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How should regional cities develop regional development strategies for their sustainable future? How can such strategies work effectively? Regional cities are now at a crossroads: will they decline or be regenerated under the impacts of globalization? Their sustainable regeneration as creative regional centers will play a decisive role in their sustainable development as a whole, but only with viable regional spatial strategies that strengthen the network of cities and their hinterlands. The concern here lies in urban regeneration and strategic spatial planning at the city-region level. This book records observations of 12 dynamically changing regional cities in Asia, Europe and the United States. The form of the city region, urban regeneration and strategic spatial planning as well as the local and regional governance of each city are examined. Through this empirical and comparative analysis, essential lessons are drawn, which will add a new perspective to discussions on the sustainable future of regional cities in an age of globalization.
A political scientist and an urban architect explore China’s odyssey to become an ecological civilization and transform its massive, unsustainable, urbanization process into one that creates hundreds of eco-cities. The resulting From Eco-Cities to Sustainable City-Regions is the first book-length study combining analysis of politics and power, urban design and planning issues derived from the co-authors’ interdisciplinary research, and on-site fieldwork from their political science and architectural area specialties.
As global warming advances, regions around the world are engaging in revolutionary sustainability planning - but with social equity as an afterthought. California is at the cutting edge of this movement, not only because its regulations actively reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also because its pioneering environmental regulation, market innovation, and Left Coast politics show how to blend the "three Es" of sustainability--environment, economy, and equity. Planning Sustainable Cities and Regions is the first book to explain what this grand experiment tells us about the most just path moving forward for cities and regions across the globe. The book offers chapters about neighbourhoods, the economy, and poverty, using stories from practice to help solve puzzles posed by academic research. Based on the most recent demographic and economic trends, it overturns conventional ideas about how to build more livable places and vibrant economies that offer opportunity to all. This thought-provoking book provides a framework to deal with the new inequities created by the movement for more livable - and expensive - cities, so that our best plans for sustainability are promoting more equitable development as well. This book will appeal to students of urban studies, urban planning and sustainability as well as policymakers, planning practitioners, and sustainability advocates around the world.
This book comprises a selection of the top contributions presented at the second international conference “Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions 2017”, held in March 2017 in Bolzano, Italy. Featuring forty-six papers by policy-makers, academics and consultants, it discusses current groundbreaking research in smart and sustainable planning, including the progress made in overcoming cities’ challenges towards improving the quality of life. Climate change adaptation and mitigation of global warming, generally identified as drivers of global policies, are just the “tip of the iceberg” when it comes to smart energy transition. Indeed, equally relevant towards this current transformation – and key topics in this volume – are ICTs, public spaces and society; next economy for the city; strategies and actions for good governance; urban-rural innovation; rethinking mobility. The book’s depth in understanding and insightfulness in re-thinking demonstrate the breaking of new ground in smart and sustainable planning. A new ground that policy-makers, academics and consultants may build upon as a bedrock for smart and sustainable planning.
This book takes you on a unique journey through American history, taking time to consider the forces that shaped the development of various cities and regions, and arrives at an unexpected conclusion regarding sustainability. From the American Dream to globalization to the digital and information revolutions, we assume that humans have taken control of our collective destinies in spite of potholes in the road such as the Great Recession of 2007-2009. However, these attitudes were formed during a unique 100-year period of human history in which a large but finite supply of fossil fuels was tapped to feed our economic and innovation engine. Today, at the peak of the Oil Age, the horizon looks different. Cities such as Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas are situated where water and other vital ecological services are scarce, and the enormous flows of resources and energy that were needed to create the megalopolises of the 20th century will prove unsustainable. Climate change is a reality, and regional impacts will become increasingly severe. Economies such as Las Vegas, which are dependent on discretionary income and buffeted by climate change, are already suffering the fate of the proverbial canary in the coal mine. Finite resources will mean profound changes for society in general and the energy-intensive lifestyles of the US and Canada in particular. But not all regions are equally vulnerable to these 21st-century megatrends. Are you ready to look beyond “America’s Most Livable Cities” to the critical factors that will determine the sustainability of your municipality and region? Find out where your city or region ranks according to the forces that will impact our lives in the next years and decades. Find out how: ·resource availability and ecological services shaped the modern landscape ·emerging megatrends will make cities and regions more or less livable in the new century ·your city or region ranks on a “sustainability” map of the United States ·urban metabolism puts large cities at particular risk ·sustainability factors will favor economic solutions at a local, rather than global, level ·these principles apply to industrial economies and countries globally. This book should be cited as follows: J. Day, C. Hall, E. Roy, M. Moersbaecher, C. D'Elia, D. Pimentel, and A. Yanez. 2016. America's most sustainable cities and regions: Surviving the 21st century megatrends. Springer, New York. 348 p.
