The Sustainable City

The Sustainable City PDF Author: Steven Cohen
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231551703
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 504

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Book Description
Living sustainably is not just about preserving the wilderness or keeping nature pristine. The transition to a green economy depends on cities. Economic, technological, and cultural forces are moving people out of rural areas and into urban areas. If we are to avert climate catastrophe, we will need our cities to coexist with nature without destroying it. Urbanization holds the key to long-term sustainability, reducing per capita environmental impacts while improving economic prosperity and social inclusion for current and future generations. The Sustainable City provides a broad and engaging overview of the urban systems of the twenty-first century. It approaches urban sustainability from the perspectives of behavioral change, organizational management, and public policy, looking at case studies of existing legislation, programs, and public-private partnerships that strive to align modern urban life and sustainability. The book synthesizes the disparate strands of sustainable city planning in an approachable and applicable guide that highlights how these issues touch our lives on a daily basis, including the transportation we take, the public health systems that protect us, where our energy comes from, and what becomes of our food waste. This second edition of The Sustainable City dives deeper into the financing of sustainable infrastructure and initiatives and puts additional emphasis on the roles that individual citizens and varied stakeholders can play. It also reviews current trends in urban inequality and discusses whether a model of sustainability that embraces a multidimensional approach to development and a multistakeholder approach to decision making can foster social inclusion. It features many more examples and new international case studies spanning the globe.

Pathways to Urban Sustainability

Pathways to Urban Sustainability PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309444535
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
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.

Dimensions of the Sustainable City

Dimensions of the Sustainable City PDF Author: Mike Jenks
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402086474
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
The CityForm consortium’s latest book, Dimensions of the Sustainable City, is the first book to report on an empirical multi-disciplinary study specifically designed to address urban sustainability. Drawing together the various dimensions of sustainability – economic, social, transport, energy and ecological – the book examines their relationships both to each other and to urban form. The book investigates the sustainability dimensions of cities through a series of projects based on a common list of elements of urban form, and which draw on the consortium’s latest research to review the sustainability issues of each dimension. The elements of urban form include density, land use, location, accessibility, transport infrastructure and characteristics of the built environment. The book also addresses issues such as adapting cities, psychological and ecological benefits of green space and sustainable lifestyles, each presenting a critical review of the relevant literature followed by an empirical analysis presenting the key results. Based on studies across five UK cities, the book draws out findings of relevance to sustainable cities worldwide. As well as an invaluable reference to researchers in sustainable planning and urban design, the book will provide a useful text for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses and for policy makers dealing with these issues. The CityForm consortium is a multi-disciplinary group of researchers from five universities funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Science Research Council from 2003-07.

The Sustainable City IX

The Sustainable City IX PDF Author: N. Marchettini
Publisher: WIT Press
ISBN: 184564820X
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 1767

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Book Description
Containing the proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Urban Regeneration and Sustainability this book addresses the multi-disciplinary aspects of urban planning; a result of the increasing size of cities; the amount of resources and services required and the complexity of modern society. Most of earth’s population now lives in cities and the process of urbanisation still continues generating many problems deriving from the drift of the population towards them. These problems can be resolved by cities becoming efficient habitats, saving resources in a way that improves the quality and standard of living. The process however, faces a number of major challenges, related to reducing pollution, improving main transportation and infrastructure systems. New urban solutions are required to optimise the use of space and energy resources leading to improvements in the environment, i.e. reduction in air, water and soil pollution as well as efficient ways to deal with waste generation. These challenges contribute to the development of social and economic imbalances and require the development of new solutions. Large cities are probably the most complex mechanisms to manage. However, despite such complexity they represent a fertile ground for architects, engineers, city planners, social and political scientists, and other professionals able to conceive new ideas and time them according to technological advances and human requirements. The challenge of planning sustainable cities lies in considering their dynamics, the exchange of energy and matter, and the function and maintenance of ordered structures directly or indirectly, supplied and maintained by natural systems. Topics covered include: Urban strategies; Planning, development and management; Urban conservation and regeneration; The community and the city; Eco-town planning; Landscape planning and design; Environmental management; Sustainable energy and the city; Transportation; Quality of life; Waterfront development; Case studies; Architectural issues; Cultural heritage issues; Intelligent environment and emerging technologies; Planning for risk; Disaster and emergency response; Safety and security; Waste management; Infrastructure and society; Urban metabolism.

