Current expectations and standards of comfort are almost certainly unsustainable and new methods and ideas will be required if there is to be any prospect of a significantly lower carbon society. This collection reassesses relationships between people and the multitude of environments they inhabit in the context of increasing carbon intensities of everyday life. In this bold and unconventional volume historians, sociologists, environmentalists, geographers, and cultural theorists provoke a...

For many years, a uniform and uncontested picture of utility system organization has endured across Europe. Provider and consumer roles have been largely taken for granted, and consumers have had little choice but to use the infrastructure of the only network provider available. Recent transformations have challenged this model. This book examines the ongoing environmental restructuring of consumption and provision in energy, water and waste systems. In accounting for the distinctive envir...

During the Blitz, the Sugar Girls kept Britain sweet. The work was back-breakingly hard, but the Tate & Lyle factory was more than just a workplace – it was a community, a calling, a place of love and support and an uproarious, tribal part of East London. This is Ethel’s story, one of four stories from The Sugar Girls.‘On an autumn day in 1944, Ethel Alleyne walked the short distance from her house to Tate & Lyle’s refinery on the shining curve of the Thames. Looking up at the gian...

What exactly is 'small change'?Build a bus stop in an urban slum and a vibrant community sprouts and grows around it - that is the power of small changes that have huge positive effects.This book is an argument for the wisdom of the street, the ingenuity of the improvisers and the long-term, large-scale effectiveness of immediate, small-scale actions. Written by Nabeel Hamdi, the guru of urban participatory development and the master of the art, Small Change brings over thr...

City-making is an art, not a formula. The skills required to re-enchant the city are far wider than the conventional ones like architecture, engineering and land-use planning. There is no simplistic, ten-point plan, but strong principles can help send good city-making on its way. The vision for 21st century cities must be to be the most imaginative cities for the world rather than in the world. This one change of word - from 'in' to 'for' - gives city-making an ethical foundation and value...

'A wonderfully international and up-to-date perspective on strategic environmental assessment of land use plans by leading experts in the field. Strategic Environmental Assessment and Land Use Planning covers not only how much such SEAs are carried out and in what context, but whether they are effective and why. It provides invaluable insights for practitioners and researchers in this rapidy evolving field'Riki Therivel, author of Strategic Environmental Assessment in Action...

Why would a successful American physician choose to live in a twelve-foot-by-twelve-foot cabin without running water or electricity? To find out writer and activist William Powers visited Dr. Jackie Benton in rural North Carolina. No Name Creek gurgled through Bentons permaculture farm and she stroked honeybees wings as she shared her wildcrafter philosophy of living on a planet in crisis. Powers just back from a decade of international aid work then accepted Bentons offer to stay at the c...

There is consensus in literature that urban areas have become increasingly vulnerable to the outcomes of economic restructuring under the neoliberal political economic ideology. The increased frequency and widening diversity of problems offer evidence that the socio-economic and spatial policies, planning and practices introduced under the neoliberal agenda can no longer be sustained. As this shortfall was becoming more evident among urban policymakers, planners, and researchers in differe...

Prague is at the core of everything both wonderful and terrible in Western history, but few people truly understand this city's unique culture. In Prague in Black and Gold, Peter Demetz strips away sentimentalities and distortions and shows how Czechs, Germans, Italians, and Jews have lived and worked together for over a thousand years.

Urban governance and sustainability are rapidly becoming key issues around the world. Currently three billion people - half the population of the planet - live in cities, and by 2050 a full two-thirds of the world's population will be housed in ever larger and increasingly densely populated urban areas. The economic, social and environmental challenges posed by urbanization on such a large scale and at such a rapid pace are staggering for local, regional and national governments working to...

This book examines wayfinding from a broad public health perspective and articulates what needs to be done to create better wayfinding for all people regardless of age, ability, or mode of transportation. Addressing both science and the human experience, the book brings together a group of international experts to examine community wayfinding from a variety of viewpoints.It first presents a critical foundation for understanding wayfinding from an individual perspective. Next, it de...

Peri-urban interfaces - the zones where urban and rural areas meet - suffer from the greatest problems to humans caused by rapid urbanization, including intense pressures on resources, slum formation, lack of adequate services such as water and sanitation, poor planning and degradation of farmland. These areas, home to hundreds of millions of people, face unique problems and need distinctive and innovative approaches and solutions.This book, authored by top researchers and practiti...