Can a City Be Sustainable?

by The Worldwatch Institute

Cities are the world’s future. Today, more than half of the global population—3.7 billion people—are urban dwellers, and that number is expected to double by 2050. There is no question that cities are growing; the only debate is over how they will grow. Will we invest in the physical and social infrastructure necessary for livable, equitable, and sustainable cities? 
In the latest edition of State of the World, the flagship publication of the Worldwatch Institute, experts from around the globe examine the core principles of sustainable urbanism and profile cities that are putting them into practice.
State of the World first puts our current moment in context, tracing cities in the arc of human history. It also examines the basic structural elements of every city: materials and fuels; people and economics; and biodiversity.
In part two, professionals working on some of the world’s most inventive urban sustainability projects share their first-hand experience. Success stories come from places as diverse as Ahmedabad, India; Freiburg, Germany; and Shanghai, China. In many cases, local people are acting to improve their cities, even when national efforts are stalled.
Parts three and four examine cross-cutting issues that affect the success of all cities. Topics range from the nitty-gritty of handling waste and developing public transportation to civic participation and navigating dysfunctional government.
Throughout, readers discover the most pressing challenges facing communities and the most promising solutions currently being developed. The result is a snapshot of cities today and a vision for global urban sustainability tomorrow.    

Genres: Sustainability, Urban Planning

448 pages, Paperback

Published May 10, 2016

Reviews

[Dannii Elle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actual rating 3.5/5 stars.

I received this book in exchange for an honest review on NetGalley. Thank you to the The Worldwatch Institute and the publisher, Island Press, for this opportunity.

Can I start by saying how amazing this cover is?! I often find non-fiction to present themselves as dry and serious-looking but this gorgeous cover immediately drew my eye as it proposed to offer something different.

As the title so accurately sums up, this is a book focused on the sustainability of the world by offering alternatives to the way we are currently functioning and living. The various aspects it covers are green roofing, electric transport, communal living, renewable energy, landfill tax, and the list goes on.

This is a full and comprehensive study which, if taken fully on board, has the ability to transform the world and our individual lives! There is some serious weight behind the alternatives it proposes, which are often backed by instances of its installation in some areas of the world and facts and figures that depict both the consequences of how we are currently living as well as the impact the proposed change could have.

Whilst certainly interesting, this tended to be a little dominated by the supporting facts and figures, which overwhelmed my understanding and enjoyment in some parts. I struggled to take in the sheer quantity of quantitative data the book has packed into it. Each section finished on a 'City View' section, which shows the proposals already in effect in parts of the world. I feel like this would have been comprehensive enough and would free each initial portion of the chapters to be purely an explanation. This is certainly thorough but a little number heavy for my tastes.

[Rhys · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots on the big picture and the challenges, not so much on the details - benchmarking, behavioural change - though there are a few nuggets dispersed in the essays.

The difficulties can be explained as each city has different politics; each city has control of different amounts of the infrastructure (from ownership to privatized services, for example); each city deals with different climates, different access to low-carbon energy (eg. hydro); poverty plays a role as does culture ...

As always, State of the World is well research, well written, and not too repetitive. This year may have been too big of a challenge.

[Diocletian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, a pretty good bird's eye view of the problems that cities face in order to achieve "sustainability"-- if you're wondering exactly what that is, do not worry as the book does a good job of explaining it! This is done in large part not so much by defining it, but by illustrating what sustainability in city life should look like, as well as how we currently fall short of it in a multitude of ways. While the book reads like optimistic futurology at times (particularly in the beginning, where they create a narrative chapter focusing on a citizen's life in the hypothetical sustainable city of the future), the slight policy progresses that a city here or a city there will adopt seemingly pale in comparison to the overarching threat of climate change, a problem that the book touches on when it basically caveats every "success" a certain city has by saying it isn't going far enough. Still, at a time when national level and intragovernmental level governance seems so helpless or inept to make change, this book provides both explorations of sustainability issues as well as a good collection of real life, contemporary cutting-edge progressive policy examples developed and rolled out on the city level. If one can ignore the overarching global issues which threaten the existence of life as we know it, there are definitely some positive developments happening in modern cities! Let's hope our species actually lasts long enough into the future to enjoy them!

[How To ADU · Rating 5 out of 5]

Summary: More and more of us live in cities (total number of humans, and percentage of humans) so the key to sustainability is in figuring out how the mega cities work.

Written with the optimism of the environmental movement in 2016. Still very substantive.

Loved the concept of "city metabolisms". The notion here is that technology and community planning affect how big cities/communities can grow. Cities make some things much more efficient by increasing density and sharing infrastructure (eg how much work it takes to distribute food), but there are other things they don't make much more efficient (eg how much food each individual consumes).

Loved that the articles are split up with case studies on cities and what they were doing to push the envelope.

Worth reading if you're interested in urban design, environmentalism.
Probably just a skim for YIMBYs.
Mostly ignores equity issues

[Zhi Chen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very good, high-level overview of sustainability topics from a global perspective. A suitable introductory primer for those interested in this field.

Though most of the material is broad, there are some specific examples that would be worthwhile to consider in the US context.

[Chloe Boyle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I noticed this book at the library and was excited to take a look since I'm currently a Master's Candidate in Resource and Environmental Management and Urban Planning. I was disappointed with the lack of information about stormwater management, green infrastructure, and the importance of water in cities in general. The book focused on energy, transportation, and housing, which are obviously important, but water and sustainable water infrastructure in urban areas is an enormous area of research that I believe warrants a chapter of its own.

[Mills College Library]

307.1216 S79746 2016