Getting from Here to There? Power, Politics and Urban Sustainability in North America

Getting from Here to There? Power, Politics and Urban Sustainability in North America PDF Author: Ernest J. Yanarella
Publisher: Universal-Publishers
ISBN: 1627345809
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
Getting from Here to There? seeks to take the study of sustainable cities into a realm of analysis and critique that has not been seriously investigated in any explicit and systematic manner: the sphere of power and politics. Using detailed case studies of selected urban sustainability programs-some stillborn or short-lived, others celebrated, still others most promising-it focuses on the political agencies shaping them and the structural elements either impeding or facilitating efforts to build sustainable cities. To accomplish this task, the authors utilize three theories or models of urban power-growth coalition, urban regime, and neo-Gramscian hegemonic-to explore the dynamics of power and politics to better understand these cases and to derive important lessons about getting from here to there. These models offer valuable lessons for ongoing or future sustainable city programs, community or business groups, key policy makers, grassroots organizations, mayors, and urban planners involved in or contemplating moving urban sustainability projects forward, as well as students of urban politics and environmental and sustainability researchers.

Culture and Sustainability in European Cities

Culture and Sustainability in European Cities PDF Author: Svetlana Hristova
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317677153
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
European cities are contributing to the development of a more sustainable urban system that is capable of coping with economic crises, ecological challenges and social disparities in different nation-states and regions throughout Europe. This book reveals in a pluralistic way how European cities are generating new approaches to their sustainable development, and the special contribution of culture to these processes. It addresses both a deficit of attention to small and medium-sized cities in the framework of European sustainable development, and an underestimation of the role of culture, artistic expression and creativity for integrated development of the city as a prerequisite to urban sustainability. On the basis of a broad collection of case studies throughout Europe, representing a variety of regionally specific cultural models of sustainable development, the book investigates how participative culture, community arts, and more generally, creativity of civic imagination are conducive to the goal of a sustainable future of small and medium-sized cities. This is an essential volume for researchers and postgraduate students in urban studies, cultural studies, cultural geography and urban sociology as well as for policymakers and practitioners wanting to understand the specificity of European cities as hubs of innovation, creativity and artistic industriousness.

Sustainable Cities Reimagined

Sustainable Cities Reimagined PDF Author: Stanislav E. Shmelev
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000638979
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
To assess urban sustainability performance, this book explores several clusters of cities, including megacities, cities of the Global South, European and North American cities, cities of the Middle East and North Africa, cities of Central and South East Asia, a city state of Singapore and a large group of global cities. It applies a multi-criteria approach using a panel of environmental, economic, social and smart indicators to assess progress and policies in global cities including London, New York, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Los Angeles, São Paolo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, Moscow, Beijing, Seoul, Singapore, Shanghai, Sydney, Tokyo and many others. Additional attention is given to the issues of climate change, poverty and smart dimensions, with renewable energy and the drivers of urban CO2 emissions playing the central role. This book is abundant with case studies considering strategies, policies and performance of the leading cities, including San Francisco, Stockholm and Seoul in greater depth, exploring how their successes can be used by other cities. The book identifies key linkages between different smart and sustainability dimensions as well as investment opportunities in cities with sustainability potential. This book will be of great interest to policy makers, city and regional authorities as well as scholars and students of urban planning and sustainable development aiming to facilitate a sustainability transition in our cities around the world.

Pathways to Urban Sustainability

Pathways to Urban Sustainability PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309300843
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 154

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Book Description
Pathways to Urban Sustainability: Perspective from Portland and the Pacific Northwest is the summary of a workshop convened by the National Research Council's Science and Technology for Sustainability Program in May 2013 to examine issues relating to sustainability and human-environment interactions in the Portland metropolitan region. Topics addressed included the role of land-use restrictions on development, transportation innovations, and economic and social challenges. The speakers at the workshop used examples from Portland and the greater Pacific Northwest region to explore critical questions in finding pathways to urban sustainability. This was the third and final of a series of three place-based urban sustainability workshops - the other two workshops focused on Atlanta, Georgia and Houston, Texas. These public workshops gathered local, state, and federal officials, academics, and key stakeholders to examine how challenges due to continued growth in the regions can be addressed within the context of sustainability. For more than 40 years, the Portland Metropolitan Region has been a national leader in urban policies and investments intended to revitalize the central city and adjacent neighborhoods, preserve the environment, improve equity, and make the city more economically competitive and livable. Portland has been both emulated as path breaking and discounted as overly idiosyncratic. Among the elements contributing to Portland's success have been strong public-private partnerships, a culture of planning, and a willingness to implement diverse ideas generated by federal, state, and local agencies, academics, and the private sector. Regionally, Portland benefits from its location in the middle of the progressive Cascadia Corridor, stretching from Vancouver, British Columbia, to San Francisco, California. This report uses examples from Portland and the Northwest U.S./S.W. Canada region to explore critical questions about the future of urban sustainability. The report provides background about Portland and Cascadia, emphasizing policy innovations and lessons that are potentially transferable elsewhere; focuses on ways to leverage local success through partnerships with state and federal agencies, companies, and nongovernment organizations; examines academic and corporate scientific and engineering research that could help cities to become more sustainable; and addresses the challenging question of how resource-constrained cities can become agents for achieving broader societal goals not directly linked to their operational mandates, such as climate change mitigation, energy independence, and improvement in human health, particularly in low-income communities.

