Cool Cities: Urban Sovereignty and the Fix for Global Warming

by Benjamin R. Barber

A pointed argument that cities—not nation-states—can and must take the lead in fighting climate change

Climate change is the most urgent challenge we face in an interdependent world where independent nations have grown increasingly unable to cooperate effectively on sustainability. In this book, renowned political theorist Benjamin R. Barber describes how cities, by assuming important aspects of sovereignty, can take the lead from faltering nation states in fighting climate change. Barber argues that with more than half the world's population now in urban areas, where 80 percent of both GDP and greenhouse gas emissions are generated, cities are the key to the future of democracy and sustainability.

In this compelling sequel to If Mayors Ruled the World, Barber assesses both broad principles of urban rights and specific strategies of sustainability such as fracking bans, walkable cities, above‑ground mining of precious resources, energy and heating drawn from garbage incineration, downtown wind turbines, and skyscrapers built from wood. He shows how cities working together on climate change, despite their differences in wealth, development, and culture, can find common measures by which to evaluate the radically different policies they pursue. This is a book for a world in which bold cities are collaborating to combat climate change and inspire hope for democracy even as reactionary populists take over national governments in the United States and Europe. It calls for a new social contract among citizens and municipalities to secure not only their sustainability but their survival.

Genres: Nonfiction, Urbanism, Urban, Cities

224 pages, Hardcover

First published April 18, 2017

About the author

American political theorist perhaps best known for his 1996 bestseller, Jihad vs. McWorld.

Reviews

[Always Pouting · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like the other reviews have said the premise of the book is a sound one but it doesn't justify a whole book. Barber argues that cities are much better positioned to help fight global warming and illustrates the attempts made to do so already. He then highlights the reason they can not do so, which comes down to the facts that cities have less power and are at the will of the nation or state they belong to. I'm a fan of dispersing power and empowering cities more seems to be something I could get behind. It's just there's still a limitation to the amount cities can do and the nation or state itself does have to fund other programs to help control climate change along with enabling cities to take personalized action. We still need to invest and subsidize alternative forms of energy which can replace fossil fuels and natural gases, and which would be have more impact than just painting roofs white or switching to using bikes. It's not as feasible to expect cities to fund that research either, it makes more sense to have it done on a larger scale. Also that ending was terrible, I love puns but that was really awful even for me.

[Russell Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was Benjamin Barber's final book before he passed away, and I liked it much more than his previous book with a similar premise, If Mayors Ruled the World . Partly that may because there was there was a more direct point to this book's argument, and that directness exposed what I consider to be the weaknesses of Barber's argument, with much less ambiguity. Basically, Barber wants to see urban spaces being to reclaim sovereign powers--or, better, lead the world into a democratic understanding that is less tied to the very idea of sovereignty, and instead conceives of political power in more an overlapping, confederal, organic manner. The imperative for doing so is the fact of climate change, and how the sovereign presumptions of states simply lack the flexibility which adapting to the borderless threats of environmental devastation require, not to mention being characterized by dysfunctions which prevent any sufficient responses to climate change from have any real democratic sustainability or legitimacy, whereas cities, in Barber's view, could escape that trap. He makes a lot of good arguments in this book, but his subjects of hist arguments are, unfortunately, highly selective: with only a few exceptions scattered throughout the text, he basically focuses entirely on the elite, massive, global cities of the world, and his dream (which, to his credit, he was able to help see realized before his death) a "Global Parliament of Mayors" cannot, theoretically speaking, escape the accusation of being a playground for cosmopolitan urbanites of the Davos sort. Perhaps another scholar will be able to more effectively bring the idea of urban democracy together with the reality of global capitalism; for now, Barber leaves us with a provocative, powerful vision, but not one which really holds together as a political theory.

[Dave Schoettinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Former New York mayor, Fiorello LaGuardia, once said that there was no Republican or Democratic way of collecting garbage, suggesting that some practical concerns transcend partisan politics. I suspect that Benjamin Barber would prefer if combating climate change were similarly non-partisan, however, I am afraid that in our hyper-partisan milieu that even garbage collection may no longer make the cut. Professor Barber has long been frustrated by the failure of American politics to provide clear-cut anti-climate change policies at the national level and the election of Donald Trump was apparently the final straw, leading to the production of this book. Barber has decided to dust off the conservatives' ultimate doctrine when disagreeing with the national government, states' rights, and apply it to cities as justification for city governments to pursue aggressive actions on the climate front, regardless of how their national governments felt about the issue. He foresees a worldwide network, if not confederation, of cities leading the world to sustainable lifestyles by defying or ignoring the national governments that are unwilling or unable to act with sufficient urgency.

While I sympathize with the author's goals and would probably support his agenda, if I actually lived in a city, I find his theoretical justifications for urban defiance of the federal government to be no more valid than the nullification doctrine of John C. Calhoun. And while his theoretical underpinnings are mostly wishful thinking, I did enjoy his discussion of the actual programs that cities around the world are taking to cut greenhouse emissions, improve their citizens' lives and make their metropolises cooler.

[Patrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

The central premise (that cities are better suited to fight global climate change and lead innovation in decarbonizing the economy and therefore require more autonomy) makes sense. Unfortunately, there's next to no information as to how cities can achieve this. The author concedes that cities have little to no sovereignty in most countries and most municipal ordinances over issues as small as plastic grocery bags (and in Texas this year, tree removal) are overruled at a whim by regressive state and national legislatures. There's a lot of talk about international organizations of cities (including the grandly titled Global Parliament of Mayors) but they are powerless. Forming city-based political parties? Pointless in the US, unless you count the Democrats as the "city party." Overall, the book is long on buildup and woefully short on ideas for implementation

[Fawn Faughnan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for a class and I think I ended up liking it more than most. It was a little repetitive but it never seemed to bother me much since I do enjoy a repetition of information so it sticks in my brain. Something that I would say myself, but also others I conversed with agreed on, was that it was slightly pretentious. It didn’t ruin the book for me by any means, however, I think it was because I really enjoyed the outline given for cities to become more sustainable. I love when an author understands and describes a problem AND brings forth an outline for change. The book is not perfect by any means but it is a great jumping off point for future sustainable policies in local systems and I would definitely recommend it to someone who has an interest in urban sovereignty dealing with sustainability issues.

[Hallie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premise and the main point of the book is fantastic. However, I personally found the book so poorly written that it made it really hard to get through it and in the end doesn't fully do the topic justice. The crux of the book I fully agree with - that cities have a large and meaningful role in what they can and should do, in global coordination or even singly, to combat climate change and sustainability issues in general. But the book is so bogged down with acronyms and overly verbose that it was a struggle to finish it even when I agreed with its main points. It's worth reading - it's the first book I've come across that makes this point - but brace yourself beforehand.

[Kalle Wescott · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read /Cool Cities: Urban Sovereignty and the Fix for Global Warming/, by Benjamin Barber:

https://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/j...

Unfortunately, Barber simply repeats a lot of material from /If Majors Ruled the World/. The book was still worth a quick read.

[Lili Chong · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were some good points made but honestly the substance was only enough for an academic paper. A book was definitely overkill. This was a long and painful read that didn’t really flesh out the ideas presented by the author.