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Modern city dwellers are largely detached from the environmental effects of their daily lives. The sources of the water they drink, the food they eat, and the energy they consume are all but invisible, often coming from other continents, and their waste ends up in places beyond their city boundaries. Cities as Sustainable Ecosystems shows how cities and their residents can begin to reintegrate into their bioregional environment, and how cities themselves can be planned with nature’s organizing principles in mind. Taking cues from living systems for sustainability strategies, Newman and Jennings reassess urban design by exploring flows of energy, materials, and information, along with the interactions between human and non-human parts of the system. Drawing on examples from all corners of the world, the authors explore natural patterns and processes that cities can emulate in order to move toward sustainability. Some cities have adopted simple strategies such as harvesting rainwater, greening roofs, and producing renewable energy. Others have created biodiversity parks for endangered species, community gardens that support a connection to their foodshed, and pedestrian-friendly spaces that encourage walking and cycling. A powerful model for urban redevelopment, Cities as Sustainable Ecosystems describes aspects of urban ecosystems from the visioning process to achieving economic security to fostering a sense of place.
This book calls for more holistic place-based action to address the social and environmental crisis, deploying the Deep Place approach as one contribution to the toolbox of actions that will underpin the UN Decade of Action towards the Sustainable Development Goals. The authors suggest that ‘place’ is a critical window on how to conceive a resolution to the multiple and overlapping crises. As well as diagnosing the problem (the world as it is), this book also offers a normative advocacy (the world as it could/should be and proposed pathways to get there). A series of ‘Deep Place’ case studies from the UK, Australia, and Vanuatu help to illustrate this approach. Ultimately, the book argues for the need for a real and green ‘new deal’ and identifies what this should be like. It suggests that a new economic order, whilst eventually inevitable, requires radical change. This will not be easy but will be essential given the current impasse, caused, not least by the conjunction of carbon-based, neoliberal capitalism in crisis and the multifactorial global ecological crisis. Ultimately, it concludes that there is a need to develop a new model of ‘regenerative collectivism’ to overcome these crises. This book will be of interest to academics, policy practitioners, and social and climate justice advocates/activists.
Making Healthy Places surveys the many intersections between health and the built environment, from the scale of buildings to the scale of metro areas, and across a range of outcomes, from cardiovascular health and infectious disease to social connectedness and happiness. This new edition is significantly updated, with a special emphasis on equity and sustainability, and takes a global perspective. It provides current evidence not only on how poorly designed places may threaten well-being, but also on solutions that have been found to be effective. Making Healthy Places is a must-read for students, academics, and professionals in health, architecture, urban planning, civil engineering, parks and recreation, and related fields.
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.
Creating cities of cultural vigour and physical beauty that are also sustainable in economic and environmental terms.
The city in the twenty-first century faces major challenges, including social and economic stratification, wasteful consumption of resources, transportation congestion, and environmental degradation. More than half of the world’s population lives in cities and major metropolitan areas, and in the next two decades the number of city dwellers is estimated to reach five billion. This puts enormous pressures on transportation systems, housing stock, and infrastructure such as energy, waste, and water, which directly influences the emissions of greenhouse gases. As the long emergency awaits us, urgent questions remain: How will our cities survive? How can we combat and reconcile urban growth with sustainable use of resources for future generations to thrive? Where and how urbanism comes into the picture and what “sustainable” urban forms can do in light of these events are some of the issues Sustainable Urbanism and Beyond explores. With more than sixty essays, including contributions by Andrés Duany, Saskia Sassen, Peter Newman, Douglas Farr, Henry Cisneros, Peter Hall, Sharon Zukin, Peter Eisenman, and others, this book is a unique perspective on architecture, urban planning, environmental and urban design, exploring ways for raising quality of life and the standard of living in a new modern era by creating better and more viable places to live.
This landmark publication examines the need for establishing a universal framework for assessing the sustainability of a place that can be used for any place, in any part of the world. Using two case studies of two towns (San Gimignano, Italy and Ludlow, England) as a backdrop, the book examines their distinctive features and develops a framework for assessing their energy and environmental capabilities in light of their social, economic, political and cultural prerequisites. Discussion includes such key aspects of sustainability as geological formation, climate, external dependencies, communication and infrastructure, historical heritage, community and permanence of population. Includes the author's own annotated drawings that complement the text. Examines the background and current state of sustainability and provides practical examples of assessments of specific localities Based on the author's own research
A theoretically driven comparison of sustainability programs in American cities, updated with the latest research and additional case studies. Today most major cities have undertaken some form of sustainability initiative. Yet there have been few systematic comparisons across cities, or theoretically grounded considerations of what works and what does not, and why. In Taking Sustainable Cities Seriously, Kent Portney addresses this gap, offering a comprehensive overview and analysis of sustainability programs and policies in American cities. After discussing the conceptual underpinnings of sustainability, he examines the local aspects of sustainability; considers the measurement of sustainability and offers an index of “serious” sustainability for the fifty-five largest cities in the country; examines the relationship between sustainability and economic growth; and discusses issues of governance, equity, and implementation. He also offers extensive case studies, with separate chapters on large, medium-size, and small cities, and provides an empirically grounded analysis of why some large cities are more ambitious than others in their sustainability efforts. This second edition has been updated throughout, with new material that draws on the latest research. It also offers numerous additional case studies, a new chapter on management and implementation issues, and a greatly expanded comparative analysis of big-city sustainability initiatives. Portney shows how cities use the broad rubric of sustainability to achieve particular political ends, and he dispels the notion that only cities that are politically liberal are interested in sustainability. Taking Sustainable Cities Seriously draws a roadmap for effective sustainability initiatives.
Humane and Sustainable Smart Cities explores how to develop emergent smart cities that are rooted in humane, innovative and sustainable values (CHIS). The book considers the move from technocratic and idealized smart metropole to humane cities as a product of fundamental demographic changes, the development of a usage-based rather than an ownership economy, the novel implications of digitalization, decentralization and decarbonization, and Internet-enabled changes in public opinion towards democratization and participation. The book's authors explore seven dimensions and characteristics of humane, sustainable and innovative cities in the developing world: the economy, people, the place, energy and the environment, mobility, social inclusion and governance. Additional sections the operationalization of the CHIS concept into formal planning, policy implementation, and impact assessment considerations. Final discussions center on building a roadmap for planners seeking to design development policies conducive to human values and long-term social viability. - Provides an axiological framework for the development of humane, innovative and sustainable cities - Examines how that framework can be operationalized into formal planning, policy implementation and impact assessment - Explores humane, innovative and sustainable cities in terms of seven dimensions, including the economy, people, the place, energy and the environment, mobility, social inclusion and governance - Explores proven paths for promoting effective community engagement in developing humane cities - Provides a practical roadmap to design development policies conducive to human values and long-term social viability
This volume presents North American best practices and perspectives on developing, managing and monitoring indicators to track development progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in local communities and cities. In 4 main sections, the book presents and frames the many ways in which community indicator programs are either integrating or retooling to integrate the SDGs into their existing frameworks, or how they are developing new programs to track and report progress on the SDGs. This is the first volume that focuses on SDG adoption within the context of North Americans cities and communities, and the unique issues and opportunities prevalent in these settings. The chapters are developed by experienced academics and practitioners of community planning and sustainable development, and will add broad perspective on public policy, organizational management, information management and data visualization. This volume presents a case-study approach to chapters, offering lessons that can be used by three main audiences: 1) teachers and researchers in areas of urban, regional, and environmental planning, urban development, and public policy; 2) professional planners, decision-makers, and urban managers; and 3) sustainability activists and interested groups.