Sustainability in the Global City

Sustainability in the Global City PDF Author: Cindy Isenhour
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316195341
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 425

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Book Description
Cities play a pivotal but paradoxical role in the future of our planet. As world leaders and citizens grapple with the consequences of growth, pollution, climate change, and waste, urban sustainability has become a ubiquitous catchphrase and a beacon of hope. Yet we know little about how the concept is implemented in daily life, particularly with regard to questions of social justice and equity. This volume provides a unique and vital contribution to ongoing conversations about urban sustainability by looking beyond the promises, propaganda, and policies associated with the concept in order to explore both its mythic meanings and the practical implications in a variety of everyday contexts. The authors present ethnographic studies from cities in eleven countries and six continents. Each chapter highlights the universalized assumptions underlying interpretations of sustainability while elucidating the diverse and contradictory ways in which people understand, incorporate, advocate for, and reject sustainability in the course of their daily lives.

Governing Urban Sustainability

Governing Urban Sustainability PDF Author: Lisa Pettibone
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317125436
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
In her study of the interactions between tools of urban sustainability governance in key cities, Lisa Pettibone argues that a new factor-sustainability-minded groups-may be critical to building momentum for sustainability. The book presents in-depth case studies of six cities in the USA and Germany: New York, Portland, Seattle, Berlin, Hamburg, and Heidelburg. Drawing on 75 interviews, document analysis, and a bilingual literature review, the book analyzes how sustainability is politically constructed in city strategic plans and sustainability indicators. The volume provides a comprehensive introduction to the principles of sustainability, discusses the key governance instruments relevant to urban sustainability, and delivers new empirical and theoretical material on their role in a sustainability transition. It concludes that despite the national-level differences, cities’ experiences in both countries are similar. Political sustainability at the city level differs in several important ways from academic principles of sustainability. Finally, it proposes that sustainability-minded groups may be a key link to connect urban sustainability in practice to theoretical concepts.

Urban Health, Sustainability, and Peace in the Day the World Stopped

Urban Health, Sustainability, and Peace in the Day the World Stopped PDF Author: Ali Cheshmehzangi
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9811648883
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
This book covers the nexus between urban health, sustainability, and peace. 'Urban Health, Sustainability, and Peace' is the first book that attempts to put these three critical areas together. This novelty approaches the subject matter by delving into evaluating what works, what does not work, and what should be done to achieve healthy cities. We believe this book will be beneficial to a wide range of stakeholders, particularly policymakers, planners, and developers, who continuously shape and reshape the structure and environments of our cities and communities. Unfortunately, in most cases, the healthiness of the cities may not be of their immediate concern. Nevertheless, it is the concern of the end-users, citizens, or simply those who live and work in cities and communities worldwide. To safeguard peace in cities, one has to consider sustaining urban health; and that is the main aim of this book. The ongoing pandemic gives us an excellent reason to study cities' health. During such a disruptive time, we detect many flaws in cities and communities around the world. We primarily identify the negative impacts on sustainability and peace in cities. In order to sustain a healthy city, this book evaluates six sustainability dimensions of physical, environmental, economic, social, institutional, and technical. It then utilizes eight primary dimensions of positive peace, evaluating critical areas for future considerations in urbanism. These considerations include making cities smarter, more resilient, and more sustainable. The book's ultimate goal is to highlight how we should progress to maintain and sustain urban health. As a continuation to 'The City in Need,', this book covers the nexus between urban health, sustainability, and peace. Furthermore, by reflecting on the ongoing pandemic crisis, metaphorically labelled as 'The Day the World Stopped,', we delve into some key areas beyond the usual planning and policy guidelines. Lastly, the book intends to highlight what has not been studied before, i.e., the relationship between urban health, sustainability, and peace.