Green Cities of Europe
Green Cities of Europe

Author: Timothy Beatley

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 2012-05-15

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 9781597269742

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In the absence of federal leadership, states and localities are stepping forward to address critical problems like climate change, urban sprawl, and polluted water and air. Making a city fundamentally sustainable is a daunting task, but fortunately, there are dynamic, innovative models outside U.S. borders. Green Cities of Europe draws on the world's best examples of sustainability to show how other cities can become greener and more livable. Timothy Beatley has brought together leading experts from Paris, Freiburg, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Heidelberg, Venice, Vitoria-Gasteiz, and London to illustrate groundbreaking practices in sustainable urban planning and design. These cities are developing strong urban cores, building pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, and improving public transit. They are incorporating ecological design and planning concepts, from solar energy to natural drainage and community gardens. And they are changing the way government works, instituting municipal "green audits" and reforming economic incentives to encourage sustainability. Whatever their specific tactics, these communities prove that a holistic approach is needed to solve environmental problems and make cities sustainable. Beatley and these esteemed contributors offer vital lessons to the domestic planning community about not only what European cities are doing to achieve that vision, but precisely how they are doing it. The result is an indispensable guide to greening American cities. Contributors include: Lucie Laurian (Paris) Dale Medearis and Wulf Daseking (Freiburg) Michaela Brüel (Copenhagen) Maria Jaakkola (Helsinki) Marta Moretti (Venice) Luis Andrés Orive and Rebeca Dios Lema (Vitoria-Gasteiz) Camilla Ween (London)

Old Cities/green Cities
Old Cities/green Cities

Author: J. Blaine Bonham

Publisher: Amer Planning Assn

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 123

ISBN-13: 9781884829758

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Vacant land is a common sight in virtually every American city. Scattered among houses in residential areas, especially in distressed neighborhoods, small and large vacant, trash-filled lots contribute to an appearance of blight. Abandoned factories and warehouses—some of which are brownfields with hazardous wastes in their soil—mar waterfronts and old industrial corridors. Large metropolitan communities have been especially affected by the dilemma of abandoned land. Coming to terms with the issues and problems surrounding vacant land is a difficult challenge. Little, if any, precedent exists. In most cities, planners and developers typically view vacant land as the space that is left over after housing, commercial, and institutional development schemes have been built. So the potential uses of vacant land become isolated from other aspects of neighborhood planning and development. Nonprofit organizations, city officials, and observers across the country indicate that the growing scale of vacancy requires new perspectives on urban land use and management and that existing assumptions and practices need a comprehensive re-evaluation since current methods clearly are not working. This report was developed out of a series of documents on urban vacant land by one of the leading groups in the country dealing with this issue: the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, which also supported the color printing in this report. Part 1 of the report addresses the challenges to urban vitality presented by vacant land; vacant land as a neighborhood resource; large-scale greening systems; and the link between urban renewal and sprawl. Part 2 provides an in-depth look at some PHS programs, including the rebirth of the New Kensington Philadelphia neighborhood and the Green City Strategy employed by the City of Philadelphia. An appendix provides a list of contacts to the many community development corporations active in the area of urban greening.

Green Urbanism
Green Urbanism

Author: Timothy Beatley

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 2012-09-26

Total Pages: 513

ISBN-13: 1610910133

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

As the need to confront unplanned growth increases, planners, policymakers, and citizens are scrambling for practical tools and examples of successful and workable approaches. Growth management initiatives are underway in the U.S. at all levels, but many American "success stories" provide only one piece of the puzzle. To find examples of a holistic approach to dealing with sprawl, one must turn to models outside of the United States. In Green Urbanism, Timothy Beatley explains what planners and local officials in the United States can learn from the sustainable city movement in Europe. The book draws from the extensive European experience, examining the progress and policies of twenty-five of the most innovative cities in eleven European countries, which Beatley researched and observed in depth during a year-long stay in the Netherlands. Chapters examine: the sustainable cities movement in Europe examples and ideas of different housing and living options transit systems and policies for promoting transit use, increasing bicycle use, and minimizing the role of the automobile creative ways of incorporating greenness into cities ways of readjusting "urban metabolism" so that waste flows become circular programs to promote more sustainable forms of economic development sustainable building and sustainable design measures and features renewable energy initiatives and local efforts to promote solar energy ways of greening the many decisions of local government including ecological budgeting, green accounting, and other city management tools. Throughout, Beatley focuses on the key lessons from these cities -- including Vienna, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Zurich, Amsterdam, London, and Berlin -- and what their experience can teach us about effectively and creatively promoting sustainable development in the United States. Green Urbanism is the first full-length book to describe urban sustainability in European cities, and provides concrete examples and detailed discussions of innovative and practical sustainable planning ideas. It will be a useful reference and source of ideas for urban and regional planners, state and local officials, policymakers, students of planning and geography, and anyone concerned with how cities can become more livable.

