What is a green city? What does it mean to say that San Francisco or Vancouver is more " green" than Houston or Beijing? When does urban growth lower environmental quality, and when does it yield environmental gains? How can cities deal with the environmental challenges posed by growth? These are the questions Matthew Kahn takes on in this smart and engaging book. Written in a lively, accessible style, Green Cities takes the reader on a tour of the extensive economic literature on the environmental consequences of urban growth. Kahn starts with an exploration of the Environmental...

Takes the reader on a tour of the economic literature on the environmental consequences of urban growth.

We have released the genie from the bottle: climate change is coming, and there's no stopping it. The question, according to environmental economist Matthew E. Kahn, is not how we're going to avoid a hotter future but how we're going to adapt to it. In Climatopolis, Kahn argues that cities and regions will adapt to rising temperatures over time, slowly transforming our everyday lives as we change our behaviors and our surroundings. Taking the reader on a tour of the world's cities-- from New York to Beijing to Mumbai--Kahn's clear-eyed, engaging, and optimistic message presents a...