a process-oriented social structure, and can have a direct impact on the effectiveness, or operativeness of community building initiatives.