Cities and Sustainability (Critical Concepts in Urban Studies)

‘Sustainability’ is widely recognized as a key objective of urban development in the twenty-first century. But how is it realized in practice? What are its historical origins and its theoretical underpinnings? How does it connect to, or inform, related movements which seek to create more liveable cities, achieve more equitable development, or reduce greenhouse-gas emissions? What are the best examples of sustainable cities in practice, and how did they get there? Can ‘megacities’ really be sustainable? And how do sustainability aspirations compare between developed and developing nations?

These and other questions are addressed in this new three-volume collection from Routledge. Edited by two leading scholars in the field, the collection is a unique, one-stop reference resource enabling users to make sense of a huge—and rapidly growing—corpus of scholarship.

Volume I examines the history, theory, and approaches related to sustainability, including smart growth, the new urbanism, transit-orientated development, and environmental justice. Volume II, meanwhile, provides case studies of cities that have succeeded in their pursuit of sustainable development, coupled with instances of cities that have not been able to surmount political, organizational, or other barriers to sustainability. The number of cities of more than five million residents is expanding dramatically, and the vital question that frames the final volume is whether such ‘megacities’ are sustainably governable. The materials gathered here assemble the best and most influential thinking on governance for sustainability, and how ‘success’ should be measured.

With a full index, together with a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editor, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context, Cities and Sustainability is an essential work of reference. The collection will be particularly useful as a database allowing scattered and often fugitive material to be easily located. It will also be welcomed as a useful tool permitting rapid access to less familiar—and sometimes overlooked—texts. For researchers, students, practitioners, and policy-makers, it is a vital one-stop research and pedagogic resource.