Future Cities: Dynamics and Sustainability: 1 (Alliance for Global Sustainability Bookseries, 1) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1402005407 ISBN 13: 9781402005404

Publisher: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002

Synopsis

CITIES: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR SUSTAINABILITY BRANTLEY LIDDLE AND FRED MOAVENZADEH OR at least 4000 years, cities have been centers of cultural, social, technological Fand economic innovation, inventions and their application, and political power. Only in the last 200 years, the industrial era, have urban areas grown so rapidly, and their populations increased so dramatically that their impacts on the natural environ- ment are being felt beyond their immediate geographic surroundings. As the 21" cen- tury dawns, megacities-great and far-reaching concentrations of power and influ- ence-have become centers of the phenomena of globalization and information ex- change. These concentrations of people and activity are placing stress on the natural environment so great that it is beginning to have extensive regional, and even global impacts. However, asconcentrations ofpower-political, economic, andintellectual- these great urban centers share with the ancestral cities of past millennia the resources to consciously shape the future. The management of these megacities (those having populations of over eight million) in their current formative stages so taxing to natural systems,paradoxicallypresents theopportunity torestoresustainableregional and global environments. Environmental problems consequent to urban growth have two sources: pov- erty and affluence. These two conditions often coexist in dramatic contrast within the same city, particularly in developing countries. In terms of environmental impact, poverty-based problems tend to have local effects, while affluence-based problems usually have transboundary and/or global effects.

About this title

Review

From the reviews:

"Future Cities: Dynamics and Sustainability, is an edited volume that consists of theoretical and analytical articles. ... The editors are optimistic that despite all the impacts cities are making on natural processes, cities are not necessarily in conflict with the environment. ... the book presents articles with a highly academic focus that should prove useful to students and researchers who are interested in urban metabolism and its sustainability linkages." (Xuemei Bai, Journal of Industrial Ecology, Vol. 7 (2), 2003)

Synopsis

The world's burgeoning cities are a critical fact of the 21st Century - and represent one of the greatest challenges to the future. By the year 2050 cities with populations over three million will more than double from 70 today to over 150. The authors in this book claim that contrary to conventional wisdom, that cities distort natural processes, just the opposite is true. Cities are far more than the sinks of energy, vast drains of natural resources, and obstacles to sustainable development. Properly managed, they claim, cities can be transformative arenas in which raw materials may be rationally and economically developed to support people decently, and whole regions sustainably. This volume provides new ideas for managing the mega-cities of our future. The editors' goal is to shape a new way of thinking about mega-cities - one that promotes their function in modern societies as engines of the ideas, technologies, and loci of political will needed to build a new regime of global sustainability.

Edition details

• Publisher: Kluwer Academic Publishers
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1402005407
• ISBN 13: 9781402005404
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 248
• Editor: Moavenzadeh F., Hanaki Keisuke, Baccini Peter