A cutting exploration of how cities drive climate change while being on the frontlines of the coming climate crisis How will climate change affect our lives? Where will its impacts be most deeply felt? Are we doing enough to protect ourselves from the coming chaos? In Extreme Cities, Ashley Dawson argues that cities are ground zero for climate change, contributing the lion’s share of carbon to the atmosphere, while also lying on the frontlines of rising sea levels. Today, the majority of the world’s megacities are located in coastal zones, yet few of them are adequately prepared for the floods that will increasingly menace their shores. Instead, most continue to develop luxury waterfront condos for the elite and industrial facilities for corporations. These not only intensify carbon emissions, but also place coastal residents at greater risk when water levels rise. In Extreme Cities, Dawson offers an alarming portrait of the future of our cities, describing the efforts of Staten Island, New York, and Shishmareff, Alaska residents to relocate; Holland’s models for defending against the seas; and the development of New York City before and after Hurricane Sandy. Our best hope lies not with fortified sea walls, he argues. Rather, it lies with urban movements already fighting to remake our cities in a more just and equitable way. As much a harrowing study as a call to arms Extreme Cities is a necessary read for anyone concerned with the threat of global warming, and of the cities of the world.

This book argues that the relationship between cities and climate change is entering a new and more urgent phase. Thirteen contributions from a range of leading scholars explore the need to rethink and reorient urban life in response to climatic change. Split into four parts it begins by asking ‘What is climate urbanism?’ and exploring key features from different locations and epistemological traditions. The second section examines the transformative potential of climate urbanism to challenge social and environmental injustices within and between cities. In the third part authors interrogate current knowledge paradigms underpinning climate and urban science and how they shape contemporary urban trajectories. The final section focuses on the future, envisaging climate urbanism as a new communal project, and focuses on the role of citizens and non-state actors in driving transformative action. Consolidating debates on climate urbanism, the book highlights the opportunities and tensions of urban environmental policy, providing a framework for researchers and practitioners to respond to the urban challenges of a radically climate-changed world.

Urban Regeneration — A Manifesto for transforming UK Cities in the Age of Climate Change explores and offers guidance on the complex process of how to transform cities, continuing the unfinished project of the seminal 1999 text Towards an Urban Renaissance. It is a 21st-century manifesto of urban principles compiled by a prominent urbanist, for the regeneration of UK cities, focusing on the characteristics of a ‘good place’ and the strategies of sustainable urbanism. It asks readers to consider how we can best transform the derelict, abandoned and run-down parts of cities back into places where people want to live, work and play. The book frames an architecture of re-use that translates and combines the complex ‘science of cities’ and the art of urban and architectural design into actionable and practical guidance on how to regenerate cities. Fascinated by the typology and value of the compact UK and European city model, Lehmann introduces the concept of ‘high density without high buildings’ as a solution that will make our cities compact, walkable, mixed-use and vibrant again.

Climate Change and Cities bridges science-to-action for climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts in cities around the world.

As the need to confront unplanned growth increases, planners, policymakers, and citizens are scrambling for practical tools and examples of successful and workable approaches. Growth management initiatives are underway in the U.S. at all levels, but many American "success stories" provide only one piece of the puzzle. To find examples of a holistic approach to dealing with sprawl, one must turn to models outside of the United States. In Green Urbanism, Timothy Beatley explains what planners and local officials in the United States can learn from the sustainable city movement in Europe. The book draws from the extensive European experience, examining the progress and policies of twenty-five of the most innovative cities in eleven European countries, which Beatley researched and observed in depth during a year-long stay in the Netherlands. Chapters examine: the sustainable cities movement in Europe examples and ideas of different housing and living options transit systems and policies for promoting transit use, increasing bicycle use, and minimizing the role of the automobile creative ways of incorporating greenness into cities ways of readjusting "urban metabolism" so that waste flows become circular programs to promote more sustainable forms of economic development sustainable building and sustainable design measures and features renewable energy initiatives and local efforts to promote solar energy ways of greening the many decisions of local government including ecological budgeting, green accounting, and other city management tools. Throughout, Beatley focuses on the key lessons from these cities -- including Vienna, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Zurich, Amsterdam, London, and Berlin -- and what their experience can teach us about effectively and creatively promoting sustainable development in the United States. Green Urbanism is the first full-length book to describe urban sustainability in European cities, and provides concrete examples and detailed discussions of innovative and practical sustainable planning ideas. It will be a useful reference and source of ideas for urban and regional planners, state and local officials, policymakers, students of planning and geography, and anyone concerned with how cities can become more livable.

