Full Description
With an ever-growing majority of the world's human population living in city-spaces, the relationship between cities and nature will be one of the key environmental issues of the 21st Century. This timely book investigates how the rapidly growing number of city dwellers across the globe relate to their natural environments and what this means for the future of these environments.Offering an interdisciplinary approach to the impacts of urban spaces on the future of the environment, the book is a full-scale attempt to radically rethink the relationship between cities and nature. The editors bring together a diverse set of well-known authors and new voices to explore the various aspects of this relationship both theoretically and empirically. Rather than considering cities as wholly separate from nature, a running theme throughout the book is that cities, and city dwellers, should be characterized as intrinsic in the creation of specifically urban-generated 'socio-natures'.
An essential resource for those working at the intersection of cities and the environment, it will be of great value to urbanists, geographers, planners, sociologists, economists, anthropologists, policy makers, public administrators and environmental scientists.
Contributors include: K. Archer, L. Benton-Short, J.M. Berry, G. Bettini, K. Bezdecny, J. Bratt, V.C. Broto, K. Davidson, R.M. Friend, N. Gabriel, B. Gleeson, L. Guibrunet, D. Houston, R. Jones, M. Kaika, L. Karaliotas, M. Keeley, J. Kitson, T.W. Luke, R. Pizarro, K.E. Portney, J. Ravetz, J. Rennie Short, J. Rowland, T.G. Smith, E. Swyngedouw, P. Thinphanga, R.H. Wilson
Contents
Contents:
1. Introduction
Kris Bezdecny and Kevin Archer
PART I THEORIZING THE PRODUCTION OF CITY ENVIRONMENTS
2. Urban Imaginaries of City and Nature
John Rennie Short
3. Re-Naturing Cities: Great Promises, Deadlock ... and New Beginnings?
Erik Swyngedouw and Maria Kaika
4. Urban Resilience, the Local and the Politics of the Anthropocene: Reflections on the Future of the Urban Environment
Lazaros Karaliotas and Giovanni Bettini
PART II DESIGNS FOR THE CITY ENVIRONMENT
5. North American and European Sustainable Urbanism: Toward a Theoretical Model for Sustainable Urban Design
Rafael E. Pizarro
6. Sustainable Urban Futures: Contested Transitions and Creative Pathways
Joe Ravetz
7. Towards an Urban Metabolic Analysis of the Informal City
Louise Guibrunet and Vanesa Castán Broto
PART III CLIMATE CHANGE AND CITY ENVIRONMENTS
8. Urbanization, Climate Change, and Regional Integration in the Mekong
Richard M. Friend and Pakamas Thinphanga
9. Urban Resilience to Climate Change Challenges in Africa
Robert H. Wilson and Todd G. Smith
10. Urban Flooding, Vulnerability and Justice
Donald Houston
PART IV URBAN SUSTAINABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES
11. The Group and Ideological Bases of Local Sustainability Policies and Programs
Kent E. Portney and Jeffrey M. Berry
12. Green Space in Urban Sustainability Plans: Trends and Best Practices
Lisa Benton-Short, Melissa Keeley and Jennifer Rowland
13. Mending Fences: Constituting Urban Subjects Through Environmental Stewardship
Nate Gabriel
14. "Restoring" Seattle's River: Competing Conceptions of the Duwamish Socio-nature
Kevin Archer and Kris Bezdecny
PART V OTHER EXPERIENCES OF THE CITY ENVIRONMENT
15. City Sensing and Urban Aesthetics
Jennifer Kitson and Jonathan Bratt
16. Making Moorhen
Ryan Jones
PART VI THE PROSPECT FOR CITIES AND THE ENVIRONMENT
17. The New Urban Assertions: No Prospect There
Kathryn Davidson and Brendan Gleeson
18. Sustainability and the City
Timothy W. Luke
Index
