Planning for Sustainability Creating Livable, Equitable and Ecological Communities

About this book

How can human communities sustain a long-term existence on a small planet? This challenge grows ever more urgent as the threat of global warming increases.

Planning for Sustainability presents a wide-ranging, intellectually well-grounded and accessible introduction to the concept of planning for more sustainable and livable communities. The text explores topics such as how more compact and walkable cities and towns might be created, how local ecosystems can be restored, how social inequalities might be reduced, how greenhouse gas emissions might be lowered, and how more sustainable forms of economic development can be brought about.

The second edition has been extensively revised and updated throughout, including an improved structure with chapters now organized under three sections: the nature of sustainable planning, issues central to sustainable planning, and scales of sustainable planning. New material includes greater discussion of climate change, urban food systems, the relationships between public health and the urban environment, and international development.

Building on past schools of planning theory, Planning for Sustainability lays out a sustainability planning framework that pays special attention to the rapidly evolving institutions and power structures of a globalizing world. By considering in turn each scale of planning – international, national, regional, municipal, neighborhood, and site and building – Planning for Sustainability illustrates how sustainability initiatives at different levels can interrelate. Only by weaving together planning initiatives and institutions at different scales, and by integrating efforts across disciplines, can we move towards long-term human and ecological well-being.
 

Contents

1. Introduction

Part 1: The Nature of Sustainability Planning
2. Sustainable Development
3. Theory of Sustainability Planning
4. Sustainability Planning and the Three E's
5. Sustainability Planning in Practice
6. Tools for Sustainability Planning

Part Two: Issues Central to Sustainability Planning
7. Climate Change Planning
8. Energy and Materials Use
9. Environmental Planning
10. Land Use and Urban Growth
11. Urban Design
12. Transportation
13. Housing, Food, and Health
14. Green Architecture and Building
15. Social Equity and Environmental Justice
16. Economic Development
17. Population
18. Governance and Social Ecology

Part Three: Scales of Planning
19. International Planning
20. National Planning
21. State and Provincial Planning
22. Regional Planning
23. Local Planning
24. Neighborhood Planning
25. Site Planning and Architecture Conclusion
26. How Do We Get There From Here?

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Biography

Professor Stephen M. Wheeler, Ph.D., AICP is Associate Professor in the Landscape Architecture Program, Department of Human Ecology, at University of California, Davis. His areas of interest include sustainable development, planning for climate change, urban design, and built landscapes of metropolitan regions.