In an urbanizing world, the majority of people live in urban settlements predominantly on the coastal edge. Focus has historically been on people, place and the challenges and opportunities of living with global change, and academic attention has largely been on sustainability science or sustainable solutions. This book seeks to strengthen the relatively weak link between sustainability science, land use planning and socio-economic change, and show that a more integrated approach to planning will be required to develop more sustainable pathways for cities and regions in the future. Sustainable Pathways for our Cities and Regions builds on the recent publications on cities and climate change, resilient cities and coasts, and sustainable cities, and looks at the ways in which current planning approaches need to be adapted to embrace concepts including green growth, planetary boundaries, healthy cities and longer-term sustainability. Drawing on case studies from four cities selected for their publicly stated commitment to sustainability - Canberra, Kuala Lumpur, Copenhagen and New York - the author proposes seven sustainable pathways and draws conclusions on the positive contribution planning can make in preparing urban and regional communities for significant change in the twenty-first century city. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of urban planning, sustainable cities, climate change, green growth and community engagement. It will also be of great value to leaders and community activists seeking more sustainable pathways for their cities and regions.
Cities have experienced an unprecedented rate of growth in the last decade. More than half the world's population lives in urban areas, with the U.S. percentage at 80 percent. Cities have captured more than 80 percent of the globe's economic activity and offered social mobility and economic prosperity to millions by clustering creative, innovative, and educated individuals and organizations. Clustering populations, however, can compound both positive and negative conditions, with many modern urban areas experiencing growing inequality, debility, and environmental degradation. The spread and continued growth of urban areas presents a number of concerns for a sustainable future, particularly if cities cannot adequately address the rise of poverty, hunger, resource consumption, and biodiversity loss in their borders. Intended as a comparative illustration of the types of urban sustainability pathways and subsequent lessons learned existing in urban areas, this study examines specific examples that cut across geographies and scales and that feature a range of urban sustainability challenges and opportunities for collaborative learning across metropolitan regions. It focuses on nine cities across the United States and Canada (Los Angeles, CA, New York City, NY, Philadelphia, PA, Pittsburgh, PA, Grand Rapids, MI, Flint, MI, Cedar Rapids, IA, Chattanooga, TN, and Vancouver, Canada), chosen to represent a variety of metropolitan regions, with consideration given to city size, proximity to coastal and other waterways, susceptibility to hazards, primary industry, and several other factors.
This book provides a unique contribution to the science of sustainable societies by challenging the traditional concept of rural-urban dichotomy. It combines environmental engineering and landscape sciences perspectives on urban region issues, making the book a unique work in urban study literatures. Today’s extended urban regions often maintain rural features within their boundaries and also have strong social, economic, and environmental linkages with the surrounding rural areas. These intra- and inter- linkages between urban and rural systems produce complex interdependences with global and local sustainability issues, including those of climate change, resource exploitation, ecosystem degradation and human wellbeing. Planning and other prospective actions for the sustainability of urban regions, therefore, cannot solely depend on “urban” approaches; rather, they need to integrate broader landscape perspectives that take extended social and ecological systems into consideration. This volume shows how to untangle, diagnose, and transform urban regions through distinctive thematic contributions across a variety of academic disciplines ranging from environmental engineering and geography to landscape ecology and urban planning. Case studies, selected from across the world and investigating urban regions in East Asia, Europe, North America and South-East Asia, collectively illustrate shared and differentiated drivers of sustainability challenges and provide informative inputs to global and local sustainability initiatives.
There are now more than three hundred city-regions around the world with populations greater than one million. These city-regions are expanding vigorously, and they present many new and deep challenges to researchers and policy-makers in both the more developed and less developed parts of the world. The processes of global economic integration and accelerated urban growth make traditional planning and policy strategies in these regions increasingly inadequate, while more effective approaches remain largely in various stages of hypothesis and experimentation. 'Global City-Regions' represents a multifaceted effort to deal with the many different issues raised by these developments. It seeks at once to define the question of global city-regions and to describe the internal and external dynamics that shape them; it proposes a theorization of global city-regions based on their economic and political responses to intensifying levels of globalization; and it offers a number of policy insights into the severe social problems that confront global city-regions as they come face to face with an economically and politically neoliberal world. At a moment when globalization is increasingly subject to critical scrutiny in many different quarters, this book provides a timely overview of its effects on urban and regional development, one of its most important (but perhaps least understood) corollaries. The book also offers a series of nuanced visions of alternative possible futures.
This handbook includes contributions from established and emerging scholars from around the world and draws on multiple approaches and subjects to explore the socio-economic, cultural, ecological, institutional, legal, and policy aspects of regenerative food practices. The future of food is uncertain. We are facing an overwhelming number of interconnected and complex challenges related to the ways we grow, distribute, access, eat, and dispose of food. Yet, there are stories of hope and opportunities for radical change towards food systems that enhance the ability of living things to co-evolve. Given this, activities and imaginaries looking to improve, rather than just sustain, communities and ecosystems are needed, as are fresh perspectives and new terminology. The Routledge Handbook of Sustainable and Regenerative Food Systems addresses this need. The chapters cover diverse practices, geographies, scales, and entry-points. They focus not only on the core requirements to deliver sustainable agriculture and food supply, but go beyond this to think about how these can also actively participate with social-ecological systems. The book is presented in an accessible way, with reflection questions meant to spark discussion and debate on how to transition to safe, just, and healthy food systems. Taken together, the chapters in this handbook highlight the consequences of current food practices and showcase the multiple ways that people are doing food differently. The Routledge Handbook of Sustainable and Regenerative Food Systems is essential reading for students and scholars interested in food systems, governance and practices, agroecology, rural sociology, and socio-environmental studies.