Urban Sustainability in Theory and Practice: Circles of sustainability

by Paul James

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.

282 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[S. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks quarantine !
I should have reviewed it years ago... Or at least before meeting Bettencourt...
This book beautifully sums state of the art practices in deploying urban sustainability. Although I still find the suggested model the Circles of Sustainability a bit odd, and to some extent simplistic... I enjoyed the detailed explanation related to the social compound of sustainability.
Appreciating the definition given to smart cities and anything smart for that matter:
"Unfortunately it is unthinkingly tied in practice to a form of modernism that is associated with the dominance of capitalist production relations, techno-science and commodity and finance exchange. None of these processes has a glowing record in relation to sustainability questions."
Big fat citations as well ! _/|\_
"Read almost any piece of writing on urban development and you’ll see how much narrowly conceived thinking informs urban practice. An emphasis on economic growth, smart technologies and environmental externalities currently rules mainstream thinking."

[Gede Suprayoga · Rating 4 out of 5]

I never expected to read this book. What I really appreciated from it is that the book approaches sustainability as a process not as an end. The book will be very much welcomed by practitioners who need bridges between theory and application of the big and broad concept. Communication and facilitation skills of planners will be more essential to translate the idea elaborated in the book into practice than their technical knowledge about what to do to achieve urban sustainability.