Based on a comprehensive study review by leading urban planning researchers, this investigative document demonstrates how urban development is both a key contributor to climate change and an essential factor in combating it -- by reducing vehicle greenhouse gas emissions.

This book will speak to the new human epoch, the Urban Age. A majority of humanity now lives for the first time in cities. The city, the highest invention of the modern age, is now the human heartland. And yet the same process that brought us the city and its wonders, modernisation, has also thrown up challenges and threats, especially climate change, resource depletion, social division and economic insecurity. This book considers how these threats are encountered and countered in the urban age, focusing on the issue of human knowledge and self-awareness, just as Hannah Arendt’s influential The Human Condition did half a century ago. The Human Condition is now The Urban Condition. And it is this condition that will define human prospects in an age of default and risk. Gleeson expertly explores the concept through three main themes. The first is an exploration of what defines the current human condition, especially the expanding cities that are at the heart of an over-consumptive world economic order. The second exposes and reviews the reawakening of forms of knowledge (‘naturalism’) that are likely to worsen not improve our comprehension of the crisis. The new ‘science of urbanism’ in popular new literature exemplifies this dangerous trend. The third and last part of the book considers prospects for a new urban, and therefore human, dispensation, ‘The Good City’. We must first journey in our urban vessels through troubled times. But can we now start to plot the way to new shores, to a safer, more resilient city that provides for human flourishing? The Urban Condition attempts this ideal, conceiving a new urbanism based on the old idea of self-limitation. The Urban Condition is an original, timely book that reconsiders and redeploys Arendt’s famous notion of The Human Condition in an age of cities and risk. It brings together several important strands of human consideration, urbanisation, climate threat, resource depletion, economic default and critical knowledge and weaves them into a new analysis of the times. It also looks to a future that is nearly with us—of changed climate, resource scarcity and economic stress. The book journeys into these troubled times, proposing the idea of Lifeboat Cities as a way of thinking about the human journey to come

In this immensely practical book, Timothy Beatley sets out to answer a simple question: what can Americans learn from Australians about “greening” city life? Green Urbanism Down Under reports on the current state of “sustainability practice” in Australia and the many lessons that U.S. residents can learn from the best Australian programs and initiatives. Australia is similar to the United States in many ways, especially in its “energy footprint.” For example, Australia’s per capita greenhouse gas emissions are second only to those of the United States. A similar percentage of its residents live in cities (85 percent in Australia vs. 80 percent in the United States). And it suffers from parallel problems of air and water pollution, a national dependence on automobiles, and high fossil fuel consumption. Still, after traveling throughout Australia, Beatley finds that there are myriad creative responses to these problems—and that they offer instructive examples for the United States. Green Urbanism Down Under is a very readable collection of solutions. Although many of these innovative solutions are little-known outside Australia, they all present practical possibilities for U.S. cities. Beatley describes “green transport” projects, “city farms,” renewable energy plans, green living programs, and much more. He considers a host of public policy initiatives and scrutinizes regional and state planning efforts for answers. In closing, he shares his impressions about how Australian results might be applied to U.S. problems. This is a unique book: hopeful, constructive, and filled with ideas that have been proven to work. It is a “must read” for anyone who cares about the future of American cities.

Adaptation Urbanism and Resilient Communities outlines and explains adaptation urbanism as a theoretical framework for understanding and evaluating resilience projects in cities and relates it to pressing contemporary policy issues related to urban climate change mitigation and adaptation. Through a series of detailed case studies, this book uncovers the promise and tensions of a new wave of resilient communities in Europe (Copenhagen, Rotterdam, and London), and the United States (New Orleans and South Florida). In addition, best practice projects in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Delft, Utrecht, and Vancouver are examined. The authors highlight how these communities are reinventing the role of streets and connecting public spaces in adapting to and mitigating climate change through green/blue infrastructure planning, maintaining and enhancing sustainable transportation options, and struggling to ensure equitable development for all residents. The case studies demonstrate that while there are some more universal aspects to encouraging adaptation urbanism, there are also important local characteristics that need to be both acknowledged and celebrated to help local communities thrive in the era of climate change. The book also provides key policy lessons and a roadmap for future research in adaptation urbanism. Advancing resilience policy discourse through multidisciplinary framework this work will be of great interest to students of urban planning, geography, transportation, landscape architecture, and environmental studies, as well as resilience practitioners around the world.

Drawing from research and examples about resilient cities, this book looks at new initiatives and innovations cities can implement.