Green Cities
Green Cities

Author: Nevin Cohen

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 2011-06-28

Total Pages: 577

ISBN-13: 1412996821

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Colorful bracelets, funky brooches, and beautiful handmade beads: young crafters learn to make all these and much more with this fantastic step-by-step guide. In 12 exciting projects with simple steps and detailed instructions, budding fashionistas create their own stylish accessories to give as gifts or add a touch of personal flair to any ensemble. Following the successful "Art Smart" series, "Craft Smart" presents a fresh, fun approach to four creative skills: knitting, jewelry-making, papercrafting, and crafting with recycled objects. Each book contains 12 original projects to make, using a range of readily available materials. There are projects for boys and girls, carefully chosen to appeal to readers of all abilities. A special "techniques and materials" section encourages young crafters to try out their own ideas while learning valuable practical skills.

Smart Green Cities
Smart Green Cities

Author: Woodrow Clark II

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-03-10

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 1317054180

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Smart Green Cities: is a comprehensive overview of what global cities are doing to become sustainable. Woodrow W. Clark II and Grant Cooke have produced a book that is both practical and visionary. They have examined the infrastructure needs - sustainable development, communications, energy, water, waste, and transportation to develop guidelines, processes and best practices. City leaders are key to mitigating climate change who must plan, design and implement solutions. Smart Green Cities (SGC) offers a global perspective that includes implementing the Green Industrial Revolution the title of their last book. SGC discusses innovative emerging technologies, and the new economics paradigm that move beyond the out-dated neo-classical economics. The authors present examples from around the world including Europe, the U.S, China and the Middle East, which discuss the best green technologies from renewable energy power generation to smart on-site grid development. The extraordinary shift from a rural to an urban world is described; national plans are analyzed; so that future cities will be designed, built and implemented now - not 50 years from now. The struggle for the planet’s survival is being waged by the world’s cities. Clark and Cooke argue that cities are the key to mitigating climate change and reducing toxic greenhouse gas emissions. SGC introduces sustainable technologies; discusses the economics for implementing the solutions; and offers numerous examples to serve as pathways for cities to become smart, green, and thus carbon neutral.

Making Green Cities
Making Green Cities

Author: Jürgen Breuste

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-02-22

Total Pages: 538

ISBN-13: 3030377164

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book shows what role nature can play in a city and how this can make it a better place for people to live. People, planners, designers and politicians are working towards the development of green cities. Some cities are already promoted as green cities, while others are on their way to become one. But their goals are often unclear and can include different facets. Presenting contributions from world leading researchers in the field of urban ecology, the editors provide an interdisciplinary overview of best practices and challenges in creating green cities. They show examples of how to build up these cities from bits and pieces to districts and urban extensions. Each example concludes with a summary of the collected knowledge, the learning points and how this can be used in other places. The best practices are collected from around the world – Europe, Australia, America and Asia. The new dynamic urban development of Asia is illustrated by case studies from China and the Indian subcontinent. The reader will learn which role nature can play in green cities and what the basic requirements are in terms of culture, pre-existing nature conditions, existing urban surroundings, history, design and planning.

