Over the past several decades, numerous planning movements have taken root within the United States. With names like "Urban Renewal," "Garden Cities," "Healthy Cities," "Smart Growth," "Eco-Cities" and "Sustainability," these programs promote ways to create, protect, preserve, enhance, and restore the quality of life in cities, towns and suburbs, especially in regards to the natural environment. This guide to the best practices of these programs introduces the rapidly evolving field before presenting more than 40 case studies of communities that are effectively "going green." An assessment of the future of these towns and cities and resources for citizens and officials seeking additional information conclude the work. By compiling these success stories, this handbook makes an excellent resource for anyone seeking to facilitate the restoration of the natural environment within their community.

"In Green Cities, Matthew Kahn surveys the burgeoning economic literature on the environmental consequences of urban growth. He discusses the environmental Kuznets curve, which theorizes that the relationship between environmental quality and per capita income follows a bell-shaped curve. The heart of the book unpacks and expands this notion by tracing the environmental effects of economic growth, population growth, and suburban sprawl. Kahn considers how cities can deal with the environmental challenges produced by growth. His concluding chapter addresses the role of cities in promoting climate change and asks how cities in turn are likely to be affected by this trend."--BOOK JACKET.

Nineteenth-century landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted described his most famous project, the design of New York's Central Park, as "a democratic development of highest significance." Over the years, the significance of green in civic life has grown. In twenty-first-century America, not only open space but also other issues of sustainability—such as potable water and carbon footprints—have become crucial elements in the quality of life in the city and surrounding environment. Confronted by a U.S. population that is more than 70 percent urban, growing concern about global warming, rising energy prices, and unabated globalization, today's decision makers must find ways to bring urban life into balance with the Earth in order to sustain the natural, economic, and political environment of the modern city. In Growing Greener Cities, a collection of essays on urban sustainability and environmental issues edited by Eugenie L. Birch and Susan M. Wachter, scholars and practitioners alike promote activities that recognize and conserve nature's ability to sustain urban life. These essays demonstrate how partnerships across professional organizations, businesses, advocacy groups, governments, and individuals themselves can bring green solutions to cities from London to Seattle. Beyond park and recreational spaces, initiatives that fall under the green umbrella range from public transit and infrastructure improvement to aquifer protection and urban agriculture. Growing Greener Cities offers an overview of the urban green movement, case studies in effective policy implementation, and tools for measuring and managing success. Thoroughly illustrated with color graphs, maps, and photographs, Growing Greener Cities provides a panoramic view of urban sustainability and environmental issues for green-minded city planners, policy makers, and citizens.

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.

In the absence of federal leadership, states and localities are stepping forward to address critical problems like climate change, urban sprawl, and polluted water and air. Making a city fundamentally sustainable is a daunting task, but fortunately, there are dynamic, innovative models outside U.S. borders. Green Cities of Europe draws on the world's best examples of sustainability to show how other cities can become greener and more livable. Timothy Beatley has brought together leading experts from Paris, Freiburg, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Heidelberg, Venice, Vitoria-Gasteiz, and London to illustrate groundbreaking practices in sustainable urban planning and design. These cities are developing strong urban cores, building pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, and improving public transit. They are incorporating ecological design and planning concepts, from solar energy to natural drainage and community gardens. And they are changing the way government works, instituting municipal "green audits" and reforming economic incentives to encourage sustainability. Whatever their specific tactics, these communities prove that a holistic approach is needed to solve environmental problems and make cities sustainable. Beatley and these esteemed contributors offer vital lessons to the domestic planning community about not only what European cities are doing to achieve that vision, but precisely how they are doing it. The result is an indispensable guide to greening American cities. Contributors include: Lucie Laurian (Paris) Dale Medearis and Wulf Daseking (Freiburg) Michaela Brüel (Copenhagen) Maria Jaakkola (Helsinki) Marta Moretti (Venice) Luis Andrés Orive and Rebeca Dios Lema (Vitoria-Gasteiz) Camilla Ween (London)

This book addresses key issues across the field of sustainable urban planning, and provides a unique reference tool for planners, engineers, architects, public administrators, and other experts. The evolution of cities and communities is giving rise to pressing energy and environmental problems that demand concrete solutions. In this context, urban planning is inevitably a complex activity that requires a sound analytical interpretation of ongoing developments, multidisciplinary analysis of the available tools and technologies, appropriate political management, and the ability to monitor progress objectively in order to verify the effectiveness of the policies implemented. This book is exceptional in both the breadth of its coverage and its focus on the interactions between different elements. Individual sections focus on strategies and tools for green planning, energy efficiency and sustainability in city planning, sustainable mobility, rating systems, and the smart city approach to improving urban-scale sustainability. The authors draw on their extensive practical experience to provide operational content supplementing the theoretical and methodological elements covered in the text, and each section features informative case studies.

"Sustainability" is more than the latest "green" buzzword. It represents a new way of viewing the interactions of human society and the natural world. Sustainability in America's Cities highlights how America's largest cities are acting to develop sustainable solutions to conflicts between development and environment. As sustainability rises to the top of public policy agendas in American cities, it is also emerging as a new discipline in colleges and universities. Specifically designed for these educational programs, this is the first book to provide empirically based, multi-disciplinary case studies of sustainability policy, planning, and practice in action. It is also valuable for everyone who designs and implements sustainability initiatives, including policy makers, public sector and non-profit practitioners, and consultants. Sustainability in America's Cities brings together academic and practicing professionals to offer firsthand insight into innovative strategies that cities have adopted in renewable energy and energy efficiency, climate change, green building, clean-tech and green jobs, transportation and infrastructure, urban forestry and sustainable food production. Case studies examine sustainability initiatives in a wide range of American cities, including San Francisco, Honolulu, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Milwaukee, New York City, Portland, Oregon and Washington D.C. The concluding chapter ties together the empirical evidence and recounts lessons learned for sustainability planning and policy.

It argues that the formation and implementation of local climate change policy has been limited by the resources and powers of local government, and by conflicts between economic and environmental objectives.

The concept of ‘sustainable urban development’ has been pushed to the forefront of policymaking and politics as the world wakes up to the impacts of climate change and the destructive effects of the Anthropocene. Climate change has emerged to be one of the biggest challenges faced by our planet today, threatening both built and natural systems with long-term consequences, which may be irreversible. While there is a vast body of literature on sustainability and sustainable urban development, there is currently limited focus on how to cohesively bring together the vital issues of the planning, development, and management of sustainable cities. Moreover, it has been widely stated that current practices and lifestyles cannot continue if we are to leave a healthy living planet to not only the next generation, but also to the generations beyond. The current global school strikes for climate action (known as Fridays for Future) evidences this. The book advocates the view that the focus needs to rest on ways in which our cities and industries can become green enough to avoid urban ecocide. This book fills a gap in the literature by bringing together issues related to the planning, development, and management of cities and focusing on a triple-bottom-line approach to sustainability.

The twenty-first century is already an urban one. Cities are pivotal to sustainability concerns globalization, climate change, food security, environmental protection, and innovation.Today's urban actors, both citizens and their leaders, have a major responsibility as trustees of the future: their present actions will influence the shape and structure of cities, so that the generation to come may live healthy and contended lives.This volume takes the reader straight to the heart of how cities work, and identifies contemporary trends, mechanism and tools that can influence current strategies and choices.The authors show that urbanization is not a problem per se for sustainable development, but rather that cities, in all their diversity and complexity, offer solutions as well as challenges.The reader will be inspired by vital analyses of the next decade's windows of opportunity for sustainable urban growth.