Urban regeneration is a key focus for public policy throughout Europe. This book examines social sustainability and analyses its meaning. The authors offer a comprehensive European perspective to identify best practices in sustainable urban regeneration in five major cities in Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Germany, and the UK. This authoritative overview of the scholarly literature makes the book essential reading for researchers and post-graduate students in sustainable development, real estate, geography, urban studies, and urban planning, as well as consultants and policy advisors in urban regeneration and the built environment.

Large, modern cities have effectively declared their independence from nature. But while they take up only three percent of the world’s land surface, their ecological footprints actually cover the entire globe. Humanity is building an urban future, yet urban resource use is threatening the future of humanity and the natural world. To meet the aspirations of city people in both developing and developed countries, bold new initiatives are needed. Modern cities are an astonishing human achievement. As centres of innovation they are humanity’s cultural playgrounds. Their communication and transport systems have developed a global reach. They are attractive to investors because they can offer a vast variety of services at comparatively low per-capita costs. But are they viable as ecological systems? The planning of new cities, as well as the retrofit of existing cities, needs to undergo a profound paradigm shift. Mere 'sustainable development' is not enough. To be compatible with natural systems, cities need to move away from linear systems of resource use and learn to operate as closed-loop, circular systems. To ensure their long-term future, they need to develop an environmentally enhancing, restorative relationship between themselves and the natural systems on which they still depend. Creating Regenerative Cities is a concise, solution-oriented manual for creating regenerative urbanisation. A wide range of technical, management and policy solutions already exist, but implementation has been too slow and too little, in large part because the kinds of holistic approaches needed are still unfamiliar to fragmented and process-driven urban policy making and governance. Herbert Girardet's 30 years’ experience as an ecologist, thinker, film maker and consultant working around the world has created this unique combination of tried and tested best practices and policies, which outlines the fundamental shifts needed in the way we think about our cities.

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. Innovative tools are required for identifying the high complexity of contemporary cities. It is necessary to provide a more scientific approach to urban studies, inspired by Prigogine's theories of dissipative structures, and to highlight relations between different systems and between systems and the environment. The challenge of placing sustainable contemporary cities lies in considering the dynamics of urban systems, exchange of energy and matter and the function and maintenance of ordered structures directly or indirectly supplied and maintained by natural systems. The task of researchers, aware of the complexity of the contemporary city, is to increase the capacity to manage human activities pursuing welfare and prosperity in sustainable cities.

A set of new studies are included in this volume which provides solutions that lead towards sustainability. Contributions originate from a diverse range of researchers, resulting in a variety of topics and experiences. Urban areas face a number of challenges related to reducing pollution, improving main transportation and infrastructure systems and these challenges can contribute to the development of social and economic imbalances and require the development of new solutions. The challenge is to manage human activities, pursuing welfare and prosperity in the urban environment, whilst considering the relationships between the parts and their connections with the living world. The dynamics of its networks (flows of energy matter, people, goods, information and other resources) are fundamental for an understanding of the evolving nature of today’s cities. Large cities represent a productive ground for architects, engineers, city planners, social and political scientists able to conceive new ideas and time them according to technological advances and human requirements. The multidisciplinary components of urban planning, the challenges presented by the increasing size of cities, the amount of resources required and the complexity of modern society are all addressed.

This book provides a deep insight into urban regeneration schemes and explores the parameters of what is deemed a sustainable development, before appraising existing schemes’ evaluation models for the sustainable return on investment. The authors present a new practical evaluation tool that suggests quantifiable benefits for all urban regeneration stakeholders. This new method enables the gauging of the full sustainable impact, from a given outlay of money invested in a housing-led urban regeneration scheme, through an evidence-based proof and can be used to: Better fulfil sustainability criteria in terms of all three aspects of the triple bottom line and contribute in a more sustainable way to address the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal 11 Reduce financial waste and plug the gap created by the recent economic shortfall which is impacting on housing associations, tenants and communities alike Evaluate historical housing-led urban regeneration schemes and model future schemes. The method can be used as a strategic decision making or management tool, with schemes being able to be planned in, prioritised or carried out in a targeted and strategic manner; and it can be used for modelling purposes, for publicity purposes and alongside existing tools. This book provides a unique method of fully and sustainably evaluating housing-led urban regeneration schemes, useful for planners, strategic management, local authorities, housing associations, the construction industry and built environment students alike.

This timely book explores how universities are establishing living laboratories for sustainable development, and examines the communication networks and knowledge infrastructures that underpin impact both on and beyond the campus.

This volume focuses on the theory and practice of the regenerative development paradigm that is rapidly displacing sustainability as the most fertile ground for climate change adaptation research. This book brings together key thinkers in this field to develop a meaningful synthesis between the existing practice of regenerative development and the input of scholars in the social sciences. It begins by providing an expert introduction to the history, principles, and practices of regenerative development before going on to present a thorough theoretical examination by known theorists from disciplines including sociology, geography, and ethics. A section on regenerative development practices illustrates the need to significantly advance our understanding of how urbanization, climate change, and inequality interact at every scale of development work. Finally, the book ends with a serious consideration of the ways in which integrated systems thinking in higher education could result in a curriculum for the next generation of regenerative development professionals. Regenerative Urban Development, Climate Change and the Common Good will be of great interest to students, scholars, and practitioners of regenerative development, climate change, urban planning, and public policy.

This is a ‘Whole Earth Catalog’ for the 21st century: an impressive and wide-ranging analysis of what’s wrong with our societies, organizations, ideologies, worldviews and cultures – and how to put them right. The book covers the finance system, agriculture, design, ecology, economy, sustainability, organizations and society at large.

For the first time in human history, more than half the world’s population is urban. A fundamental aspect of this transformation has been the emergence of giant cities, or megacities, that present major new challenges. This book examines how issues of megacity development, urban form, sustainability, and unsustainability are conceived, how governance processes are influenced by these ideas, and how these processes have in turn influenced outcomes on the ground, in some cases in transformative ways. Through 15 in-depth case studies by prominent researchers from around the world, this book examines the major challenges facing megacities today. The studies are organized around a shared set of concerns and questions about issues of sustainability, land development, urban governance, and urban form. Some of the main questions addressed are: What are the most pressing issues of sustainability and urban form in each megacity? How are major issues of sustainability understood and framed by policymakers? Is urban form considered a significant component of sustainability issues in public debates and public policy? Who are the key actors framing urban sustainability challenges and shaping urban change? How is unsustainability, risk, or disaster imagined, and how are those concerns reflected in policy approaches? What has been achieved so far, and what challenges remain? The publication of this book is a step toward answering these and other crucial questions.

A radically new understanding of and practical approach to climate change by noted environmentalist Paul Hawken, creator of the New York Times bestseller Drawdown Regeneration offers a visionary new approach to climate change, one that weaves justice, climate, biodiversity, equity, and human dignity into a seamless tapestry of action, policy, and transformation that can end the climate crisis in one generation. It is the first book to describe and define the burgeoning regeneration movement spreading rapidly throughout the world. Regeneration describes how an inclusive movement can engage the majority of humanity to save the world from the threat of global warming, with climate solutions that directly serve our children, the poor, and the excluded. This means we must address current human needs, not future existential threats, real as they are, with initiatives that include but go well beyond solar, electric vehicles, and tree planting to include such solutions as the fifteen-minute city, bioregions, azolla fern, food localization, fire ecology, decommodification, forests as farms, and the number one solution for the world: electrifying everything. Paul Hawken and the nonprofit Regeneration Organization are launching a series of initiatives to accompany the book, including a streaming video series, curriculum, podcasts, teaching videos, and climate action software. Regeneration is the inspiring and necessary guide to inform the rapidly spreading climate movement.