The Green City
The Green City

Author: Nicholas Low

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-05-09

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 1136752994

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A team of city-building professionals explain in straightforward terms how the idea of ecological sustainability can be embodied in the everyday life of homes, communities and cities to make a better future.The book considers - and answers - three questions: What does the global agenda of sustainable development mean for the urban spaces where most

Growing Greener Cities
Growing Greener Cities

Author: Eugenie L. Birch

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2011-09-02

Total Pages: 421

ISBN-13: 0812204093

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Nineteenth-century landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted described his most famous project, the design of New York's Central Park, as "a democratic development of highest significance." Over the years, the significance of green in civic life has grown. In twenty-first-century America, not only open space but also other issues of sustainability—such as potable water and carbon footprints—have become crucial elements in the quality of life in the city and surrounding environment. Confronted by a U.S. population that is more than 70 percent urban, growing concern about global warming, rising energy prices, and unabated globalization, today's decision makers must find ways to bring urban life into balance with the Earth in order to sustain the natural, economic, and political environment of the modern city. In Growing Greener Cities, a collection of essays on urban sustainability and environmental issues edited by Eugenie L. Birch and Susan M. Wachter, scholars and practitioners alike promote activities that recognize and conserve nature's ability to sustain urban life. These essays demonstrate how partnerships across professional organizations, businesses, advocacy groups, governments, and individuals themselves can bring green solutions to cities from London to Seattle. Beyond park and recreational spaces, initiatives that fall under the green umbrella range from public transit and infrastructure improvement to aquifer protection and urban agriculture. Growing Greener Cities offers an overview of the urban green movement, case studies in effective policy implementation, and tools for measuring and managing success. Thoroughly illustrated with color graphs, maps, and photographs, Growing Greener Cities provides a panoramic view of urban sustainability and environmental issues for green-minded city planners, policy makers, and citizens.

Sustainable Cities in American Democracy
Sustainable Cities in American Democracy

Author: Carmen Sirianni

Publisher: University Press of Kansas

Published: 2020-09-25

Total Pages: 464

ISBN-13: 070062998X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

We face two global threats: the climate crisis and a crisis of democracy. Located at the crux of these crises, sustainable cities build on the foundations and resources of democracy to make our increasingly urban world more resilient and just. Sustainable Cities in American Democracy focuses on this effort as it emerged and developed over the past decades in the institutional field of sustainable cities—a vital response to environmental degradation and climate change that is shaped by civic and democratic action. Carmen Sirianni shows how various kinds of civic associations and grassroots mobilizing figure in this story, especially as they began to explicitly link conservation to the future of our democracy and then develop sustainable cities as a democratic project. These organizations are national, local, or multitiered, from the League of Women Voters to the Natural Resources Defense Council to bicycle and watershed associations. Some challenge city government agencies contentiously, while others seek collaboration; many do both at some point. Sirianni uses a range of analytic approaches—from scholarly disciplines, policy design, urban governance, social movements, democratic theory, public administration, and planning—to understand how such diverse civic and professional associations have come to be both an ecology of organizations and a systemic and coherent project. The institutional field of sustainable cities has emerged with some core democratic norms and civic practices but also with many tensions and trade-offs that must be crafted and revised strategically in the face of new opportunities and persistent shortfalls. Sirianni’s account draws ambitious yet pragmatic and hopeful lessons for a “Civic Green New Deal”—a policy design for building sustainable and resilient cities on much more robust foundations in the decades ahead while also addressing democratic deficits in our polarized political culture.

Redefining Indian Smart & Sustainable Cities
Redefining Indian Smart & Sustainable Cities

Author: Charanjit S Shah

Publisher: I K International Pvt Ltd

Published: 2015-06-06

Total Pages: 395

ISBN-13: 9385909622

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Redefining Smart & Sustainable Cities, although has been conceived much earlier and has been continually refined over and over, the recent announcement of 100 Smart Cities by the Hon'ble Prime Minister of India, Mr Narendra Modi, and the spate of events thereafter, has made the release of the book rather accelerated. It unfolds for its readers the thus-far little-known story about smart cities that have existed since centuries and what the existing cities can learn from them. The author has taken interesting habitat traits and important data points right from prehistoric times to the modern day. Parallels have been drawn from various parts of the globe cutting across time - right from the Stone Age to the modern Digital Age. The authors have critically analyzed and shown that since the problems had the same set of root causes the solutions can also lie among some of the thriving and sustainable modern-day smart cities of the world. In fact, through careful extrapolation of habitat aspects the author has shown that many of the sustainable smart cities today have undergone similar deterioration for at least some time before these cities were restored and made truly smart. Each chapter weaves into it text and explanations written in a direct and simple manner and is interspersed with interesting pictures, drawings, infographics, and facts and figures directly relevant to the topic under discussion. This makes the book a very engaging and interesting read.