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Unlocking Sustainable Cities: A Manifesto for Real Change
Our urban spaces today struggle to thrive in the face corporate greed, increasing privatization, and rising inequality. Unlocking Sustainable Cities offers a way forward, challenging the unsustainable and damaging practices our cities are mired in and paving the way for alternative urban futures.
Across the world, people are implementing promising new practices—from transforming abandoned public spaces and setting up community co-operatives, to rewilding urban nature and powering up civic energy. Paul Chatterton explores how these grassroots experiments harness the creative power of the collective to transform our city systems, from transportation, energy, and economy, to community, democracy, and nature. Imagining radical alternatives—such as car-free, post-carbon, “bio cities”—this is a toolkit for realizing a better urban future.
Across the world, people are implementing promising new practices—from transforming abandoned public spaces and setting up community co-operatives, to rewilding urban nature and powering up civic energy. Paul Chatterton explores how these grassroots experiments harness the creative power of the collective to transform our city systems, from transportation, energy, and economy, to community, democracy, and nature. Imagining radical alternatives—such as car-free, post-carbon, “bio cities”—this is a toolkit for realizing a better urban future.
176 pages, Paperback
Published December 15, 2018
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September 20, 2020Read for an Urban Geography unit for an assessment on how cities must adapt to cope with Climate Change.
Helpful, interesting and an insightful read.
Helpful, interesting and an insightful read.
December 6, 2020
This is a book that is chock-full of interesting, already extant ideas about how to create the titular 'sustainable city'. It is a pity, then, that they are crammed into 126 pages, with terse yet dense paragraphs that segue inelegantly from one subject to another. I appreciate that Chatterton was writing a manifesto, and that manifestos need to be punchy. He might have done better, then, to either cut out some details - focus the manifesto either on rich countries or LMIC, for example - or accept that he's got too much to say to fit it into a slim volume and let it all hang out. It does irk me a little bit because this book is just not that readable or enticing or ultimately inspiring, even thought it's full of communities doing unbelievably inspiring things. Someone like Rebecca Solnit needs to take this subject in hand for the real manifesto.
He also jumbles up the level at which everything is pitched, particularly in the concluding bullet point summaries. Changing taxes and legislating for data freedom are not in the same instrumental place as 'create a space for urban wildlife'. He needed divisions like: what you the individual can do, which include 'getting together with other individuals to agitate for: X', and then another division to lay out what people in power should be building policy and laws around. I honestly don't think everyone in higher government is evil compared to how many are clueless; a practical roadmap from a blue-sky thinker like Chatterton would be of use to progressive governors, but it's a different thing entirely from suggesting to homeowners that they build roof gardens or install solar panels.
"Real sustainability can only be worked towards by embarking upon a deep and painful questioning, pulling apart and reorienting the dominant urban project of the human species during late capitalism's anthropocene."
This is unpalatable but also undeniably true. Framing it more positively:
"[...] developing a radically different and more collective sense of what it means to be a citizen, not mistaking this with being a consumer."
Some horrible facts: LA residents spend 90 hours a year in traffic; in the UK people spend 106 days a year looking for parking!
I like this version of a city:
"[...] parks with wide tree canopies and minimal paving can reduce the urban head island effect and city tempratures by up to 2 degrees Celcius; urban woodlands can be a significant carbon sink; trees can be effective in capturing air pollution; green walls and shorter vegetation can considerably reduce air pollution; urban green spaces can store and filter water thus reducing flood risk and improving river water quality; and interconnected greenspaces, especially those using native species, can provide environments for wildlife to thrive in."
Time Banking also sounds radical.
The thing is, I have no argument with literally any of this. David McWilliams' podcast on the death of the carpark and the vision of how we might shop in future (essentially using shops as storefronts where you can see physical items and then order them to be delivered later - by people on bikes, basically) is almost idyllic. It's convincing people who are indifferent or hostile that's the problem, and this book isn't the one to turn them.
He also jumbles up the level at which everything is pitched, particularly in the concluding bullet point summaries. Changing taxes and legislating for data freedom are not in the same instrumental place as 'create a space for urban wildlife'. He needed divisions like: what you the individual can do, which include 'getting together with other individuals to agitate for: X', and then another division to lay out what people in power should be building policy and laws around. I honestly don't think everyone in higher government is evil compared to how many are clueless; a practical roadmap from a blue-sky thinker like Chatterton would be of use to progressive governors, but it's a different thing entirely from suggesting to homeowners that they build roof gardens or install solar panels.
"Real sustainability can only be worked towards by embarking upon a deep and painful questioning, pulling apart and reorienting the dominant urban project of the human species during late capitalism's anthropocene."
This is unpalatable but also undeniably true. Framing it more positively:
"[...] developing a radically different and more collective sense of what it means to be a citizen, not mistaking this with being a consumer."
Some horrible facts: LA residents spend 90 hours a year in traffic; in the UK people spend 106 days a year looking for parking!
I like this version of a city:
"[...] parks with wide tree canopies and minimal paving can reduce the urban head island effect and city tempratures by up to 2 degrees Celcius; urban woodlands can be a significant carbon sink; trees can be effective in capturing air pollution; green walls and shorter vegetation can considerably reduce air pollution; urban green spaces can store and filter water thus reducing flood risk and improving river water quality; and interconnected greenspaces, especially those using native species, can provide environments for wildlife to thrive in."
