Urban Sustainability in Theory and Practice: Circles of sustainability

ISBN-13: 9781138025721 / Angielski / Twarda / 2014 / 260 str.

Paul James;¬Abar;¬Abar

Opis

Cities are home to the most consequential current attempts at human adaptation and they provide one possible focus for the flourishing of life on this planet. However, for this to be realized in more than an ad hoc way, a substantial rethinking of current approaches and practices needs to occur. Urban Sustainability in Theory and Practice responds to the crises of sustainability in the world today by going back to basics. It makes four major contributions to thinking about and acting upon cities. It provides a means of reflexivity learning about urban sustainability in the process of working practically for positive social development and projected change. It challenges the usually taken-for-granted nature of sustainability practices while providing tools for modifying those practices. It emphasizes the necessity of a holistic and integrated understanding of urban life. Finally it rewrites existing dominant understandings of the social whole such as the triple-bottom line approach that reduce environmental questions to externalities and social questions to background issues. The book is a much-needed practical and conceptual guide for rethinking urban engagement. Covering the full range of sustainability domains and bridging discourses aimed at academics and practitioners, this is an essential read for all those studying, researching and working in urban geography, sustainability assessment, urban planning, urban sociology and politics, sustainable development and environmental studies.

Spis treści

Part 1: Setting the Global-Local Scene  1. Confronting a World in Crisis  2. Defining the World around Us  Part 2: Understanding Social Life  3. Social Domains  4. Social Mapping  5. Social Meaning  Part 3. Developing Methods and Tools  6. Assessing Sustainability  7. Generating an Urban Sustainability Profile  8. Measuring Community Sustainability  9. Conducting a Peer Review  10. Adapting to Climate Change  11. Projecting Alternative Futures  12. Simulating Future Trends  Conclusion

O autorze

Paul James　is Professor of Globalization and Cultural Diversity in the Institute for Culture and Society, University of Western Sydney, Australia. He was Director of the UN Global Compact Cities Programme from 2007 till 2014.