Time Banking also sounds radical.
The thing is, I have no argument with literally any of this. David McWilliams' podcast on the death of the carpark and the vision of how we might shop in future (essentially using shops as storefronts where you can see physical items and then order them to be delivered later - by people on bikes, basically) is almost idyllic. It's convincing people who are indifferent or hostile that's the problem, and this book isn't the one to turn them.
July 21, 2021
Book for Urban-Activist. Radical ideas to transform, reform, and alter our current Urban Governance process for a Sustainable futures.
There's a lot of innovative and yet impactful ideas around. What we need is a lot more from the Government and Private to act.
There's a lot of innovative and yet impactful ideas around. What we need is a lot more from the Government and Private to act.
March 28, 2021
In short: a recommended and concise introduction to a wide-ranging and pertinent topic.
This book represents the first attempt by me to read the odd thing outside my general (and rather narrow) field of study. This meant that, when I began reading this book, I was largely ignorant of the intricacies of the subject matter beyond the general consensus amongst many of my generation that great changes must be made to aspects of our society if we are to survive (societally and literally) the coming centuries. Paul Chatterton has succeeded here in introducing a layman like me to a plethora of the factors that will govern the future of cities and, by extension, humanity. Overall, Chatterton strikes an idealistic tone, but not one that is ignorant of the reality.
The structure of the book and Prof. Chatterton's style both contribute to the accessibility of this book. Each chapter clearly lays out and explains the nature of each issue that is to be considered and the reference notes are clear should one wish to read beyond into one of the many factors that constitute this topic. The writing cannot be described as particularly exciting, though considering the utilitarian nature of the book this is not a bad thing and Prof. Chatterton has achieved an admirable clarity. The subject matter, moreover, is fascinating enough to hold one's interest without the need for hyperbole or elaborate prose. The only complaint, such as it is, that I have concerns his use of 'locking down', 'unlocking' and other variants sporting the word 'lock'. Chatterton does make clear what he means by this at the start, though there are occasions where it is used with such frequency it loses all impact and earthly meaning. A minor personal preference, though some variation would have been nice.
At this stage, I would not venture to argue with Prof. Chatterton on any of his points. Perhaps in future, as I read more, that may change, but I cannot identify anything that he says that could be dismissed as unreasonable or considered fantastical at face value. Prof. Chatterton does not claim that there is, or will be, a global panacea, nor indeed that all of the schemes that he advocates are certain to work. What he is unequivocal about, however, is the need for a great many things, of varying levels of society and innovation, to be tried and the willingness to participate that will require. This is the sort of thinking I can get behind.
There are some things in this book that I can imagine will draw the ire of some. For example, the fact that this has been published by Pluto Press means that it should come as no surprise that the vocabulary of the future that Prof. Chatterton describes makes frequent use of 'collective', 'popular' and other terms and phrases that are likely to worry those of a neo-liberal bent.
All-in-all, however, this book has proved to be an elucidating experience that has inspired me to read further and find what differing approaches might be talked about elsewhere.
This book represents the first attempt by me to read the odd thing outside my general (and rather narrow) field of study. This meant that, when I began reading this book, I was largely ignorant of the intricacies of the subject matter beyond the general consensus amongst many of my generation that great changes must be made to aspects of our society if we are to survive (societally and literally) the coming centuries. Paul Chatterton has succeeded here in introducing a layman like me to a plethora of the factors that will govern the future of cities and, by extension, humanity. Overall, Chatterton strikes an idealistic tone, but not one that is ignorant of the reality.
The structure of the book and Prof. Chatterton's style both contribute to the accessibility of this book. Each chapter clearly lays out and explains the nature of each issue that is to be considered and the reference notes are clear should one wish to read beyond into one of the many factors that constitute this topic. The writing cannot be described as particularly exciting, though considering the utilitarian nature of the book this is not a bad thing and Prof. Chatterton has achieved an admirable clarity. The subject matter, moreover, is fascinating enough to hold one's interest without the need for hyperbole or elaborate prose. The only complaint, such as it is, that I have concerns his use of 'locking down', 'unlocking' and other variants sporting the word 'lock'. Chatterton does make clear what he means by this at the start, though there are occasions where it is used with such frequency it loses all impact and earthly meaning. A minor personal preference, though some variation would have been nice.
At this stage, I would not venture to argue with Prof. Chatterton on any of his points. Perhaps in future, as I read more, that may change, but I cannot identify anything that he says that could be dismissed as unreasonable or considered fantastical at face value. Prof. Chatterton does not claim that there is, or will be, a global panacea, nor indeed that all of the schemes that he advocates are certain to work. What he is unequivocal about, however, is the need for a great many things, of varying levels of society and innovation, to be tried and the willingness to participate that will require. This is the sort of thinking I can get behind.
There are some things in this book that I can imagine will draw the ire of some. For example, the fact that this has been published by Pluto Press means that it should come as no surprise that the vocabulary of the future that Prof. Chatterton describes makes frequent use of 'collective', 'popular' and other terms and phrases that are likely to worry those of a neo-liberal bent.
All-in-all, however, this book has proved to be an elucidating experience that has inspired me to read further and find what differing approaches might be talked about elsewhere.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews